The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-07-30
POTABLE SPEECHES BY OLD
TIME POLITICAL ORATORS.
BY It. b. KINGsBURY
BY DIR. II. b. KINGSBURY.

unpremeditated, Mr.. Clay made an adj
dress of twenty minutes or SO, that
was most impressive. / heard in
1916, the then State Treasurer, the late
Charles l.. Hinton, of Wake, an ex-
cellent and intelligent gentleman say
that it was far more eloquent than
Mr.. Clays long speech to the great
assembly. He paid a splendid tribute
to Washington, whose portrait stood
at the back of the Speakers chair
and also spoke in terms of admira-
ton and eulogy of the late Judge Will
liam CASTOR. with whom he had serv-
ed in the United States House of Rep
resentatiyes.
In 1914 [ heard some other able
and impressive speeches. The Wings
of Granville gave a public dinner to
Senator Wiley r. Mangum, of Orange
county, who resided some twenty
miles from oxford. The dinner ana
speaking occurred in the Kyle grove,
only an hundred yards from the court
house. He spoke at much length, and
reminded me of the manner of Mr..
Clay who / had heard but five Or six
months before. In that year / heard
at the old Colonial village of Will
namsporo, in the famous Nut Bush
section of Granville county, a discus
sion between Judge Saunders and
John Kerr, afterwards member of the
United States House, and Superior
Court Judge. Saunders got a decided
victory, but Kerr was by far the
finest orator / must return to 1910,
for a moment. In September of that
year a political meeting was held in
the then just finished brick court
house. 1t was a Wing gathering to
arouse interest in the great gathering
to be at Raleigh in October, to help
carry the State for Harrison and Ty-
ler-for "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too"
Mr.; Badger made a happy, short adj
dress, and stated it was the first po-
litical speech he had ever made. 1t
was in 1914, also, that l heard at Ok
ford the discussion between Hon. Will
liam 4. Graham, Wing candidate for
Governor, and Michael Hoke, Esq, the
Democratic nominee. They were UNI
commonly handsome men, and the in
terest was profound. Some how, ac-
cording to my boyish recollection. Mr..
Hoke was thought by his friends to
have gained something of a victory
over his noble opponent. In 1846, |
heard speeches made before the State
Democratic Convention at Raleigh by
Hon. Louis ID. Henry Judge X. M.
Saunders and Duncan X. McRae. The
next week saw the Wing State Con-
vention assemble in the same hall in
the Capitol that of the Commons. 1t
was presided over by DR.. Frederick
HILL from the Wilmington section.
Mr. Henry was President of the Demo-
cratic body that preceded, and made
a bold, aggressive, eloquent speech.
Mr.. Badger made by large odds the
chief speech in the Wing Convention.
The late Judge Edwin G.. Reade, in
old age, after being in the Congress,
and having heard many speeches in
his long life, and himself a formidable
political speaker, gave it as his own
opinion that the first hour of Mr..
Badgers speech was decidedly the
very greatest he ever listened to. ]
was in my seventeenth year. and to
me it was the foremost effort to which
/ ever listened. 1t was argumentative,
sarcastic, simmering with wit and hui
NOR. was dramatic. eloquent and full
of power. Mr. Henry interrupted