New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-02-22
THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL
COMMITTEES.

A thousand persons will listen for hours to rep
resentation of one of Shakespeares plays, and tes
tify their interest in the performance by cheering
all the best passages, while not twenty of those
auditors ever did or ever will read single scene III
that same play. Five thousand men VIII near anu
applaud long speech from the rostruni' IN an OK
cited nol;tical canvass, not fifty OF whom would
eyer read il from the pages of pamphlet. six
column speech in THE TRIBUNE must be rich and
racy unique and able, to secure thorough perusai
from one-tenth Of our readers.
Heretofore, we believe Congressional Committees
have confined themselves largely to tie circulation
of speeches delivered in the two Houses. 1t is
natural, it is amiable in gentlemen at the Federal
Capitol TO rather Oyer-estlmate the comparative
merits of their forensic performances. But every
body who goes to Congress is not necessarily
Cicero or Mirabeau nor even an Everett or
Gushing. The transformation of plain Representa-
tiyes into great orators, Immediately upon their ar
rival in Washington, has puzzled more than one
constituency Never having addressed even an
omnium eatherum Of their own townsmen, nor
written leader for their county newspaper, they
are astcnishsd to see them loom up amid the
foes of the Potomac, as statesmen and rheto-
ricians able not only to eddy Congress and
their own local Bancombe, but to instruct the
great body of their country men in the crisis OF
Presidential election. Now, the people ara not
deceived by names, nor mislod by semblan:es.
T,ey read what they ike, and ignore all ese. We
venture the assertion, based on o good deal Of
observation, that not one half OF the copies OF the
SPEECHES frabked from Washington are read at ALL
We do not undervalue the effect of speeches.
But it is the thrilling voice. the glowing eye, the
graphic gesture, the mien, the magnetism OF the
living orator, that gives to speakiog its chief power.
The rostIUm tie stump, is the throne Of eOquence.
The empire it rules is the listening, throbbipg
throng of humanity clustering around it. Many
speech Which, read from manuscript il Congress,
falls lfeless upon drowsy ears, would, If
Murdered in the open fields or the
reyerberatiDg hall, to crowds Of animated hearers,
sway them as the wind sweeps the forest. Gentle
men of the Senate and House don't tarry in
Washington to write read print and frank speeches
on the themes that thrill the country This is the
year 1860. Do up your legitimate business so soon
as possible quit your sitting Chambers, and emerge
into the forum of the People, and there, from glow
ing lips, deliver and again and again, if you WILL to
approaching thousands, theyery productions younow
contemplate reading 10 listess idlers in the Capitol
Follow our advice, and we pledge you ten listeners
for each reader even though you stuff to bursting
the mail bags with your essays.
But shall the Republican Congressional Com
mittee circulate nothing through the mails By no
means Let them select aud distribute during the
session some of the best speeches of members
being careful to remember that a sixteen page
pamphlet must have rare merit 20 secure a large
circle of readers ard that sharp points and telling
facts expressed in terse Saxon are preferable to
bales of org essays, plethOiic with lame logic and
erroneous statements cad in meretricOus rhetoric
If they go beyond this, let the Committee cause to
be prepared and circulated settles OF short, pun
gent tracts upon the main issues in controversy,
each containing within the space of two or three
pages, all that is valuable in many rambling,
drowsy "speecb," so called, read on the floor of
Congress. Let them, in a word, look well to the
matter they distribute, lest it turn out that some
sterile soil which they would fam cultivate has
been sown only with the dry ashes of rant and fus.
tan. instead of the seed wheat of fact aud logic.
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