The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1874-06-19
The Man Who Talks.

81. Louis Republican,
This is time OF surprises. The conn
try is kept at tip.toe OF expectation for
a new wonder every morning. The
President has begun TO talk. Moreover,
he has assumed the new aud startling
role of contributor TO the Associated
Press. After this, what! Maybe the
delugc. President Grant has made
speech upon great public quesiion-an
actual speech Of as much as half col
uuin ia length. 1t is true he calls IL
e memoranda but il il in fact speech !;
il was spoken TO an audience Of sena-
tors and representatives and then print
ed broadcast over the country. Hence.
forth the designation of the Silent Man
must be dropped, for we have it from
undoubted authority that the President
was "vouble" on this occasion. There
are several Instances of this sort in his.
tory, but none OF them can be called q
precedent to this one. There was not
able instance OF life long silence sud.
denly broken, many years ago, in the
family OF gentleman by the name OF
Balaam but ii is impossible to trace any
similarity between this aud the present
instance. For, laying all pleasantly
aside, the Presidents maiden speech
was full of hard sense that is TO say,
hard.mOney sense, and il the torceful-
ness OF its delivery was in keeping with
the vigor OF its rough-hewn rhetoric,
the President would make a hit with ii
on the stump or swinging round the
circle.
Mr.. Grant has hitherto been a very
useful President TO Tho pnliiiciaus, for
the reason that he has faithfully devot-
Cd himself TO the industry Of sending
partisan nominations TO The Senate.
signing partisan bills, sustaining par
tisan Governors who were mol elected,
and all that sort of thing, and has held
his peace. Morton and Conkling and
Hawlcy and Butler have done all the
talking. But within the last three
months change has been gradually
coming over the Presidential spirit, and
now it has eliminated in speech on
the fnanccsl We have recollection
of certain messages from the President
which contained certain passages of
which il was said, Morton put that in"
We defy any man to pick out any such
passage in the late speech OF the Presl-
dent. The whole thing bears internal
nc well rs external evidence Of the UNI
aided genius.
Apart from the startling nature of
the speech itself. and the advanced IL
nnnc:al doctrine il embodies, the fact of
its delivery at all is the most significant
thing about 1t. II may have been hard
FOR The President, after such lom2 Pc
riod Of silence, 10 fluid his tongue. But
now that he has found il, tho prediction
is q safe one that he will find itinlinilc'
~ harder to keep tho unruly member
still. There is a wonderful fascination
in this thing of public utteraaces. One
speech breeds half dozen more. No
man who ever discovered that he had
the gift of oNiory was ever happy af-
terward, And there is every reason to
believe that the effect of each successive
Presidential speech will knock yet
bigger and more gricvious chasm in the
structure that the Presidential silence
has built up. There has been, il must
be said, considerable sense in the Pros
idential silence heretofore. But it must
also be said that there is more sense in
his first speech than in all his silence
put together. Let the President keep
right on with the oratory he has so well
begun. lie can rest assured OF the
largest and most attractive audience
that ever listened TO speech anywhere.
lie may not secure very vocircrous APP
plause from Logan, Morton aud that
ilk, who have recently-quite recently
taken to the back seats. but he will
probably be able to get through his Of
forts without them.