The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-04-01

position. or read what he had said ON the
subject.
'Demosthenes is more or less of myth.
He may have been as wonderful an orator
as tradition says. but If so the evidences
of his supreme genius are lost; they are
not to be found in the Phillipics or in the
Orations on the Crown. He may have
been and no doubt was cramped by his
Attic environment, but had he been man
of commanding genius he would have risen
superior to 1t and the truths he propounded
would have been as forceful and vital to-
day as when they were uttered"
How do the modern compare with the
ancient orators in your Opinion?" l asked.
I'VE can compare the efforts OF the
poets, architects. sculptors and painters of
antiquity, particularly where their works
survive in whole or in part, with those of
the moderDs, but in oratory so much de-
Ponds on the individual peeuliarlties of
the man that it is almost impossible TO
make anything like judicial comparison.
The orations Of the aneients were care
fully prepared. and to that fact is due
their preservation. The most effective
addresses of the French Revolution were
largely extemDOrane0us, ana. no means
having been taken in the tumult of the
times 10 preserve them exactly, they were
lost In the same way MANY of the mas
terly speeches IF the elder Pitt died with
yet enough remains to show that he, in his
limited field, was a great orator. Fox
was a powerful pleader rather than a
great orator, and while Burke's speeches,
prepared and penned by his fine schOiOr-
ship and exquisite taste, are models of
splendid dicton and elevated rhetoric, we
know that he was called the dinner BELL
for his rising was signal for friend and
opponent to empty the benches. Sheridan
had many of the requisites of great
orator, but his training made him theatre
cal, and be worked for effects, and one
feels that the curtain should have been
rung down on his climaxes. To my mind
Curran was the greatest orator of his day,
and some of the passages in his speeches
thrill the reader to-day like a trumpet
blast, and they will continue to thrill
while truth sublimely uttered has the
power to effect mankind. No. l do not re-
gard Gladstone as q great orator. but it
must be conceded that he is a grand
speaker. He is wanting in feeling and
Imagination. he says fine things in a
stately. well-balanced way, but l defy his
greatest admlrer to repeat on the spur of
the moment one sentence of Gladstone
that has been burned into the memo and
the recital of which stirs the pulse into
faster beat"
How do you think American orators
com pare with those of other lands?"
The Americans are the most fluent
people in the world, ana our political
methods have done much to foster the art
of public speaking, but this has not en-
cOuraged true oratory, for when every one
Is speaker, people are satisfied with
mediocrity. The true artist Is not going
to enter the field against the sign painter,
nor will the poet compete with the maker
of advertising rhymes.
webster was man of grand possibiIi-
ties rather than of great achievements. He
aimed at being soDorOus and ponderous.
and he succeeded. He ignored the heart
while addressing himself TO the head, yet
! he has left a few grand oratorical para
| graphs that will survive in the language
after his standing as a statesman la for
| gotten. Clay was handicapped by made
quate training. His success with the
masses, who idolized him, was due more
| to bis personal magnetism Than to his
originality. There was far more in his
manner than in his matter. He was a
great force, but history will not rank him
as a great orator. In his own field Tom
Corwin was superb. but he either lacked
the opportunity or did not make II,
to give the world the best that
was in him. S. S. Prentiss was an
oratorical meteor. He famed across the
sky and was gone, but he had the divine
gift, with all the human failings that at
! tach. In denunciatory power. biting scorn
and whitening contempt Wendell Phillips
was wonderful, and unapproached by any
man of his time. Henry Ward Beecher
as an orator of the first class stands in the
forefront of Americans, and unsurpassed
by many OF the ancieuts or moderns. He
was a master of the emotions. He said
grand things, and might have spoken still
better had not his splendid genius been
cramped by his environment. 1t is a great
pity that Beecher wasted so much Of his