Kansas City daily journal., 1896-12-28
Bryan ns n Star Lecturer.
From the New York Tribune

~SAAs SiiS 4NSW 1OTh 1TlDune-
In selecting Atlanta, Ga as the starting
point Tor the Bryan lecture tour the man.
ager exhibited good judgment The polit-
icat proclivities of the citizens of that Sec
ton would naturally lead them to take an
interest in Mr.. Bryan, and even though
they might stop and think a moment
before investing q dollar in the gratifica-
ton of mere curiosity to see that great
| man, the possibility of his saying some
thing new, fresh and striking was sure to
turn the scale in favor of the show and
add to the profits of the Snowman while
inSuring the success of his enterprise. 1t
might be considered disrespectful to use
the figure with which members of the
dramatic profession commonly describe the
hrst presentation of new play outside the
metropolis as trying 1t on the dog" We
consequently refrain from it, but we do
say that TO Snowman ever selected with
more srewdness and good judgment place
for the proceeding thus described than did
Mr.. Bryan's manager when he pitched
upon Atlanta as the starting point for a
$4,000 lecture tour. Simply to see a man
who earns $1,000 a night with his mouth is
worth something. The attraction is great
ly enhanced in district where the people
are in ardent sympathy with the lecturer,
and have been led by the press agent to
peieve that they will hear something they
never heard before.
AS to the lecture itself IL has TO be said
that, although 1t seems to have been received
with something like rapture by the en-
thusiastic people who paid dollar to hear
1t and meant to make themselves think
they were getting their moneys worth it
did not fulfill the expectations aroused by
the press agent. 1t is not at all in the
nature of "a bugle call for the campaign
OF 1900, as advertised. 1t. was, on the con-
trary quite commonplace essay on what
he said he had been especially impressed
with during the last few years, "the power
OF an idea" And the idea he had been
especially impressed with was 1.-The indif-
ference of citizens to the great problems of
government" He introduced it in these
| words: MY only purpose is to leave with
you some thoughts in connection with a
subject very near to my heart, in the hope
that these thoughts will awaken them
selves in your minds. and that this activ-
ity in your minds will lead you to better
citizenship" Not stirring eXordium.
| surely, but a very striking reminder of the
train-end speeches of the campaign, in
which he almost invariably started out to
give his hearers something to think Of but
somehow the train always pulled out be-
fore he got to it.
Without dwelling upon "the indifference
of citizens to the great problems of govern
ment," which he announced as his theme,
and which was probably borne in upon him
by the manifest indifference of a large ma
jority of citizens to his solution of the
great problems of government, he ambled
up to his old story Of class legislation and
the discomfort 1t produces, and proceeded
to rehash his train-end speeches, threshing
the old straw of masses and Glasses
all over again. 1t was his stump speech
made over into a lecture He said one
new thing, however, which was that he
used to think the word fanatic" a harsh
term, but changed his mind after he was
able to define 1t himself. "a fanatic" he
says, as one who thinks so deeply upon
certain subjects as to make himself a nuis-
ance to everybody who doesn't think as
deeply on that subject as he does" He
was evidently thinking of himself, and with
his usual self-complacency accounting for
his being a. nuisance by his being, in fact,
fanatic, who thinks more deeply than
those who consider him nuisance. There
in he makes one of his common mistakes.
If he Is a niusance-which We really do not
consider HINT ls not because he thinks
so deeply, but because he thinks he is
thinking so deeply, when in point of fact
he mistakes the operations Of his mouth
for intelligent mental processes. Mr.. Bry-
an fools himself with the notion that he
is deep sea diver, when he has only put
his head under water and left the rest of
himself in plain public sight to the intense
amusement of spectators.
Up to date, however, he may be counted
as a financial success on the lecture plat
form. We congratulate his manager. His
success will no doubt continue SO long as
he can find communities which like that
sort of thing. For, as Mr.. Lincoln used to
saw: For people who like that sort of
thing that is just about the sort OF thing
thew like"