The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1892-10-15
CAMPAIGN SPEAKERS
HOW MANY PROMINENT ORATORS
PREPARE THEIR ADDRESSES.
dngcrsoll and Blaine Practice Similar
Notwithstanding and George Will
liam Curtis Prepared Their Speeches
with Great DcIibcration.
Especial Correspondcncc.l


Cincinnati putting Mr.. Blaine in nomina-
ton for the presidency, and also how long
he was engaged in the composition of his
famous Declaration Day address. The
colonel replied that it took him about ten
minutes TO write each of those speeches
and about fifteen yeas to prepare them.
lie meant by that that he had turned over
and over again in his mind the ideas which
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 II successful
extemporancous speech. If an address is
delivered entirely without preparation,
then it 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
tercst 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
Ingcrsoll spoke Depew occupies no time mt
all in writing his addresses and yet he
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 and
tucks it away in his memory. So, too,
IL
conversation with a friend an idea occurs
to him which he knows will be of value
when he comes to make Il 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 lie spends an hour
or so going to this mental storehOusc, ar
ranging with some symmetry the line of
his address, and he is then prepared for
the political occasion. Mr.. Depew has IA
poor verbal memory. lie would never
dare write out Il speech and commit il to
memory. If the occasion demands Il
formal and laborcd effort she speech that is
prepared to meet such demand is always
read by Depew.
ConklinS, who Mt one time was regarded
as the most brilliant and impressive orator
in the Republican party, always prepared
his speeches with infinite pains. He had
what Depcw has not-a splendid verbal
memory. In this respect he was like vii
liam III. Seward and Grover Cleveland.
The writing out of II speech and the read
ing of it once over in manuscript fixed it
indclibly in memory. Sometimes Conk-
ling devoted week to IL 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 i'm
diction and arrangement to enable him to
escape the charge of being single speech
maker.
Carl Schurz, whom many have regarded
az h,. fin f;,,fr ..,f
the stump, isl single speech maker. Mr..
Schurz never dares trust himself to speak
without preparation.
Mr.. Blaine has adopted II different meth
oil in preparing his addresses for the stump.
lie relies very largely upon the inspiration
of the moment for his dction and his rhct-
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 illustrations But
he rarely writes out speech lie has
often said that were he To do this he would
feel cramped, self conscious and embar-
rassed upon the platform. His manner of
preparation is something like that of Mir.
Dcpew, and It'll the mans personality
rather than his rhetoric that has been the
highest charm in his political addresses.
When George William Curtis used TO 20
W
he was identified his speeches were splcn-
did essays which hid been prepared with
utmost care He trusted to no momcnttrv
inspiration, and yet tie finest speech that
he ever delivered WAS the result of us 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 II lawyer.
Perhaps the two most prominent men of
their party in the house of representatives
two years ago were Major Mckinley ana
Speaker Reed. Each OF these men has
such popularity that the demand for their
services rs stump speakers during the
present campaign has been greater than
that the national committee has received
Tor any other men. Yet their methods of
preparation are entirely different.
To prepare n stump speech as Conkling
and Schurz prepared theirs would be intol-
ernbie to Reed. He is perhaps the nearest
to purely extcmporaneous stump speaker
OF any man in his party. Some of his
witty uttcrances and most effective sar-
casms are not the inspiration of the mo-
ment. lie had thought of them before
and put them away in his memory just as
Depew and lngersoll 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
a campaign.
Mckinley on the other hand is In n GER
tain sense Il single speech maker, not as
SchuH is, but rather as Conking was.
The speech with which he begins Il 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 Cock ran and Colonel John
II. Fellows IRE perhaps the most conspicu-
Ous of campaign speakers on the Atlantic
coast, and they are in the highest degree