Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1891-05-19
BEECHER'S ORATORY.
= LITTLE DRAMA WITH ITS slTuA-
TONS AND DENoUeMENT.


SCENE at Mass Meeting in TripIer Han
Trick In Oratory-The Inspiration of
the Observation-Disclosures speecb.
4, fears ago, when l was quite a how
there was q great disturbance in this civ
over the Five Points, which at that linn |
was the most disgraceful cesspool of in
EQUITY on the face of the earth. The an
thorltles either would not or could NOT do
anything for its regeneration. Under tbe
iash OF public agitation the women of
new YORK came together and organized
what was called the Ladies' Home Mis-
siohary society, and called series of mass
meetings in Tripler hall, an enormous
building on Broadway that had been
erected IN anticipation of the ar
iiVal OF Jenny Lind. These mass meet
lngs We're unique. 1 think they took
pace on Saturday nights. Never before
had SO many big guns been brought to-
eether on the platform as the ladies
eathered for these meetings. Half hour
addresses were made by all the most
e.ioqueht orators OF the American pulpit,
irrespective OF denomination, and the great
nan was regularly packed to the doorways.
St'N OSNnoloi remember CneeXer
Cuyler, the lamented Dr. Foster, of the
Methodist church, and score of others
including Henry Ward Beecher. were
announced. And the Hutchinson family
and the Alleghanians were to sing. The
speakers were all on their mettle, for thew
were pitted against each other in a good
cause. My recollection is that DR.. Foster
tainted from excessive emotion, after one
OF the most startling appeals | ever heard.
AN IMAGINARY DIALOGUE
Somewhere in the course of the evening
Henry Ward Beecher was introduced. He
was then III the full flower of enthusiasm
and far more clerical in cut than when in
MS maturity, Instead of taking the center
OF the platform, as all the preceding
| speakers had done, he walked to the ex-
IRENE end and began an imaginary dia-
logue IN which politician took part. He
asked him all kinds of questions as to the
proper way to degenerate the Five Points
and got all kinds of absurd and evasive
replies. When he had exhausted the ig-
norance and indifference of this function
| airy he walked to the other end of the
! platform, and, with both hands extended
and body bent over, as if looking into a
hole, he said; ''We lay you down there for
SO muchr'
Then back across the width of the plat
form to begin another conversation with
physician. The whole character of the
dialogue changed instantly. The new
man spoke in new vein. He had gases
and therapeutics at his finger ends. He
would regenerate the Five Points with
six foot sewer and chloride Of lime He
was visionary, technical and wholly mad
equate, and he was carried over and
placed in the same hole ''for so much"
Then the same process was gone
through with an editor and philosopher
and an engineer, and by this time the
vast assemblage was worked up to a
pitch of intense expectation and suspense
The one dominant interrogative emo
ton was-'Who will do this thingY'
TRICK OF oRATORY.
Never have | forgotten the effect pro-
duced when the speaker took the middle
of the stage for his peroration and said;
''Now We'll take down the Christian
women of New York"
And they seemed to us to sweep down
like Valkyrie with flaming swords.
Boy as | was l knew, as soon as l got
away from the magnetic influence of the
speaker, that this was trick Of oratory
in which the method of the playwright
Hdtl DttIl clllpIOgtu w { udu Dttu IlSltll-
ing to little drama, with its well defined
dramatis PERSONA its situations, its five
acts, with a curtain, and its final denoue-
ment.
Years afterwarG, standing there on his
lawn under one of the trees he had him
J self planted, trying to recall in the rudy,
white haired man at my side the eager,
impassioned, somewhat gaunt and ire
sistibly earnest speaker who had made
such an impression on my young mind, |
reminded him of the scene in Tripler hall
and asked him if he had planned that
effect beforehand or left it to the sugges
ton of the moment.
His recollection was that it had oc-
Cured to him just before he appeared on
the platform. He assured Inc that all his
best results in oratory were due to the in
spiration of the moment.
And then he told me how on one occa-
sion he was making an anti slavery speech
at the old Broadway Tabernacle and there
had been left there by Arthur Tappan or
somebody else chain that had been worn
in the south by q slave. In my closing
appeal, said Mr. Beecher, l saw the chain
for the first time, and going over picked
it up and throwing it down trampled upon
it as | finished The effect was electrical,
but it was unpremeditated.- Crinkle
in New York World.