New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-07-06
T1uNANY,S LONG TALK.u


Mr. w. Bourk Cochran. the orator who en-
tertained the Tammany Society with Long
Talk " on Wednesday, seems to be not with
out fine vein of humor. His tribute to the
| Tammany Society itself was about Us funny IA
anything that ever was said in that temple of
| comedy. Standing up before an audience COM
posed absolutely of office-holders or office
| seekers, every one of whom knew that in the
very crisis of its fate the Republic met its
worst and most dangerous enemy in this same
| TammaDy Society, he calmly talked to them
| about its history being g the history of Ameri-
can liberty" its labors having " resulted in the
! " creation of the purest democracy the world
has ever SEEM" and the Republic being Gas
" it grew under the teachings and practice of
Jefferson and the laborious vigilance of
4" the Tammany Society, perhaps the most
perfect device for the social regulation
"of man that has ever been given
"to the world.n Any man who can talk to
that sort of men in that sort OF style must be
born comedian. His humor would no doubt
have been better appreciated If the boys had
not been somewhat impatient to get through
with the oratory and get at the wine down
stairs.
His prediction concerning the future of Tam
many and the time when its labors shall
bear fruit was neat, graphic, beautiful and
true. "When," he says, Gin the fulness OF
" time this generation will have passed away ;
"when the vast fields and wide prairies OF the
"West, the fertile valleys and productive hill
"sdes of the South, and the busy factories and
"teemirg workshops of the North and East will
Support and employ the energies of hundreds
q of xvita tha obau
"have become the centre of your city's pop
"uIation; when the telephone, working beneath
"the waves, shall bring the people of
"the world into instantaneous verbal
Communication with each other; when the
electric light shall have destroyed darkness rs
the telegraph and telephone will have an
INITIATED space--then may the labors of the
"Tammany Society of to-day bear their proper
fruit" This is all just as pretty and just as
true as the remark of the veteran to the young
poet "Your poetry will be read, sir, when
Shakespeare is forgotten The veteran quieted
his conscience, however, by adding soto uoce,
"and not till then. Very likely Mr.. Cochran
had q mental reservation to the same effect
The orator among other things adorned
the Press with touch or two OF his genial
humor. After pointing out the sources of its
power and paying tribute to its influence, he
went on to say that after all lit 10 pOwerless
"to form public opinion, and is important
"only as vehicle to give It expression"
The proofs of this staten, N. he says "may
"be found in the study of the lives
"of two men now conspcuously eminent
en- American politics" These two he
describes as patriots who have been
abused as men never were before. "The
vocabulary of abuse was exhausted ~ they
"were likened to the beasts Of the field. and all
" that was deprayed or detestable in animal
mature was used TO describe their methods
"and their morals" and yet he says, "slan-
"dered, maligned and misrepresented in the
"press, caricatured and lampooned in the
"prints, secure in the characters which their
liyes had established. they remained serenely
"unmoved in the midst of this storm of vitu-
"peration and traduction. Disdaining TO ex-
"plain, and scorning to deny, they have both
obtained popular verdict against their
"vilihers, and to-day one is Governor of
" Massachusetts, the other stands pre-eminen1y