The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-08-15
THE EXODUS OF 1896.
Bryan's Speech to the Accom- pnniment
of the Tread of Departing Feet.


New York Sun.
William Jennings Bryan, the Boy Orator
OF the Platte and candidate of the Chicago
convention for President OF the United
States. has spoken his piece; that piece.
beside which all other pieces were to sink
into insignificance. which was TO dwarf
the Chicago effort that won him the NOM
nation. and which was to set the world on
fire and put the name of the Boy Orator
on the highest pinnacle of oratorical fame.
there to remain forever.
Oh, what a woful disappointment 1t was!
The grand reception. billed to be the
greatest that New Workers had even seen.
dwindled into a ~second-rate political meet
ing before it was half over. The great
audience that had gathered expecting the
treat of a lifetime had become smaller and
smaller. At 10 o'clock. the speech only
half finished. the orator almost pumped
out. disappointed and anxious. reading
from his manuscript so rapidly that a
third of his words were hardly under
~standable, there remained in the Madison
square Garden hardly more than one-half
of those who had in the early
evening. This half was not enthusiastic.
What little applauding it did was of the
half-hearted kind that is so easily dis
tinguishable from genuine enthusiasm.
Al no time during the evening had the
garden been filled. At the very start there
were twenty-one empty boxes; the upper
gallery was not more than two-tbirds full.
and there were vacant seats here and
there in the first gallery back of the boxes.
The exodus from the building had begun
within five minutes after the orator had
begun to make his speech. For the first
twenty minutes the shutting of feet could
be heard in every part Oh the building. 1t
seemed that the people had only gathered
to satisfy their curiosity about this man
who had carried a great national conven-
ton by storm; that it had not intended to
stay unless he came up to expectations.
and that his failure to do that had brought
instantaneous disappointment and disgust
1t is fair to the Boy Orator TO say that
it was hot and uncomfortable in the big
garden; that perhaps many would have
stayed to further satisfy their curiosity
had It not been for this. But this much is
certain, never before did a man. of national
reputation as an orator speaking In New
York city get such a discourse ing recep-
but recent. has spread from end to end
of the earth. Never did a candidate for
President of the United States. speaking in
NEW IOIk, SDtdh W III ~ tho& A%a
away in this style.
1t has been told just how full the garden
was when the speech was begun. He had
been speaking exactly five minutes when
the shutting began. The tor-gallery folks
were. the first ones to tire. They could be
heard, but could not be SEEN. Inc noise
they made disturbed the speaker, but he
thought it was a crowd coming in and not
a crowd going out.
That thought stayed with him for about
two minutes. Then the upper gallery peo-
pie got down to the first gallery and came
down the aisles in plain sight. When the
people in the first gallery saw them gong
they thought it was a good time to go. TOO.
and they fell in line by twos and threes. Al
the end of twelve minutes the speech had
had such an effect that two sections In
the main gallery were nearly empty, anu
there were vacant seats everywhere.
Mrs. Bryan was as much worried as was
the orator. She turned and whispered to St.
John. ST. John shook his head in a helpless
sort of way. There had been considerable
applause in this twelve minutes. but IT
didn't any of 1t appear to be genuine.
The going out kept right up. At 9:10
O'Clock it was easy to take a census OF n
large part of the hall. The Sun reporter sat
facing the east. There are three rows OF
boxes at that end and one gallery. The
rows of boxes are enc above the other. The
first census showed sixty-two people In the
row. eight in the third row. and nine in the
gallerW This census included AL of the
people above the orchestra circle on the
east side of the hall. Long before $40 the
crowd Of Deonle who stood on the main
floor had begun to thin out. and at the TAX
ing of a census there was a fringe one deep
most of the way and tWo deep a part OF the
way on the southern side of the main floor
seats. and at either end the crowd was
about twenty deep. There had been con-
tinued confusion. Some of the people who
had gone out yelled. One man: as he was
going out of the door. screamed:
Good night. Billy and two or three
man invited Willie to come out and take
a drink. Another man yelled:
'Put away the paper, Billy, and talk.
A census of the entire western side of the
house above the orchestra circle showed
forty people in the first row of boxes, thir-
ty-seven in the second. thirty-eight In the
third. and a lone fourteen left in the gall
lery. There were 115 in the gallery on the
south side. and 1S I'm the gallery on the
north side. which was the side on which
spots everywhere in the orchestra circle on
the south side. The crowd on the north
side kept pretty compact.
Still the people went out. The Boy Ora
tor kept looking anxiously towards the
door. and Mrs. Bryan looked more worried
than ever. Mrs. Bland took some interest
in 1t. too. Mr.. St. John endeavored to at
tract the attention of the ladies by talking
to them. bat they couldn't help glancing
every once in a while at the receding crowd.
circle on the south side at twenty minutes
past 8 o'clock. 1t was twenty minutes be-
fore 10 when Mr.; Bryan u showed very plain
ing an hour, and his damaged voice was
strained.
But, if he was tired, the audience was
more 80. The people kept going out. Twen-
ty minutes later. when the next census was
taken, the total population of the top gall
lery and all of the boxes was 21l. The gall
lery had 40 of these. There were not more
than a dozen persons all told on the east
side of the building above the orchestra
circle.
The $50 in the orchestra circle on the
south side had lost a hundred. and the
crowd on the north side that had been held
intact had begun to desert, and vacant
seats showed everywhere except right
around the platform where the orator was
reading.