Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1878-09-28

thousand miles away, where there
are Q considerable number Of per-
sons possessed with Q mania for
public speaking. The town We speak
of may not be singular. for the
speech-making ability Of Americans
is known the world over. But in
this particular town they have it
had. II the Society for the Pre-
vention Of Cruelty TO Animals calls q
meeting, there are twenty persons.
male and female, ready to make
speeches. II the Y. NJ. c. A. or the
W. =. A. or the b. l. L. h. calls q
meeting for any purpose, the same
twenty are there asking to get the
floor for " Q few remarks" There
are some Of these persons who visit
schools for the sole purpose of being
asked to speak TO the children. And
there are eleven OF this twenty who
never know when to stop, and the
other nine never say anything worth
hearing. Now it is a great pity that
this band of twenty (more or less)
men and women could not be made
to understand something of the rights
of listeners. The first law OF the
moral code in regard to public
speech is, that a man who demands
our united attention shall say some
thing that is worth hearing. The
second law is, that he shall say it but
once and in rs few words as will
make clear the sense. And the third
law is, that he shall then sit down
and cease speaking ard not take a
base advantage of a helpless audi
ence by keeping the floor to simply
deluge them with talk. Unfortun-
ateIy, there are some of this talking
twenty who cannot, from natural dis
qualifications, open their mouths in
public without breaking the first of
these laws. No false modesty ought
to prevent self-respecting commun-
ity from squelching these. As to the
repeaters who can never say good
thing without saying it two or three
times, the phonograph will eventu-
ally fix them. As soon as the one
good thing is said and recorded,
start the machine to grinding it over
and over, and the speaker finding
himself out-done, will soon desist.
But those who take the floor to make
a single remark Z" and keep it to
talk three-quarters of an hour, ought
to be shot. This sounds severe, may
be wicked, but the case is desperate
one. The following argument shows
that the homicide would be justi6-
able. The most persistent of these
men get a chance to make ga re.
mark" seven times a week, on an av-
erage, but drop day and call it six.
Let us say the audience average if
ty; there are six times fifty hours,
three hundred hours a week, wasted
hurled empty into eternity, by one
of these takers. That is more than
the entire time of any one man, and
SO we find our talker guilty of keeping
one man forever idle. Worse than
that. he perpetually tortures him.
Life for life Justice says, away with
him. When such men have talked
till the enraged community will bear
it no longer, and begins to use mild
cartridges such as eggs, tomatoes
etc., they usually start out lecturing,
and if they deserved shooting before,
hanging would then be too good for
them, for as lecturers they not only
waste our time but make US pay them
handsomely for it. There are some
whopretend they have divine COM
mission, and others who try to make
Us swallow their commonplace by say
ing that it is the spirit Of Cicero that
possess them and talks through them.
1t does not sound much like Cicero,
and it is certainly not Diogenes.
If such speakers would only always
take the platform, a trsp door could
be ixed to quietly drop them out of
sight when they have said enough,
but their custom is to just rise up
anywhere in the audience and be-
gin. What shall be done with them ?
There certainly i too much talk.
Ever mindful of the comfort and
eouvsp,ap~o as c,,~ <.,s,~>. NIL