There have been paid to Debs enough tender tributes in verse to fill a large volume. At one time when Riley was confined to his room by illness, Debs sent him a bouquet of the poet’s favorite flowers, which called forth the following appreciation:
Take a feller ’ats sick, and laid up on the shelf, All shaky, and ga’nted and pore, And all so knocked out he can’t handle hisself With a stiff upper lip any more; Shet him up all alone in the gloom of a room As dark as a tomb, and as grim, And then take and send him some roses in bloom, And you kin have fun out o’ him!
You’ve seed him, ’fore now, when his liver was sound, And his appetite notched like a saw, A chaffin’ you, mebby, for romancin’ round With a big posey bunch in yer paw. But you ketch him, say, when his health is away And he’s flat on his back, in distress, And then you can trot out your little bokay And not be insulted, I guess!
You see, it’s like this, what his weaknesses is, Them flowers makes him think of the days Of his innocent youth, and that mother o’ his, And the roses she used to raise; So here all alone with the roses you send, Bein’ sick and all trimbly and faint, My eyes is—my eyes is—my eyes is—old friend, Is a-leakin’—I’m blamed ef they ain’t!
And in the “Hoosier Bard’s” poem “Regardin’ Terry Hut,” appears these lines:
And there’s ’Gene Debs—a man ’at stands And jest holds out in his two hands As warm a heart as ever beat Betwixt here and the Jedgment Seat.
The picturesque genius, Capt. Jack Crawford, renowned as “The Poet-Scout,” wrote of Debs:
The same old pard of long ago, The whole-souled ’Gene I used to know, With the love of Truth writ on Justice’s scroll, With a woman’s heart and a warrior’s soul.
At a reception given to Debs by the Denver Press Club Walter Juan Davis recited these lines, written for the occasion:
It is not his craft or creed, It is not the winged word That springs from his soul to his lips, at need, And, flying, is felt and heard; But something down in us all That makes us respect the man Who says unto great and small: “You’ve a right to do what you can; You’ve a right to preserve and keep Such things as the gods gave you; You’ve a right to your hours of sleep And the worth of the things you do; You’ve a right to the million or dime That your brain or your brawn has won; But not in the length of time; In the light of the moon or sun, Have you a right to a thing That you steal or wring From me or from any one.”