The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1904-01-30

said. At the time I have spoken of Lin
coin was regarded by millions Of peo-
pie as cross between a. crank and a.
monster. In hundreds Of papers he was
called the. Illinois baboon." Every
epithet that hate could invent was ap-
Piled to him; every base purpose that
malice could conceive was imputed to
him. To the Satanic press Of New
York he was an object Of loathing and
der1sion, a "nigger lover" a clown,
subverter Of the constitution and the
laws; and, above all, he was a. blatant
fool who would destroy. that indestruct-
1ble System Of labor which had ex-
listed of old, which was upheld by the
supreme court and the lynch law court,
the church, the army, the press and the
capitalist. as also by Congressional
houses. Why, the Debs whom we have
with us in our country today is harm
less citizen compared with the Lincoln
OF 1860, as he had been described be-
fore he came to New York. 1t looks to
me as though the newspaper slubber-
degullions and plutocracy in our time
had lost that power of cantankerous
lnvective which was possessed by their
contemporaries Of 1860, now mostly dead
and forgotten. I have read SOME as
saults upon Debs, but all Of them were
poorly done.
L1ncoln's name was less familiar to
New York masses at the opening Of
1860 than Debs' was in 1894. Lincoln had
campaigned in the west, but the west
was much farther away than it is now,
and western men were less known in
the east than they are now. Lincoln
drew crowd to Cooper Union, but
not as large a crowd as Debs drew.
Well, when I heard Debs' speech here
I had half notion that it might be
the prelude to an incident like that
which followed Lincoln's speech. There
| were few people, at least in New York,
| who could have believed that within
three months from the day of Lincoln's
speech here, Lincoln would be a candi-
date for the office Of president Of the
United States. "some say he said,
! while In New York then, "some say
they may make me vice president with
Seward"
1t was always the opinion of my old
friend, Raymond, the founder of the
New York Times, whom I long served
! as chief of his editorial staff that it
was the Cooper Union speech of Lin
coin that made it possible for him to
pc a candidate for the presidency, and
| that was most potent in making him
acceptable to the Republican party in
the east. 1t certainly was factor of
influence in the nomination in Chicago
the following May.
! NO matter about that now. When, in
Cooper Union, a year ago, I heard the
| speech of Eugene V. Debs, which in so
! many ways reminded me Of that of
Abraham Lincoln long ago. I felt sure
that nobody could deny that here again
In this new western leader in the strug-
! gle for labor's emancipation, there
! might be the stuff for a presidential
candidate.
And this suggestion would have been
made by me at the New York meeting
but for the jam Of perversity on the
platform.
Debs in Cooper Union reminded me Of
Lincoln there. AS Lincoln, Of Illinois,
became an efficient agent for freedom,
| so, perchance, might Debs, Of Indiana,
| become in the impending conflict for
| the liberation Of labor. Let us never
| forget Lincoln's great words: Liberty
| before property; the man before the
| dollar