The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1900-09-22

America and in the world reached ITS
high-water mark in the Lincoln Doug
las debates, which filled the world
with their acclaim and which co.sti-
tuted the preface to "The Bloodtest
Chapter In the Book of Time"
Barring the historic interest of those
debates and the results appertain NJ
to them. l doubt very much If two
such intellectual Tftans, so unlike in
mental equipment, and vet, consider.
ing their tout ensemble, so evenly
matched, ever did or ever will, any
more forever, engage in the luxury of
stump debate. That series of stump
debates marked an epoch in our an.
nails.
The ideal stump speaker posses ses
Il commanding presence, wealth of
learning, power of statement. ready
wit, abundant humor, capacity for re-
partee, leonine courage, personal mar.
netism, persuasive eloquence, unfail.
ing good nature, inexhaustible pa.
thence, honesty of purpose, the cour-
age OF his convictions, adaptability to
circumstances and perfect tact, Above
all, he must be able to read the human
face divine.
Such a. man is Irresistible. He
sways the multitude as with a maci-
clans wand. He appears among men
only ut rare intervals, and when he
does appear he fails of the presidency
'of the .reppblic-the goal of all Ameri-
can statesmen-the Ultima Thule, the
ne plus ultra of human ambition-if
he fail at .all-simply because the lin.
ltations of time and human endurance
do not permit him to speak to enough
people to. control a majority of votes
in the electoral college.
Perhaps Henry Clay came as near
to being the ideal stumper as any man
that ever lived, and the reasons WHY
he failed to reach the White House
were that he was pitted against the
most popular and successful military
chieftain of that age in his earlier con-
tests, and that he could not see, shake
hands with and personally address tile
majority Of his fellow-cltizens in his
later races.
The first spellbinders of note that l
ever saw We're General Thomas r
Bramlette, candidate for governor of
Kentucky, and Colonel John Marshall
Harlan, now Mr. Justice Harlan of the
supreme court of the United States
then candidate for encouragement of
the Dark and Bloody Ground" That
was in 1868.
General Brnmlette also possessed
the first pair of eyeglasses (hooked on
the nose without ear straps that l
ever saw. He was widower, in the
very prime of life-a large, handsome.
courtly, ,dignilicd gentleman. When he
arose to speak he adjusted his glas ses
upon his aquiline nose, looked at the
audience with bland smile and said:
hoI'S AAlC w Ill llOt cOllSlueI
my heart as old as my eyes are"
thought then and think now that that
was one Of the neatest mots ever ut
tered.
Judge, Harlan was quite a young
man then, but his intellectual superior.
ity to his chief was perfectly apparent
even to-, me. though only "a chunk of
Il boy. So. when l went home that
night with my youthful noggin chock
full of politics, Intercepted my
father as to why Harlan was not run
ming for governor and Bramlette for
general.
l was in my salad days and was
green enough to suppose that merit
and merit alone was the foundation
for political rank. What an ideal but
unreal world had been living in uD
to the morning when l saw and heard
Brnmlettc and Harlan! My father, iii
Il kindly way. explained to me how
accident, geography. management.
manipulation and mex
orable necessity sometimes-indeed
not infrequently-crowd the superior
man to the rear or squeeze him clear
out of the game and force the inferior
one to the front, and how the latter
may be the vOte-getter I was Olsen
chanted. The scales fell from my eyes
as suddenly as they fell from those of
Saul of Tarsus as he journeyed from
Jerusalem down to Damascus.
1t was my first lesson in politics and
1t was bitter. Somehow I wish new.
or had bene disillusi0nized. l still
grieve over the destruction Of my boy.
ish ideal and would rchabilitate it If
| could. Sweet are the delusions of
youth. Sometimes, even now, amuse
myself by going over the list of presi.
dents and figuring on how much the
average might have been raised by
for the weak ones the
greatest men of the parties to which
they belongcd-hy changing men. not
politics..
For example. put Henry Clay In
place of the elder Harrison, Thomas
II. Benton in place of james X. Polk,
Daniel Webster in place of Zachary
Taylor and Willard Fillmore. Steph
\. Douglas in place Of Franklin PIERCE
and James Buchanan. James G.
Rlninn In nlnca nf Rnfhnrfnrd y