The San Francisco call., 1896-07-26

II the recently deceased Popullst "a
tional Convention was a fair type of its
race am led TO the conclusion that
PopuIist National Convention is a kinder
garten for young and old orators. Here
were a whole day and a half wasted in
talk. preparatory to tie nomination OF two
men, one for the Presidency and the other
for the Vice-P Presidency of the United
States. Every man, almost, OF the 1900
and odd on the floor wanted to talk and
had a speech already committed 20
memory.
OIL the long evenings and the late
watches spent in the composition of these
speeches destined to thrill a nations repre-
sentatives with loyalty and enthusiasm
and to make him, the rural spouter, a
name which should ring all over the land.
into every village, nook and corner
thereof. How often has he sat by
the coal-oil lamp in his hum BILE
home at midnight, lulled into reverie
by the soft signing of baby cyclones
through the silken whiskers of the ripen-
ing corn, as he pictured the shorthand
representatives of the United Press and OF
the leading dailies from San Francisco to
New York and from Halifax to Key West,
and even to Havana, straining their necks
as though they were of rubber in the ef-
fort to hear and take down every golden
word that fell from his lips, to fash them
afterward, in all the rotuncity of their
periods, into the homes of people all over
thigbroad land. "Sdeathr' Shall he who
has toiled through so many lonely vigils
in sweet communion with the muses. be
choked off and gagged as though he were
a common dog in the pound. WhatP
Gag Populist? Apply the cloture to that
siIvery stream of eloquence2 Nevah! be
heavingsl nevahl
The spectator who watched with a
critical eye these Edmund Burkes. Daniel
Websters, Foxes and Pittses and Wendell
Phiipses and Robert G. IngersolIs in their
flights of verbosity last night and to-day
could not fail to be filed with suspicion
that the takers left the Democratic and
Republican parties because there was no
room in those parties for them to air their
eloquence. I myself became of the same
opinion respecting many of them. The
escape of all this latent oratory being
their hearts desire, it may be easily under
stood that the pressure from within must
have been of sufficient intensity. So one
can imagine the feeling of pleasure, nay
being Of the Populist delegate when the
bald head and whiskerless chairman.
metaphoricaIiy speaking. punctures the
gasbsg with blow of the gavel, and the
words, "the gentleman from Kalamazoo
or ''Bitter Greek, the case may be.
These suggestions will throw some light
on the reasons why the red-whiskered man
from Rhode Island was torn from the Mat
1o1 forHx h.
policemen when he made an uproar ne
cause the chairman would not allow the
secretary 10 read his silver paraphrase of
the Declaration OF Independence to it's
concluding period. 1t will explain WHY
the Connecticut Yankee, away back in the
rear of the hall, became blood-red in the
face and brandished his fist murderousIv
when the chair informed him that the
point of order of the colonel from Georgia
was well taken and that he would have to
shut-up like mouse-trap, Just as he had
finished his predatory remarks and inst
as he was warming up to the 212th degree
of enthusiasm. 1t was natural that his
collar should have taken fire when the 200
represen tatives in the press seats whooped
at him and cried "time." No woncer that
he resisted the efforts of the three police
men to remove him from his standing
position on the seat of his chair. and that
he desisted only when his colleagues ad-
Vised him that it would not be brave or
safe to trip up and gouge and bite three
policemen at once in the presence of so
many witnesses.
One of the funniest of all the elocution-
lists in the convention was the red-headed
slogger from North Carolina, who kept
the spectators shouting with laughter for
about ten minutes last night. He was
big six-footer, broad-shouldered and deep
chested, and weighed about 225 pounds.
With neck as bovine as that of Grover
Cleveland and fist as large as that of
John L. Sullivan, he looked and acted for
all the world like professional pugilist
who has his enemy in chancery and who
is uppercutting him viciously with the
right. The more the people laughed the
more he smashed the air with upward
haif-arm right-hand drives, the poor fell
low believing that the applause and
laughter were testimonials of appreciation,
when, in fact, they were only expressions
OF good humored ridicuIe.
The women of the Peoples party COM