The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-07-02
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT

Nho has not sat under some speaker whose
niSGClated tones charmed the ear whose grace of
ueiiFcIy d'lShted the eye whose rounded sentences
seemed like the grand sweep Of majestic river aud
VINO SWayed his audience, captivating it's Judgment
overcoming its prejudices melting it to tears or
thrilling it with high ideals, and felt that this IS
oratoly; that this man is orator? And then on
the morrow, still thrilling with the sensations he
provoked on the previous evening you have sat down
to read the verbatim report of the great address as
printed IN the morning paper and to your astonish-
ment, found it fat where it fOamed when you heard
It, Vapd where it had thrilled you and here
ana thefe sentence unacceptable in it's garb of
cold, unimpassiOned voiceless type And who has
not sat and idgeted as some other speaker droned
through an address in monotonous tones in grace
less posture, repelng your attention and distracng
your mind from his thought by the irritation of his
repellant personality. And then you wonder as Won
read the same address in print how you failed to
catch its beauties; how its eloquent periods so ut
terly failed thrill you when they fell from his
lips as they do now when you read them set in the
impressive type.
If for sixty years the youth of this country have
firmly believed that we have had one real orator.
that one was Daniel Webster Not only have they
learned this by tradition but generations of them
have cOnned in their readers extracts from that
Reply to Hayne," and countless thousands of them
have acclaimed from school rostrums it's defense Of
Massachusetts and it's magnificent peroratfon.
Among the potent forces that sent Northern
boys into the army to light for the preservation of
the Union must be reckOned the thrilling sentences
of the speech for liberty and union now and for
ever, one and inseparable" Who estimate the
force or the extent of the sentiments with which that
grand close of grand speech had inspired the boys
of the North, and who of them recall the
thrill with which he read it in his class heard
a fellow pupil decline it of Friday afternoon? And
still Daniel Webster spoke to the senate the
words either of that valiant defense of his adopted
state or that majestic close. Senator Hoar, in the
current Scrfbners prints the speech actually made
by him. as taken down in shorthand by Gales and
as revised by Webster into the form with which we
familiar One shares with the senator the feet
ing of shock at this revelation chagrn the greater
because of the immense difference in diction III
sweep of thought and in true oratory between the
literal and the revised versions The reads fat.
platitudnous, spiritless; the other with
majestic flow of the Mississippi at full tide.
And still all contemporaneOus accounts agree
to the wonderful eloquence and striking power OF
lis real speech He held senate spelbOund that
was remarkable for its orators The doctrine of right
of secession got from him that day a harder blow
than Jackson struck in his famous naturalization
toast. And yet did Websters fame orator in
this day rest upon nothing better than the literal
speech he made he would have to be ranked among
the lesser lights of Oratoly Of that day. That he
was eloquent, that he orator, his revised
version plainly shows, but it must have been some
other quality than his thought, something i'll the
man, his manner, his appearance his delivery, his
personality that entirely apart from his thought,
gave his hearers the impression that he was OF
natures gifted sons.