The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-05-28
PRESIDENTS AND oRAToRY.


Icrops up along the line of his travels
land the answer varies according to the
notion one. has Of what oratory means.
IT did in respect to the public speech
LOT previous Presidents. Was Harrison
an orator? Was Cleveland an orator?
Was Mckinley an orator? These ma
tfonaI leaders never travelled during
their terms of office without this ques-
ton being raised, usually without other
result than a heated controversy.
Those who complain about the way
Presidents express themselves while
swinging round the circle" are apt
to Judge oratory by its sound. They
cling to the old spread-eagleism, some
excellent types of which are given be-
low in the form of extracts from an
time brochure on American politics:
Mr. Chairman. sir, crisis has arrived
in the affairs of our nation. That crisis.
sir, is fast approaching-and sir, when
it does come, when the laundering peal
of the public voice shall be heard
through the ballot boxes. like the fork
eQ Viz 49,
penetrabIe clouds of heaven, let it
speak, sir, a language which cannot be
mistaken. Our country is on the verge
of ruin; our constitution, that blessed
instrument which, like flaming sword
protects US from danger. ir about to be
sacrificed TO the tyrannysof those who
have sworn to guard it from invasion
our rights are about to be trampled in
the dust; our liberties are about to be
subverted-nay. sir, I had almost said, |
to be overturned. and we ourselves. I'M
less the head of the monster is crushed,
will be inundated upon the procrustean |
bed of unhaIlowed outlawry."
The Middle West rises as one man to |
oratory like this and that is the reason
why the crisp talk of President Roose-
yelt-those ''saber-cuts of Saxon |
speech'-did not entertain them so
much as the ponderous soothsaying of
PETER used to do. Indeed, a fayorite
orator of the Middle West was the man
who said: "Mr. Chairman, government
was formed for the protection of in
dividuals, and individuals for the pro-
lection of government; and, in the orig
NAL formation of society. Adam was
placed alone in Paradise, with Eve for
his companion" And after this airy
he went on to say: "Mr.
Chairman. we conjure the insulted
majesty of this recumbent nation, Sc
cure in the purity of its unrivaled in
egrity, to arise in the native dignity of
splendor, and hurl from
power the base invader Of our rights, {
Who. not content with aiming death
,low at the perpetuity of our institu- (
ions, is seeking to consummate his I'M l
leard of treachery by the utter ami
liIation OF republican existence"
Roosevelt would not say anything like e
his If he could, and could not be elect /
d President if he should. &
There are three kinds of oratory, the /
east valuable of which is the demon 6
Itrative: and there are two schools :
which, in ancient times were called the
]iceronian and Demosthenian. When !
cicero spoke, people sauntered from his
presence saying: What a polished {
but when Demosthenes spoke
hey ran shouting LET us fight against
The one was the oratory of
ound. the other was the oratory of /
of conviction. The one
harmed the ear, the other swayed the
the one pleased, the {
ther carried all before it. OF the two !
chool the Demosthenian owes least to
races and the most to mind.
Oratory must be judged by its prac-
zeal results. If the speaker noulds the
udience to his way Of thinking, per-
uades it to do this or that, forms pub T
&c sentiment as he wills, it does not
natter if his delivery is as bad as that
( the late T. De Witt TaImage, his =
ducation as neglected as was Patrick
Ienry's, his vocabulary as weak as is
,enis Kearney' She is still the orator.
IN the other hand if the speaker can
My titillate the ear, his oratory is of
low type that 1t almost becomes =,
In the higher sense Mckinley was an Z
rator and Roosevelt is one. What :
hey have said becomes history in its =,
ext analysis. But neither ever tore q :
assion to tatters nor attuned his
words to the sound rather than to the
ense.
If Judge Grosscup of Chicago succeeds
n breaking up the beef trust he will :