The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-02-20
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
STILL LIVES!
CHANGING BACK ON THE FAST.
RACE NEEDS THE SPIRIT.
INV Chas a Starks(

(By ChaS. a. StarkS.)
A famous man in a eulogy on his
dead friend started with these noble
words: ITO speak the praises of the
brave and thoughtful dead is to me
labor of love and gratitude" This
comes fittingly to me as an expression
regarding the immortal hero whose
death anniversary is memorized to-
day with deep respect and solemn
thought These very thoughts which
come to us by the mere mentioning
of the name of Frederick Douglass are
of such that master with overwhelm-
ing force and strike the keenest note
in our conception of the great, the
noble and the grandest there can be
in manhood.
Few characters entering and pass
ing from the huma nstage of life have
known the deep sufferings, the glories,
the passions, and the vicissitudes of
the boy Frederic who, born lowly
and under extremely unfavorable con-
ditions, by sheer force of genius and
indomitable courage, reached the high
pinnacle of citizenship and the chief
spokesman for his race and country
during his long public life.
1t is said that he first saw the light
in Tuckahoe, Maryland, sometime in
February 1917, and on that particular
day whenever it was, the sky discov
cred nothing but dark ominous
looking clouds back of which occa-
sionally pealed elaps of thunder that
gave complete element significance to
the wonderful childs entrance upon
the life scene of stormy and thunder
GUS existence, but whose day was not
to close till his glorious sun illumi-
mated every cloud and sobered the
loud croes of his own bright mind, so
that the end was brighter and bright
er unto a nobler morn, which to him
meant his people freed from slavery
that of a truth they might start life
anew and work out their true saliva
ton. We stop to relate but few Of
the dramatic incidents and situations
of his early life, to do so would entail
much time, but we shall mention here
and there a few things to familiarize
ourselves with the man and his "glor-
ious deeds"
Historians speak to us Of Douglass
as an eX-slvae, but l declare unto
you that Douglass was never a slave.
And like the poet who "lisped in num-
bers" Douglass isped in efforts for
freedom and freedom came. He never
knewsubmission. Hounded and cut by
n arua1 Ia oh hic haarf ~ onld olittarad
all the more with ill-smothered indig-
nation, whilst the manly blood ragged
thru every noble vein. He knew not
to cover, his soul held up under the
descending whacks of the 'black
snake" welded by an inhuman Master,
and each time he went to his quarters
humiliated but conscious of a more
livid burning of that inner light of
spirit which even the cruel Master
could not harm.
The propitious hour came for es-
cape-He was now a fugitive-the ter
rible misgivings. The close calls for
apprehension, the heart beats, the suf-
ferings and finally the reaching of
safe territory, these are known gener-
ally to the race loving men and
women, as we'll as his wonderful accu-
mulative powers in knowledge and the
early discovery Of that "eloquence of
speech" of which the earth had not
heard before or is likely to hear in
the future. We need not repeat here
his rise in the world to great positions
of influence. We all know how he
stood with and above his contemporary
les in genius and work and how the
world honored him for merit. We
know how his bright mind ripened
into scholarship-his oratory into
his polished gems-his politics into
broad craftsmanship and his burning
passion for liberty realized in the
emancipation of his race.
This very morning marks the goth
anniversary of the death OF Frederic
Douglass. In these hurrying years, his
race has made wonderful strides,
other gifted man, have advanced the
standard which Douglass helped to
raise. But the same enemies that en-
slaved our people, though mostly dead,
have left a legacy to their children,
the hate, narrowness, love of murder,
and injustice to their brother which
characterized them of old, and their
fruits are known by such constant
strivings as disfranchise-
ment--Jim Crowism and lynching.
Then a new abolition must come. We
have Garrison, we have a Phillips,
we have a Ward, and a Beecher.
Have we a Douglass? The answer
must be that: there is but one Doug
lass and though dead, we believe his
spirit is with his people today. And
! thou. oh intrepid one. The race needs