Smyrna times., 1872-03-06
The Gift Of Speech.


Chamber has been filled, galleries. cloak room,
and floor, even to the steps of the dais, by
ladies and gentlemen, many of them of the
| highest distinction, all of them profoundly
attentive for hours to the speeches of Senator'S
Especial interest was shown in the speech of
one who, though born German, is one of the
most perfect masters OF English speech.
We mention these vast assembages, and the
popular interest in the speeches, simply to
suggest that neither OratOry nor the love of
oratory is dying out, as some will have us be-
| lieve. We lament the days of Webster, Clay,
and Calhoun, and in the days of Webster, Clay,
and Calhoun they doubtless wept the orators
of previous age, and grieved that Patrick
Henry and Samuel Adams and James Otis
were no more. And in the generation to come
people will lament that they can not listen to
Sumner or Schurz, to Conkling or Morton, to
Alexander Stephens or Wendell Phillips
Except that a wretched policy keeps the
great men of the South out of Congress, we
have as many orators and as great ones as
ever.
1t is much easier to attack than to defend
the assailing party has to look only to the weak
points of an enemy. An orator never shows
to so good an advantage as when daShlng like |
a cavalry raid into the enemy's country, never |
looking back to his own fanks or communica-
tions An orator needs to be in the minority |
This Mr.. Wendell Phillips understands so we'll,
from the sky, he has been trying to find some
other good stand point from which to thunder, |
and has attempted in succession every rOte In
the drama of reform, but without success. |
Senator Morton, who has been on occasion a
magnificent speaker, has now, as defender of
the Government, to calculate the political effect
of his words. Senator Conkling's gift is the
gift of sarcasm undiluted, anl he seems to
speak as finely, that is to say, as bitterly,
while representing the ''ins, }" as the ''Outs. "
Blair and Nye and Logan and Carpenter are
orators of the popular sort, to whom tragedy
IS and farce are alike acceptable, and in whom
h humor and earnestneSs are mingled grOtesquely.
e Educated on the stump, they have carried the
= stump into the Senate. Mr.. Sumner is not
II personally popular man, he is never win
m ming man, but he is the greatest master Of
,: philippe in this century.
ID If we turn to the bar, we surely lind no
a. evidence of decay in oratory. Crowds listen
Or yet to the great arguments with eager zeS
We And there is no large city in the Union where
nd great preachers not attended by great audi
We ences. We do not believe that there is de-
"a cline in oratory anywhere out of Harvard
" "a' University which, with all its riches of great
=" authors and scientists, has set itself M as the
on Corporate Prig of the nation to discourage the
IN gift of speech as something barbarous, to bt
to diligently developed cut OF the race as 1t ad
ted vances When the blessed time shall come II
II
,de ton of Cambridge tutors, wemay lament the
lay decay of an art inferior to poetry only In tina
q its effects are less permanent.
ye Doubtless journalism has taken the place @
chief influence. But it has not weakened tn
me effect of spoken eloquence. Lectures upo
me every branch of knowledge land many branche
md of ignorance) are fully attended throughout tn
winter in all our cities. DIR. John Lord, who's
,lSs textbooks on history neither very brllar
nor very profound, never wants for an audlenc
to hear his course of lectures on historic sui
',e or1 iects. George William Curtis makes as mucl
mind perhaps, from his lectures as from his article
Last and Fred Douglass insists that he enjoys r
mend ceiving a hundred dollars night for his wit
re it, speeches, rather better than he did working
mt q Farmland for nine dollars month when
" r first'came to the North. Theodore Tilton,
wife fore he went ashore, was justly considered o.
.ette of the finest and most acceptable orators, al
from even this winter, with all the burden OF w 100
to be hullism weighing him down, we hear that
anar eminent an authority as President White sa
,t nv that he is as eloquent as ever. The time D
lures passed when people go to hear woman
lures cause she is a woman and Anna Dickinson
K CAT continued triumphs must go to her credit al
losn genuine orator.
COT The lecture system has not, on the who
resvs promoted eloquence. The lyceums a
5 own bureaus have put up lecturers as shows.
Child lecture bureau that would strenuously exclu
ltis every u0dU WllO ldChcu AOA Ni'NO
mt In even men whom the pubic want to see,
eun'0 Emerson and Greeley, would soon be able
'"' launch a new man on its own indorseme
tLsl And lyceum that employed none but genu
speakers would soon educate community
love lectures, and to trust its announcemel
But the lecture bureaus have filled their
with obscure aspirants, who hope to make Il
brass pass for gold. Ifanything could break dc L
the lecture system, it would be the weight OF
sOwd. dunderheads foisted upon it. We are GLAD
will Of know too that the managers OF lecture cou
q, tina. have found out that they lose in the end
ast viii making temporary gain from literary
ing the ndturGe.
lind q Let us remember, then, that speeches N
ne time for buncombe, and stuffed into gratutous
have bags for constituents at Smith CrOss-Ro
IN A'n' have no real relation to oratory proper,
R.1,. lecture courses which seek to gratfy the pt
lar desire to see noted man are me
ment Of menageries. Oratory of the genuine sort
Iawkn' much alive to day as ever. Happily 1T
! Dover never depended upon colleges or rece
aereun- eur. much aid from them, and it matters,
en- c,.,ar ' whether they encourage it not The la
S''''' demand and supply will provide speaker
.I:o,,o not from the colleges, then out side theI
III an Hearth and Home.