He is tall, six feet, two inches; is slim, powerfully built; a fine
head, proudly set above broad shoulders; long, full neck; face clear,
finely cut, smoothly shaven; blue, deep, searching, inquiring, frank,
open eyes; a smile, childlike and sweet, usually upon his face;
sometimes sad, as sad as Lincoln’s. He is plain, dresses plainly, neatly
always; is rational, logical, epigrammatic; quick words fit his
thoughts; incisive and unambiguous, they seem to flow to him from a
vast, well-filled vocabulary. He quotes from the great writers and
poets, is intimate with them all; speaks fluently, never hesitates,
draws faultless word pictures, makes epigrams, plain, pointed and easily
remembered; gestures almost only with the right hand, steps quietly,
leans forward to his audience, poised and when speaking his eyes seem
like the eyes of a painting—to look at each one everywhere in his
audience.
In 1878 Mr. Debs met Wendell Phillips and Robert G. Ingersoll. Their
great oratorical powers inspired him to study the power of speech to
move men, and no American has been a more tireless student of literature
and the art of expression than he. To the end of Mr. Ingersoll’s life he
kept up an intimate correspondence with him upon all vital questions and
was greatly aided by Mr. Ingersoll’s good advice and able suggestions.
To further equip himself for speaking and debating, he became an active
member of the one-time locally famous Occidental Literary Club, and was
a live and aggressive member, writing great papers and acquitting
himself in the highest manner in every debate.
His home library[7] is large and the books it contains are on all phases
of human history, politics, government, philosophy, religion, poetry and
the arts, and they bear the marks of having been intimately handled.
He is a great reader and he has a wonderful and most orderly lot of
magazine articles which he has had bound in volumes; newspaper clippings
arranged in scrap books of ready reference; letters carefully filed and
indexed.
He has been heard before vast audiences at Chautauquas, colleges, opera
houses, labor halls, mining camps, farmers’ festivals, etc.
In Faneuil Hall, Boston, under time-honored custom, no seats are
allowed; audience and speaker stand. This permits the largest possible
attendance. At Mr. Debs’ October speech, 1904, the old Cradle of Liberty
was packed to the sidewalk. It would be a mistake to state that only
laboring people are interested in his economic discussions. Business men
are keenly awake to the fact that this subject is the question of our
day. In 1899 Mr. Debs spoke before the Nineteenth Century Club at
Delmonico’s, New York, and drew some word pictures that stood out like
living flames. He touched the vulnerable spots in his listeners that
left impressions for life. He never needlessly offends. At Harvard, Ann
Arbor and before the greatest educational institutions he has been heard
by wonderfully appreciative audiences. At Harvard the students were
tremendously enthusiastic; at Ann Arbor the Professor of Elocution told
his classes that they had never heard a more accomplished orator, and
the demonstration that followed his address to the students in the vast
university amphitheatre will never be forgotten by those having the
fortune to have heard it.
The most prized memento of the great strike is a little note from Eugene
Field, the Chicago poet, author of “The Little Boy Blue.” It seems that
the poet had advance knowledge that Mr. Debs was to be arrested and he
drove to Mr. Debs’ headquarters and as Gene was not in he left the note
which read:
“Dear Gene: I hear that you are to be arrested. When that time comes
you will need a friend. I want to be that friend.