The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1905-02-16
Witty oratory or oraorical Wit.

Some days Ego Hon. Morris Shepard.
Representative iror Texas. mace
,nost unique speech III Congress against
the present system of seed distribution.
Every body knows that the seed busl-
ness through congressman amount TO
little. But listen to tie young Texan
orator, as he describes his failure TO
get Congress back to the original ldea,
that of putting the bsst seeds only In
to the hands OF the farmers:
cit is unnecessary to say that l was
unsuccessful in the seed crusade. Gas
sandra never had a more unsyInpa
thetic audience in foreshadowing the
doom O, Troy. was prophet with
ont people, an apostle without fol-
lowing. 1t seems hat the distribution
of vegetable seeds l.: permanent IN
s:itution, an institution which it Is
sac:llese to question and madness to
oppose. As long cs the republic lives,
Senators and Congressmen will, with
the recurrert seasons, go forth to SOW,
encouraged by the 10. e that each sue
ceeding election will bring in the
s!.aaves, some an hundredfoId, some
sixtyfold, some thlrtyfold.' Laugh
ter.A The custom has the highest au-
thorisy, for in Genesis we find that Is
rael cried to Joseph, Give US seed. that
we may live, and not die, that the land
be not desolate.' daughter and APP
piause.)
II acknowledge that in the endeavor
to reform this practice ! haye for the
present failed. But, Mr.. Chairman,
the tragedies Of history compose its
most instructive chapters. The mel
al choly note that rises from the harp
Of time IS proof that in the sum OF
mems sctivitles failure overbalances
success and grief counterpolses joy.
For every Socrates there is the hem
lock, for every Oedipus the Theban
gate, for every Caesar the Ides OF
March, and fer every seed reformer a
unanimous opposition. daughter and
applause.).
Il know that the daughters of Pie
Jus, who challenged the MUSES. to a
war of song and thrilled Parnessus
with contending melody, were stripped
0. human form and attribute. know
tt at Nlobe, asserting for her children
d loneliness outrivaling divinity, Of
tended heaven and, witnessing the de-
struct,on OF her offspring by the wrath
divine, was changed to stone, and
through all time remains genius OF
woe, patroness OF tears. I know that
ISlon boosted of the love of Hera and
n ct doom so horrible that the world
still shudders at its mem DRY.
81 know that the fathers of man
kind, speaking a universal language
and flourishlng beneath the especial
favor OF Jehovah, began the construct
icn OF a tower On which they hoped to
stand, the equals and companions OF
Onnipotence, and that there fell upon
them a confusion of tongues from
which the race has not to-day recover
ed is admitted. l know that Pharaoh
pursued departing Israel, and entering
the pathway God had severed through
the sea found in the rejoining waters a
prison and a grave.
81 know that Godfrey, Raymond
Tancred. Robert, duke of Normandy
a2d Hugh of Vermando!s, and the
Other lights of chivalry and models OF
romance, led millions to the succor Of
the cross, and, after centuries of unex.
ampled valor and prlvation, left dead
unnumbered from the Danube to the
Nile and failed to drive the Moslem
from the sepulchre OF Christ. l know
that Rienzi, last of tribunes, rising
from that humble tavern on the Tiber
gaining supremacy through the peo-
pies confidence, subduing the Orsinsis
ard Colonnas, reestabIished domestic
tranquility and foreign peace, and
drifted into tyranny more oppressive
than that he had destroyed, to fall a,
the hands OF the people he had liberat.
ed.
II know that Robespierre, the most
sinister contradiction of history, an
ideaIist and an assassin at heart a dis
ciple OF universal peace, in practice an
advocate OF universal murder, pointing
one hand to the God of love and with
the other to the gulllotine, attempting
to turn the course of revolution to his
own advantage and persisted amid the
jsers OF the convention that had feared
and the populace that had adored him
Il know that Don Quixote charged
The windmill on the plain OF Aragon
aud encountered disaster as overwhelm-
ing as it was ludicrous. (Laughter) 1
know that Saucho Panza, beneath whose
mountainous proportions the faith
:ul Dapple ambled into Immortality,
administered with credulous solemnity
the fictitious government of Barataria
and has become q favorite subject for