The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1893-06-09
1T WAS WRONG.

Trinity college invited the people of
Durham to attend its commencement ex-
e~rcises. Trinity college, in inviting the
people t. be present, gave those people a
right to express an opinion as to the
merits or dement's of those who con
tended for distinction.
Without any apology, and indeed, when
facts which constitute matters of COM
mon notoriety are discussed, no apology
can be demanded, THE GLOBE desires to
say that the people of Durham are justly
indignant at the result of the decision of
the learned ones who handed down the
Absolute in yesterdays oratorical con-
test.
In the first place, it would be the
heighth, breadth, depth, length, thick
ness and compactness Of leering idiocy
to say that either MEssRs. HEITMAN,
HALL, SHEPPE, BALLARD or CHEATHAM
did have or do have any respectable &C
quaintance with the art Of oratOry. Not
one of these men ever posed as orators
and no one of them ever made a speech
that has been recorded or that has at
tracted attention in any way. The fact
of the business is, they are not engaged
in oratory, and the probabilities are that
they know nothing about oratory.
AS THE GLOBE understands it, the
contest was a contest of oratory. That
is to say, several gentlemen in a class,
each in his mind, believing himself the
Demosthenes of the time, proposed to
enter the arena and exhibit his talent.
There is in the laws of human nature a
bit and parcel of the thing called Justice.
Lawyers %harangue ~juries. They cite pre-
cedents and quote authority. The quirks
and bubbles of the lawyers move a nan
as do also the other little yet artful styles
of legerdemaine of tongue. Juries are
convinced, judges are satisfied, and the
prisoner at the bar takes his medicine
like a little man and does what the Judge
tells him to do.
But back from the judges bench; back
from where the lawyer works his cue ;
back from where the abashed and intimi-
dated witness has given his testimony,
sits another court-a court always in
session, a court whose opinion is not
to be questioned, and a court where
favors are unknown-and that is the
court of Public Opinion.
And this court, sitting yesterday in
Stokes hall-sitting there not hampered
by the legal bubbles of the one nor the
moral bubbles of the other, said that the
man SHINN was the fellow who did the
business, was the man entitled to the
honors.
If oratory was to be considered, and
that was the way the programme read,
then we hold that orators should have
cast the die. If orators were not availa-
BILE to act as Judges on this occasion, then
it seems to US that an audience of those
present, and not three or four of that au-
dience, should have determined who was
entitled to the honOrs and who made the
best talk.
The consensus Of opinion says that
SHINN was the man who won the ~laurels.
And for men like SHEPPE, BALLARD,
and others to award a medal to a man
because they did not know what they
were doing, is another of the glazing in.
consistencies of which Trinity college is
guilty.
After being awarded the medal, TUR-
NER, in the same stupidity which charac.
terized his speech, failed to have the good
manners to rise from his chair when his
fraudulently obtained medal was given
him. He was a beautiful object, yet no
less beautiful than the crowd of orators
who voted it to him.
Long live the orators, because they
really approximate what we linguists call
a Speaking Silence.