Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1884-02-17
The END OF AMERICAN oRAToRY.

spokesman for the merits and the
achievements OF the greatest orator OF
the century. When WEBSTER died,
eulogies were pronounced by PHILLIPS
and PARKER which reminded one OF
WEBsTER's own eulogies of WASHING
TON and ADAMS and JEFFERSON, and
made the whole welkin ring, but to-day
that kind of oratory which has been for
half q century the glory Of America,
and In which PHILLIPS peculiarly ex-
celled, has ceased to exist. There are
periods for poets, for press writers, for
orators, for statesmen, for preachers,and
they have always come at intervals and
and produced their men Of genius in
clusters. These men are partly the
special gift Of God and come at his bid
ding, and partly they are the sure and
logical growth out of ancestral and So
cial conditions. The second half-cen-
fury of American oratory that closes at
WENDELL PHILLIPS grave has wit
messed the first great constructive hand
ling of facts which Is one of the first con-
ditions of oratory. Men may have such
genius for eloquent expression as was
displayed by OTIS and HENRY and SAM
ADAMS in the American revolution,
but the State was then too disturbed for
legitimate eloquence. A kind of brilliant
oratOIy marked the first halfcentury
of the republic, but ideas were then too
Uniformed, and the public to be appealed
to was too immature for the largest and
best displays Of eloquence. 1t was when
CITY and CALHOUN and WEBSTER
constituted the great trumvirate of the
American Senate that the higher style
Of oratory began to avail, the OratOry
Of culture and leadership, the OratOry
that advances to positions, the oratory
in which great cause lifts up the orator
to its own level. WEBSTER stood upon
this high plane of public speech, and
gave the keynote to the oratory of the
period. SUMNER was An orator OF this
order, and, iI spite of his weight of
learning, reached up to the plane where
WEBSTER reigned. Choate aimed al
that ideal Of human speech in which
the great orators Of the classic ages were
the peers of the ancient world, and his
thought marches forth in language that
delights and thrills. PARKER, If not an
orator in his voice, was even more than
that in the moral weight and wonderful
censorship which he brought to bear
upon public men and public questions.
America never had such another terror
toevil-doers rs he. But, after WEBSTER
there is no one who can be named before
WENDELL PHILLIPS for clearness and
sire myth of utterance, for the control o!
his audience, for the best gifts Of speech.
1t has been said the New England
schOolhouse took the aristocrat out Of
him, and gave him that knowledge Of
the people and of what will best move
them which made him the incompars-
BILE orator that he was. But severe
training only improves, it can never
make the great orator. What HORACE
says of poets is also true of orators; they
are born, not made. They are of that
plastic mould in which the gods them.
selves are fashioned. Yet the severe
training that PHILLIPS gave himself
was not unimportant. 1t was an essen
tial part of his experience and growth.
1t WAS tireless and copsummste. Not q
defect was overlooked. Not BRIGHT,
nor GLADSTONE, nor even WEBSTER,
could have been more fastidious. He
knew the entire gsmut of the heart, and
could play upon human passions as by
instinct. At times he rose in his un-
written lyceum oratiOns, or in his great
addresses to American mobs, to heights
oftranscendent speech, when 1t seemed
as if unseen forces played upon his
thought and winged his utterances. No
man of his time ever had greater occs-
sions, or better improved them. In 1881,
in Sanders Theatre, his notes were as
true TO himself as they were when, an
unknown youth, in 1887, he confronted
conventional Massachusetts, in Faneuil
Hall and called down thunderbolts
from Heaven upon its recreant citizens.
There was such vital strength in his
uiterances, such enthusiasm for ideas,
such moral power in his convictions,
that his words, like LUTHER's, were
half battles. His eloquence was not
majestic, like WEBsTER's, not intense
and rushing, like CHOATE's. not classic
al, like SUMMERS, not the preacher.llke
voice, like PARKER's, but not one of his
peers had the same command of swift,
iUcisive, biting, convincing speech. He
stands unparalleled in his great speech.
es as the most inspired orator in all
American history. He never came short
Of what was expected Of him. AS long
as his great cause lasted, he never sunk
the orator in the demagogue. For pure
elo9ueuce, for speech that disdains the
art of rhetoric and runs In the language
of the people, for tone and temper
Il at comes close to that of the great
Athenian, for certain exultant sweep
and movement that bore the earnest Of
victory, for sure instinct that always
told him what to say and how to say it
best, he vas without rival in modern
times.
home
Little word, but none 50 potent and
magical in its Influences. Why is it that
Home, Sweet Home" 30 thrills the
tulses and warns the blood and mists
the eye whenever 1t Is sung? Many
p. ems Of far greater intrinsic merit will
never be sung to the world because they
do not appeal so powerfully and tender
ly to human souls, and because they