The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-07-21
some FAMOUS ORATORS
SENATOR HOAR's INTERESTING
MEMORIES OF GREAT SPEAKERS.
Eccentric Ruins Choate's Effective
Methods-Everett Placed in
the Front Rank.

Scribner's Magazine.
II heard Rufus Choate a great many
times. / heard nearly all the speeches
given in Browns Life and heard him
a great many times at the bar, both be-
fore juries and the full court. He is the
only advocate I ever heard who had the
imperial power which would subdue an un-
willing and hostile jury. His power over
them seemed like the fascination of a
bird by a snake. OF course. he couldn't
do this with able judges, although all
judges who listened TO him would, 1 think,
agree that he was as persuasive a reason
er as ever lived. But with inferior magis-
trates and juries. however intelligent, how
ever determined they were in a made
up opinion, however or their guard against
the charmer, he was almost irresistible.
There are very few important cases re-
corded that Choate lost. Non %Supplex, sed
magister aut dominus videTetur esse judi
cum.
"Choate's method was pure persuasion.
He never appealed TO base motives. nor
tried to awaken coarse prejudices or
stormy passions. He INDUCED in no in
vective. His wit and sarcasm and ridicule
amused the victim almost as much as II
amused the bystander. He had the suav-
iloquentia which Cicero attributes TO Cor
nelius. There was never a harsh note in
his speech.
"Latrantur enim jam quidam o~ratores,
non loquntur.'
When he was confronted by some gen.
eral rule or some plain fact he had q
marvellous art of subtle distinction. He
showed that his client or witness or prop
osition belonged to a class of itself. He
invested it with a distinct and intense
personality. He held up his fact or his
principle before the mind of the court and
the jury. He described and pictured it.
He brought out in clear relief what dis
tinguished it from any other fact or propo-
sition whatever. If necessary, he would
almost have made a jury, before ne was
through, think the Siamese twins did not
look alike, and possibly that they never
could have been born OF the same parents.
He had a voice without any gruff or any
shrill tones. 1t was like a sweet, yet pow
erful flute. He never strained IL or seemed
10 exert II 10 Its fullest capacity. i do not
know any other public speaker whose style
resembled his in the least. Perhaps Jeremy
Taylor was his model, if he had any model.
The phraseology with which he clothed
some commonplace or mean thought or
fact, when he was compelled to use com
mon-place arguments, or TO tell some com
mon story, Kept his auditors ever alert
and expectant. An Irishman, who had
killed mis- wife, threw away the AK with
which Chate claimed the deed was done,
when he heard somebody coming. This, in
Choates language, was THE sudden and
frantic ejaculation OF the ak" Indeed. his
speech was a perpetual surprise. Whether
you liked him or disliked him you gave him
your ears, erect and intent. He used manu-
script a great deal; even in speaking TO
juries. When a trial was on, lasting days
or weeks, he Kept pen, ink and paper at
hand in his bedroom. and would often get
up in the middle of the night TO write down
4 thoughts thai came to him as ne laV in he'd.
lie was always careful TO keep warm. 1t
was said he prepared for a great jury argu-
ment by taking off eight great coats and
drinking eight cups of green tea.
A PLEA FOR MEXICO.
/ hear now. as if still in the eager throng,
his speech in Faneuil Hall during the Next
can war. He demanded that we should
bring back our soldiers to the line We
claimed as our rightful boundary, and let
Mexico go. He said we had done enough for
glory, and that we had Inundated her
enough.
The Mexican maiden, as she sits with
her lover among the orange groves. will
sing to her guitar the story Of these times
All woe is ne. Albania for a thousand
years to come
ChOate. like. other good orators. and like
some great poets, notably Wordsworth
created the taste which he satisfied. His
ranat action, his marvellous and strange
vocabulary, his Oriental imagina ton. his
dressing the common and mean things OF
llIe WITH q poetic charm and romance. did
not at once strike favorably the taste of his
Yankee audiences. Webster and Everett
seem 10 have appreciated him from the
first. But he was. till he vindica ed his
title to he a great lawyer, rather a thorn
il the flesh of Chief Justice Shaw. of whose
CONSERVATION and amusement. caused by
the strange ngure that appeared in his
courtroom. many queer stories used to be
told. But the young men aud the people
liked him.
There is a passage of Everett's which
we'll describes Choate, and is also one of
the very best examples of Everett, who,
with all his fertility Of original genius,
borrowed so much, and so enriched and
improved everything that he borrowed.
Cicero said of Antonius:
"Omnia Veniebant Antonio i'm mentem;
eaque suo Guaeque loco. ubi plurimum
p~rohcere ct VALERIE possent. ut alb impera-
tore equities pedites Lewis armatura, sic. alb
lilo in maXume oportunis orationis patti
bus cOnlOcabantur."
Now see what Everett does with this
thought in his eulogy. spoken in Fanueil
Han. the week after Choate's death:
He is sometimes satisfied. in concise
e"pigrammatic clauses. to skirmish with his
light troops and drive in the enemy's out
posts. 1t is only on fitting occasions. when
great principles are to be vindicated and
solemn truths tOld. when some moral or
political Waterloo or SOlferino is to be
fought. that he puts on the entire panoply
o. MS gorgeous rhetoric. 1t is then that
lis majestic sentences swell 10 the dimen-
sions of bis majestic thought: then il is
that we hear afar off the awful roar of his
rihSd ordnance; ana when he has stormed
the heights and broken the center and
trampled the squares and turned the STAG
gering wings of the adversary that he
sounds his imperial clarion along the whole
lire OF battle and moves forward with all
his hosts In one Overwhelming CHARGE
5 GREAT ADVOCATE.
One of the most remarkable advocates
of my day was Sidney Bartlett. He sell
dom addressed juries and almost never
public assemblies. He was a partner of
Chief Justice Shaw before 1880. He argued
cases before the Supreme Court of the
United States and before the Supreme
Court of Massachusetts after he was nine
? ~. He cared for no other audience. He
; had a marvellous compactness of speech
and a marvellous sagacity in seeing the
turning point of a great question. He
found the place where the roads .diverged
ton and then stopped. He would argue in
ten or fifteen minutes a point where some
powerful anita gonist like Curtis or Cboate
would take hours 10 reply. ! once told him
that his method of argument was to that
OF ordinary lawyers like logarithms to ordi-
nary mathematics. He seemed pleased with
: the compliment and said: Yes. / know
I argue over their heads. The chief Justice
: told me he wished | would talk a little
longer l do not know that Bartlett ought
+, to be reckoned among orators. But he had
. a great power Of convincing and giving in
All ~ 800 "a