Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-12-27
TWO AFTER DINNER SPEECHES.
What the Week Has Produced In New
York.

What the Week H.s Produced In New
York.
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New YoRH, December Is.
The public dinner is becoming more and
more the forum for the orator. On the more
ambitious occasions of the sort all pretense Of
an extemporaneous, happy-go-lucky quality 10
abandoned and the most elaborate preparations
are made. The speakers treat themselves
quite as seriously and their speeches are
listened to as critically as at the lord mayors
banquet In London, where the British govern
ment are supposed to outline their policy.
The New England dinner last Monday night
was no exception. This occasion for years has
divided with the chamber of commerce the
first place in the calendar OF its class and Of
the two is perhaps the more brilliant and en-
joyable.
But I speak Of the proceedings this year
more particularly to notice the man who made
the great speech Of the night, and who is rap
idly becoming, or more properly has become
speech Of the occasion. This is President
Francis L. Patton of Princeton College. DIR.
Patton does not believe much in the evolution
theory, 30 called, but he is himself as striking
witnessed, fully matching another parallel ex-
ample Of evolution in the person Of Chauncey
NJ. Depew. Only few years ago
President Patton was the obscure pastor
of an uptown Presbyterian church.
with q reputation for thorough, but rather
plodding scholarship. voted dull in the pulpit,
and without much success as a pastor His
whole effect during this embryonic stage was
that of a dry book worm-what the college
boys would call a dig" few men knew his
large had no knowledge of or interest in him.
He first gained the ear of the public by the
strenuous and almost savage way in which he
conducted theological controversy with a
noted hereto in the Presbyterian church. The
energy and the learning with which he. then
professor in Princeton College. conducted this
controversy, brought him to the front as
champion of the strictest sect of Presby-
terianism. AS such his fame went ABROAD
through all the seminaries, and to some degree
beyond. NO one, however attached the enter
tanning quality and scarcely the philosophic
property to his speech. But once in the public
eye his evolution has been marvellous. When
elected president Of Princeton College to sue
coed DR.. McCosh few knew him and fewer still
agreed with the thcologians, who we're almost
his only supporters. that he would make a
worthy executive and representative of great
university. But, a3 a matter of fact. he is
cvincing power and charm that is not ex-
ceeded by the most successful college presi-
dents and is cqualed by very few of them. He
| easily ranks with Eliot of Harvard Dwight of
Yale, Low of Columbia and Gilman of
Johns Hopkins AZ man who can be
counted upon to typify in any assemblage the
hnest culture and the most finished manners Of
the American gentleman One striking char
acteristic in President Pattons evolution is the
brilliancy OF his wit. and in no particular has
the cut-and-dried Flooding parson astonished
his friends more than i'll this. His epigrRms
| and bon-mOts classic us those which gave
Evarts the reputation he held against all
corners for twenty years, Of being the best
niter-dlnner speaker i'll New York. But in nd-
dltion he has gift Of uttering the most telling
things on the gravest subjects, yet without
any violation of the implied obligation at a
festival not to wound or bore.
SAMPLE SENTENCES.
To notice some of the sparkling sentences in
Monday nights speech, though such extracts
always suffer from the surgery of the scissors he
began by graceful tribute to the occasion
ITO speak" he said, Eat this table has come to
be regarded as in itself the blue ribbon OF post
prandinl discourse Presently he observed
that two great books of adventure have re-
Gently appeared. In the one we follow M
Stanley through darkest Africa and in the
| other we are told how Mr.. McCallister found
society. regard the latter as the more impor-
tant OF the two, for while there was general
and might say,a universal agreement among US
regarding the whereabouts of Africa there has
been great diversity Of sentiment regarding the
boundary line Of society" A moment after
ward, In tracing back American society to its
source, he said that we could not organize
Newport picnic without reyerting to the Pill
grim Fathers, and added, who then will de-
spise the day Of small things? The little one has
not yet become a thousand, bat we have good
authority for saying that the figures have touched
400: Turning here to his more serious side,
he let fall an observation that has the flavor of
the best passages in Thackeray. Every man."
he observed. ''mOves in his own world: the out
slider passes his neighbours door, looks in at hin
window and generally succeeds in misiudginR
him. The gift of seeing Others as they are is
quite as much to be coveted as that of seeing
than consciousness
am tempted to keep on quoting especially
as 1t would improve the contents Of nv letter
over any matter OF my own; but l shall only
notice one or two other gems, quite in the
Emersonian vein. For instance, Enforced
benevolence is taxation, and excessive taxation
is tyrrany." authors ges rich by writing
Utopias in which they will get no copyright
The corporation Is Civilizations greatest
invention. and we owe it to the Roman
Jurlsts. There is but one thing needed and
that is, since law has made it a person. the
gospel should give it a soul" When say that
could go on quoting such sentences as this for
column, think all will agree that the we'll
leu CARBOHYDRATES the Pllgrlms. and their
friends, on Monday night listened to a very
great speech.
CLEVELAND AS A SPEAKER.
The following night came another banquet,
quite as notable in its way, as around the ma
hogany In this instance half thousand strong
and clear headed men, who take their politics
very seriously, met to put Grover Cleveland
squarely on the track for 92. This was the
dinner of the Reform Club, an organization
whose vigorous growth is striking and very
hopeful sign Of the times. At this dinner,
again, there was little pretense Of spontaneity
The toasts had been carefully apportioned
among eminent public men, the principal
speech being reserved for Mr.. Cleveland. The
ex-President could not but have felt
proud Of his welcome, for the assemblage
rose at him, and his every word fell on at
tentive ears. Cleveland's popularity is un-
questionable. both among the masses and
among the thinking few And don't think he
can be laughed down by jibes on his fat. Many
a big man has also been great. Cleveland
somewhat reminds me of Kutuzof, the antag-
onist of Napoleon in the Russian campaign. The
hero Of Borodino, as Tolstoi paints him, was
obese half blind, slow, clumsy and dull. But,
to speak after the manner of men he cot there