New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1893-08-27

Washington, Aug. 26.-That oratory is not .
lost art, and that its charms are potent a.
ever, viii not he denied by anybody who wit
Messed and listened 10 tie speeches in the House
| of representatives to-day, which. 10 the great
relief of the country, was the last day of the
long and unnecessary debate well described
by Mr.. Reed this weary welter of talk, In
that rody on the bill to repeal the purchasing
provision of the Silver law. When Mr. Reed
rose to speak at 10: 80 nearly every member Of
the House in his scat, the Vice President
of the United States the Secretary of the
Treasury and Secretary OF the Navy occupied
sofas in the rear of the Chamber in which all
of them had spoken AMI vOred for free-coinage
in years that past grave Senators came to
hear and stayed to lcarn and the galleries were
packed to the verge of suilocation while the
adjoining corridors thronccd with eager but
unfortunate men and women who We're unable
10 gain admission.
In the airest rooms and corridors the mercury
SCARED into the nlneties, and in the packed gal
crcs the ar was charged with heat and humidity
in which human beings swctered and gasped for
hours without repining. So large a crowd was not
attracted even the first day of the session,
when more people came than on any like occasion
in many years. They richly rewarded for all
the physical discomfort that they experienced IL
they We're fortunate enough to hear only the
speeches delivered by Thomas B. Reed and Bourke
Cochran in support Of unconditional repeal. Other
speeches there were on either side of the question,
each one good in its way, and some Of them able
and forcible, but those of Reed and Cochran were
the great ones of the occasion, indeed they were
of the entire debate. II would be difficult to say
which the better, for they were unlike As
Eourkc Cochran declared TO a Tribune correspondent
that Reeds speech the greatest one ever
heard in the House of Representatives. SO might
Mr. Reed declare in all sincerity that Mr.. Cockran's
was one Of the ablest that he had ever heard In
that body since he first hecame a er of IL
sixteen years ago.
TIE GREATEST SPEECH OF HIS LIFE.
Mr. Reeds opening, in which he dwet upon
the grave responsibility resting upon Congress, was
impressive, and before he had completed the nrst
sentence every face was turned toward MIN anu
every eye in the vast audience fixed upon
him, not TO wander again until the last word was
spoken exactly sixty minutes later inspired
as he must have been by the eager, earnest a"-
s0rbed attention of the men ana WOMEN ""o
listened to his words, as well as by thclr repea'cu
hearty and sympathetic applause, IL was no "on'
der that he rose 10 the occasion and delivered
what every body declared to be the greatest
speech and the most powerful and luminous
argument of his life. IL was an argument which
went 10 the core of the subject and must have
been AZ convincing as il clear to every intel
Iipent and unprciudiced mind While there was
no ooncealmcnt of his belief that the existing
financial disturbances, with their long train OF
attendant evils and distress, due not much
10 the provision which Congress is trying to re-
pcal AZ 10 threats 10 overturn and destroy the
economic system under which the country has
thryed and prospered during the last thirty years
- il never had before, there exhibition Of
partisanship to which just exception could b
taken \ revision of the tariff, even by the
friends Of the protective system, Mr..
Reed pointed out, had always checked
production and activity and disturbed bust.
ness some extent Now the proposition is to break
down the only system which the people of this
country generally know about by practical ex.
perience and substitute tariff for revenue only.
tie would admit, for the purposes OF his argu-
nent, and for that purpose only that the Dem
'cratlc platform is righteousness but he chsl-
enged any man to deny that the policy therein
had not unsettled business and checked
production. The people, of course, hoped thaS
the motley crew. which now manned the snip
of state would not do so much damage as they
had threatened, but nobody felt sure Even the
new chairman of the Ways and Means Commit
tee did not know what sort Of tarin ne woulQ
make, but one thing everybody did know ana