In 1890 the precocious Stedman decided that he wanted to become a public orator on behalf of the Democratic Party. He honed his skill speaking before the public, specializing in matters dealing with tariff legislation. His development as an aspiring Democratic politician came to an end in 1894, however, when the great strike of the American Railway Union headed by Eugene V. Debs, centered in Chicago and which Stedman supported as an official public speaker of the union, was crushed by judicial injunction and federal troops sent into Illinois by President Grover Cleveland. Stedman left the ranks of the Democratic Party in protest over this heavy-handed action of the Democratic president.