Mr. Debs' connection with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen dates back to the early seventies, and be the credit due to that organization for introducing to the laboring people of America, a leader who stands absolutely without a peer in the labor world to-day, possessed of the collective traits of some of the greatest men of the past.
I know no better description of Debs than that of Wm. C. Pomeroy in the Eight Hour Herald, as follows: "I am sitting on the stage of a great meeting of people, my eyes are closed in dreamy reverie, I hear a voice whose resonant tones are familiar to my ears, the voice, the words bear me in imagination back to the days of Rome, and Caius Gracchus is proclaiming the coming liberty of the people. The words of flaming eloquence suddenly change into the rugged tones of Cola di Rienzi, crying: 'Arouse, ye Romans; arouse, ye slaves.' The words are sweet to the ears, and stir my soul to extacy. Soft, I am no longer in the Eternal City, but wander among the hills and dales of Judea, and the voice has changed again. This time 'tis the compassionate tones of Him of Galilee, beseeching to 'love ye one another,' now swift changing in its mellifluous harmony, I hear Pandora whisper 'the dawn approaches, take heart of hope,' and Prometheus answers with the echoed groans of the suffering, sighing souls. The air is now filled with stirring martial music, and above its changing cadences pours forth in passionate appeal the stentor voice of Peter, the Hermit, raising in the bosom of men, the lethargic love of duty. Aye; on the German hilltops, pulpited he speaks, and Hermanic in deep-toned thunder hurdles back, 'I come.' Now there is a silence for a space, and the changing draperies of imagination disclose a newer scene. I am in the meeting of the Virginian Burgesses, and the voice has taken on the tones of Patrick Henry. It says: 'Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,' and, 'he who would be free himself must strike the blow.' Now 'tis Thomas Jefferson giving utterance to, 'we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are born free and equal.' And lo! even as the soft tones of the 'chosen son' die into the distance, the voice of Andrew Jackson hurls forth the edict 'each man and every man in this country, by the eternal, must and shall be free.'
"The echoing ages take up the dictum and it becomes mingled with the tones of him who at Gettysburg spoke the immortal flaming words: 'This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and the government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.' Scarce had the utterance of the martyr ceased to fill the air when Lowell softly says:
"'He's true to God, who's true to men, whenever wrong is done.
To the humblest and the weakest of all the beholding sun;
That wrong is also done to us, and they are slaves most base,
Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all the race.'
"My brain is puzzled. How comes it, I ask myself, that these heroes dead and gone are near me here to-day?
"What power permits them to quit their abiding places within the crusty bosom of mother earth, and visiting again the haunts of mortal man, pour forth their immortal utterances? My rummaging mind takes on a newer consciousness. Reverie lifts her leaden hand from off my brow, my eyes open and gaze upon a vast multitude of people—men, women and children. Men are standing on the seats and hurling their hats in the air; women are weeping in joy and waving handkerchiefs, all, all shout in clamorous accord. Their eyes are riveted upon the stage, and upon a man who is gracefully bowing acknowledgement to the thunders of applause. I am near him, I gaze in his face. 'Tis the face of Eugene V. Debs."
To my mind the above beautiful comparisons are not overdrawn.
In 1874 he was admitted to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, and in 1877 his brother members of the local lodge, recognizing his superior ability, sent him to the Indianapolis convention to represent them. The next year he was a delegate to the Buffalo convention. Here he was chosen associate editor of the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine, and three years later he was elected editor, and assumed full control.
In September, 1880, he was elected Grand Secretary and Treasurer in Chicago, and to prove the confidence placed in him by this organization, he was unanimously elected to that office for thirteen consecutive years without a dissenting vote, and at the last convention, held in San Francisco, he was again nominated after making a speech, courteously but firmly declining, and was finally forced to refuse the nomination before his declinature would be accepted.
When Mr. Debs assumed control of this office, the Brotherhood was on the verge of disruption.