The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1892-10-09
CAMPAIGN SPEAKERS
HOW MANY PROMINENT ORATORS
PREPARE THEIR ADDRESSES.
IngersoIl and Blaine Practice similar
Notwithstanding and George Will
liam Curtis Prepared Their Speeches
with Great Deliberation.

with Great Deliberation.
Especial Correspondence
NEW YORK, Sept. 27.-Colonel Bob In
gersoll was once asked how long 1t TOOK
him TO write the speech which he made at
Cincinnati putting Mr.. Blaine in nomina-
ton for the presidency, and also how long
be was engaged in the composition OF ms
famous Declaration Day address Inc
colonel replied that 1t took him about ten
minutes to write each Of those speeches.
and about fifteen years TO prepare them'
He meant by that that he had turned over
and over again in his mind the ideas when
when the opportunity came were easily
put upon paper. Thus he said all great
| composition is performed. There IS no
such thing IN his opinion as successful
| extemporaneous speech. IL an address Is
| delivered entirely without preparation
| then IL is bound TO be something neither
worth preserving nor listening TO.
In this time, when the political platform
orator is busily engaged, it is OF some In
terest to know how the greatest OF them
make ready for the stump. Mr.. Depew,
| for instance, is esteemed an able stump
speaker In the sense in which Colonel
Ingersoll spoke Depew occupies no time at
all in writing his addresses, and yet ne
may have been engaged for several years In
| the preparation of these political speeches.
| As he walks TO and from his office an
| idea occurs TO him. He turns it over IN
his mind, puts it into words mentally ana
| tucks it away in his memory. so, too,
| when be is reading newspaper or Is IN
conversation with a friend an idea occurs
TO him which he knows will be OF value
when he comes to make political speech
| That he also memories without having
put it on paper. Thus he stores his mind
so that on the day preceding the evening
| on which he is TO speak he spends an hour
| or so going 10 this mental storehouse' ar
ranging with some symmetry the line OF
his address, and he is then prepared Tor
| the political occasion. Mr.. Depew mas
poor verbal memory. He would never
| dare write out a speech and commit 1T to
memory. If the occasion demands
| formal and labored effort the speech that is
prepared to meet such demand is always
read by Depew.
Conkling. who at one time was regarded
as the most brilliant and impressive orator
In the Republican party, always prepared
| his speeches with infinite pains. lie had
what Depew has not-a splendid verbal
memory In this respect he was ike VII
liam II. Seward and Grover Cleveland.
The writing out Of speech and the read
ing of il once over in manuscript fixed 1t
| indelibly in memory. Sometimes Conk-
| ling devoted a week TO a campaign speech.
His line of argument came to him by IN
spiration. but the literary charm OF his adj
dresses and the rhetorical expression OF
them were the work sometimes OF many
DAYS and nights. He prepared only one
speech for the campaign, and that was
usually the first one which he delivered
His other speeches were always based upon
this first one, but with sufficient change in
diction and arrangement to enable him TO
escape the charge of being single speech
maker.
| Carl Schurz, whom many have regarded
as one of the most fascinating orators OF
the stump, is a single speech maker. Mr.
| SchurZ never dares trust himself to speak
without preparation.
| Mr. Blaine has adopted different meth
cd in preparing his addresses for the stump.
| He relies very largely upon the inspiration
| of the moment for his diction and his rhet-
oric. He prepares very thoroughly his
| line of argument, and carries with him TO
| the platform abundant material In the
way of statistics or other illustTatiOns. But
he rarely writes out a speech. He has
| often said that were he to do this he would
| feel cramped, self conscious and embar-
raised upon the platform. His manner Of
preparation is something like that of Mr.
| Depew, and it is the mans personality
| l, he afc rir buf haa happ the
highest charm in his political addresses.
When George William Curtis used TO go
upon the stump for the party with which
he was identified his speeches were splen-
| did essays which had been prepared with
| utmost care. He trusted to no momentary
inspiration, and yet the finest speech that
| he ever delivered was the result Of as sud
| den an emergency as was the first speech
| of Wendell Phillips in Faneuil hall, which
not only gave Phillips fame as an orator,
but which determined his career, making
him an agitator rather than "A lawyer.
Perhaps the two most prominent men Of
| their party in the house Of representatives
two years ago were Major Mckinley and
| Speaker Reed. Each of these men has
such popularity that the demand for their
services as stump speakers during the
present campaign has been greater than
| that the national committee has received
for any other men. Yet their methods of
preparation are entirely different.
To prepare stump speech as Conkling
and Schurz prepared theirs would be intol-
cradle to Reed. He Is perhaps tine nearest
to purely extempOraneous stump speaker
of any man in his party. Some OF his
witty utterances and most effective sar-
casms are not the inspiration of the mo-
ment. He had thought of them before
and put them away in his memory just as
Depew and Ingersoll do. But In the ordi-
nary sense there is no preparation, and that
gives great variety to Mr.. Reeds speeches
when they are read one after another during
campaign.
Mckinley on the other hand is in GER
tain sense a single speech maker, not as
SEIZURE is, but rather as COnkling was.
The speech with which he begins a canvass
is practically the one with which he ends
it. Different speeches vary in arrange
ment in illustration, but the argument and
the main line Of thought are the same.
Mr. Bourke Cochran and Colonel John
X. Fellows are perhaps the most consplcu-
Gus of campaign speakers on the Atlantic
coast, and they are in the highest degree
extemporaneous speakers. The famous
speech which Cochran made at the Chi
cago convention was prepared only in the
sense that he expressed sentiments which
he had been in private expressing Tor
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