The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-08-23

Restricted Territory.
 Every year the American Llterar
 Bureau was in receipt of numerous let
 tars from its Western correspondent
 begging for a lecture by Henry War
 Beeoher, writes Charles Mumford, il
 Talent. Send us Beecher" wv,
 must have Beecher" twill pay biz
 money for Beecher. ."-These and simi
 lar beseechments were daily incidents
 before and after the opening of eacf
 season. Tn the fall of 1873 they were
 exceptionally frequent and importunate
 MT Beecher was in the zenith of his
 power and frame, yet his personality
 was unknown beyond very restricted
 Territory. In most of the large West
 ern cities he never had set his foot
 In later years, under the management
 of Major Pond, he lectured in every
 considerable town between the two
 oceans, but at the time this tour was
 undertaken it might almost have been
 said his face had not been seen west of
 the Alleghenies since his mental and
 moral stature assum those gigantic
 proportions that made him the most
 conspicuous figure of his time, Partly
 from causes extraneous to this article
 and partly because hero worship al- ways yields something to familiarity, MT. Beecher shrank rceptibly after 1873, but for years before that time,
 when he was often heard from, but
 seldom seen outside of Brooklyn, he
 breath d an atmosphere all his own. Only they who lived then and were old enough to take an interest in the worlds affairs can realize to what an exaltation of pre-eminenc h was lift q by public acclaim. There were other giants in those days, but none that doomed so tall. When he moved among the crowd on the street always with his eyes ahead never upon those whom he met, every one turned to look, and the man nearest to him whispered in an awe-stricken way to the passing stran- ger, there goes Beecher." Although far from old. he was advancing in years; his bodily habit suggested that his end was likely to be sudden; 1t might occur any day, and western men felt that they themselves could not die comfort ably until they had listened to the matchless orator who had impressed his countrymen as one almost more than mortal.
 Tn pursuance of its duty to correspon- dents, the bureau had sent to MT. Beecher with each recurrent season very urgent letters persuading him no longer to turn deaf ear to the calls of Qfs Western admirers. but nothing had been able to move him. It was his GUS tom not to reply to such letters. but to leave it to be inferred that the thing was mpracticable-one of the cases where silence was not consent After waiting a little while for possible in- tirnation that he would consider the project of a Western tour-often with out waiting at all, so improbable was a favorable anJNSer deemed-the bureau l would send it's regrets to applicants, | with the assurance that Mir. Beecher was positively out of the question.
 As the season of 1S79-'74 approached, bringing It's unusually large budget of l demands, 1t was resolved to make Mir l3eecher an offer that would carry him off his feet if anything could should 1t prove intellectual the bureau would cease from troubling him. The offer was $10000 for two weeks of time-a sum it would take the President of the United States more than two months to earn. No such offer for lectures had ever been made to anybody up to that time, and no such offer has been made and accepted by anybody since.
 After launching this financial the bureau dismissed the matter from mind, having as little ex- pectation of acceptance; as hitherto hence great excitement reigned in the office when the mail brought a reply from MT. Beecher-the first letter the bureau had ever received from him saying that he had special need just then of little more than S10,000, and that if the offer were changed to SIP 900 and all expenses, he would give three weeks instead of two, only stipulating that he be brought home by the a. m. of the third Saturday that he might1 have time to rest and prepare for Sun day. This would make the tour con sist Of seventeen nights, five more nights for the additional s2,OO0 and expenses. Although it did not prove so In the end this proposal was thought at the time to be little more favor able to the bureau than the one made to Mir Beecher, the only question being whether there were seventeen cities hat could be reached an consecutive nights that could afford to pay the foe that must be asked for a lecture.
 Mr Beecher's letter invited one of the bureau managers to his summer home at Peekslill for a conference, the result being a contract embodying the terms named in the letter. The business end 'f the bargain, so far as MT. Beecher was concerned, was referred to the late John T. Howard of Brooklyn. , It was seen that the first and last lights of the tour must be placed in and New York respective y, territory where MT. Beecher was lot so great a novelty, he having made occasional featuring trips that far from home, Also, his pulpit was within ,