The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-08-08
POLITICAL FIGURES OF SPEECH.

II VIII Ne SteH tudt iii tHc puDflC
speakers are extremely anxious this
year to be understood. They have nat
urally adopted the ancient plan of
drawing comparisons with the actual
every day affairs of man. This is very
old. Socrates was forever drawing
analogies between abstruse problems
and the cats and dogs and people at
his doorstep. Once he was banished
for carrying this to an extreme. Christ
did the same thing with his parallels
All of Aesop's fables are political les
sons. In his time il was the only way
to fight a tyrant and not be beheaded.
The fairy tales of Germany often had
political intent. In fact so prevalent
has the analogous story been In hu-
man affairs that Donnelly and many
others insist that political arguments
and prcpa ganda are concealed in
Shkespeare's plays and can be worked
out with the proper key. Abraham
used for the purpose in this last Gen.
fury.
The public speakers this year are
doing their best to invent stories which
will convey to the listeners something
of the orators meaning.
None of the speakers may be said to
have made much Roadway so far. Nc
Kinley's principal comparison is in re-
gard to an engineer. He says that
we have the same old engine and the
same old track, and the fire is IN the
boiler but that a different engineer is
at the throttle and he doesn't know
how TO make it go.
We find Tom Watson appropriating
this story in his new speech. He says
Of the Democrats: "They want to run
our train. but they want to kick out
our engineer"
However it should be said that Wat
son is extremely simple and effective
in his use Of these comparisons. He
says with great force Of the Demo
Gratis: ''They want to sail in our ship
but they want to expel our crew." And,
"They (the Democrats) want fusion but
it Is the fusion of the earthquake with
the city it engulfs."
Tom Reed has also broken into the
arena with an illustration. 1t is rather
complicated and should be dropped by
Mr. Reed and something better adopt
ed His explanation Of bimetallism on
an international agreement consists of
the illustration of two lakes in widely
separated climates connected with
each other so that climatic condition
affecting one lake would not affect the
other and a common level would con-
sequently be maintained. No such
pair of lakes ever did exist or ever will
exist A comparison is not effective
unless it is taken from an every day
object which exists in fact and not
alone in Imagination.
Up to date Bryan has used metaphor
with more success than any other ora
tor. It was the "crown Of thOrns'
and ''the cross of gold'' which nominal
ed him. Mr.. Bryan has now put out
a revised edition of his famous speech
and these figures of speech (McCalPs)
Bryan now correctly puts in quotation
marks. Biblical illusions are always
familiar and consequently always
strong in any new connection. To a
man not thoroughly imbued with the
silver sentiment the idea Of pressing
down on the brow of labor "a crown Of
thorns sounds foolish; to the man who
believes in silver 1t was the denuncia-
ton of species Of tyranny which they
believe inevitable under gold STAN
dard.
Before the campaign Is over We will
have many interesting figures of
speech added to our political diction-
airy, but so far none has been striking
except the two OF Bryan's, which We're
borrowed for the occasion.