The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-10-29
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1897.
SENATOR HOAR ON CHARLIE
SUMMER

tor Charles sumner. In some respects
the late senator was the most note
worthy public man that New England
has had since Daniel Webster. He was
m intense abolitionist, but we believe
y thoroughly honest man, and because
he was fanatical. He has been dead for
more than 20 years, and the finest. the
most eloquent, the most scholarly eulo-
~ yet pronounced upon him was by
that Very distinguished, admirable.
honest, able and high-strung s%outhron.
the late United States senator and JUS
fice of the supreme court, Lamar, in
the senate on the occasion of the death
ar the gifted senator from Massachu-
aetts. It is one OF the most memora-
lie. most superb addresses OF its kind
delivered in the senate within our rec
election.
A life of Sumner in -four large vol
4mes has been published, but we have
not seen it. Senator HOar's contribu-
tSon is readable. He is an eulogist OF
m extreme type. For instance, he re-
yards Sumner as "the greatest Ameri-
can statesman since the revolutionary
time" which is all fudge, and no one
else will echo such an extreme view
outside of the coterie of admirers
Down East" We cannot follow the
senator in his really interesting if quite
exfravagant review Of a very distin-
guisned, accomplished and able man.
Summers orations and addresses are
capital reading, full of rhetorical pas
4Aages and not without high eloquence.
He was not a great orator in a south
ern sense, and the same may be said
of Edward Everett and even Daniel
Webster. Everett was highly rhetori-
cal but artificial and without magnet
ism. Webster was ponderous, slow,
mostly inanimate, but great intellectu-
ally and a builder of great Orations.
"Choate came nearer filling the southern
idea of Oratory than any of the lead
ers in New England, excepting per-
haps one or two rabid abolition speak
,ers.
Mr.. HOar admits that summer was
unpopular with his own cOuntrymen,
and he was not popular in the senate.
He thinks him with some qualifications
a great orator as we'll as a great a
He admits that the answer as to
whether or no he was a great orator
depends upon our conception of what
really is oratory. In hat he is cor
rect. He takes a d~epreciatory view of
published speeches Of orators. We
make a quotation:
-"If the test Of oratOry be the fulfill
ment Of the highest conditions, not
much of the production of the famous
orators of any generation will stand
she requirement. Indeed, it is all
pretty hard reading. Nobody today
reads Henry Clay or Charles James
Fox or William Pitt or much of Sher-
idan. A very few pages will contain
all Of Wendell Phillips that will re-
main long in mems emo History
has thrown away the speeches of Boil
ingbroke, and they will never be re-
covered. The ulk ever of Webster's
best speeches is read now for the
weight Of it's profound meaning, and
not for it's oratoric or literary grace"
That is not true as a whole. we
think. Fox's speeches read capitally,
If he was the greatest of English de-
baters. Some of Pitts speeches are
extremely fine and most enjoyable.
Webster's speeches are read by all who
admire admirable English-clear, mas
sive, sonorous, n filled with lofty
sentiments, and noble eloquence$ Gull
tured men everywhere must love to
read Burke, Fox, Pitt and Webster, and
for their power and dexterity and
even high eloquence. AS to Boiling
broke, much of whose four volumes of
remains we have read, there is not
n speech by him extant as he delivered
lit. We recall a remark of William
Pitts when asked-"What is the great
.aesideratum in English letters?" The
answer was-"An exact reproduction of
q speech by ~Bolingbroke."
Senator Hoar writes we'll, even felic-
ftously in his description of a per
fect orator who may be such a rarity
AS to be seen not once in a century, If
I'm a thousand years. Demosthenese
may have filled the bill" but who
else? Possibly Cicero or Aeschines.
while the truly great and grandly
gifted Edmund Burke was a dinner
beli' in parliament to empty seats
when he arose to speak, he was q con-
summate statesman and rhetorician,
and has left the world it's richest treas
ury of noble oratory. We would have
rather produced his greatest orations
than to be the author of my Of the
greatest extant orations Of the Greek
Demosthenese. His speech on the Ma
Oob of Arcot's Debts is the most
splendid effort in literature, sc far as
we have read. But Burke was a poor
speaker compared with the Athenian
We copy what Mr.. Hoar "a and il
]. cannot be applied to Senator Sumner
II ne was really a creator Of some no
: BILE speeches:
'TO be q perfect and consummate
: orator is to possess the highest facul-
sEy given to man. Such an orator mus