EUGENE DEBS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8191, 5 August 1912, Page 4

EUGENE DEBS.

A GREAT ORATOR.

Undoubtedly one of the best men that, America has. produced is Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist leader, and an two occasions a candidate for the Presidency. . He stands to-day amongst the finest and most convincing of speakers, gifted with on eloquence that goes straight to the heart because it comes straight from the heart. And in whole-souled sincerity of attachment to the cause of the working class he flames like a beacon of hope ■ and inspiration, absolutely incorruptible in a land where the putridness of politics is notorious, and public men barter their principles ns shamelessly as public women their persons. Tho fine quality of Eugene Debs is recognised and admitted even by those who oppose his propaganda. When he spoke in New York recently, this is what “ Collier’s Weekly ” had to say about him: “ As he passes, men rise for an instant to tho highest level of their being, and greet him from that good mo. mont. Already for him it is a world of brothers, because he evokes a transient grace in them, the shy heart of each peering out unafraid. “ With the hands of his beseeafcing' he reaches out toward men, and tho i yearning in his voice is more moving than music on the waters. He has | given himself to the disinherited, and i in a life of obloquy he finds peace. | “ If we had not seen him and known ! him, we had doubted that such a man , ever came among men.” Such a tribute, from an anti-Sooialist paper, has the highest value, because exacted by the supreme merit of one who is absolutely uncompromising in his condemnation of capitalistic civilisation, and his advocacy of a revolutionary movement. 1 The workers of every land are proud of Eugene Debs. He is one of those rare beings who break down tho barriers of race, and become the champions of the oppressed wherever tyranny prevails. No living man could more fitly appropriate to himself the splendid declaration of Tom Paine: “ The world is my country; to d" good is my religion."