Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1908-07-02

Close attention was always shown to
the mayoralty and aldermanic candi-
dates and to no one else. And what
the audience was always trying to
figure out was what kind of a nan
is he?" and not what are the issues?"
And so the orators scared in and out
Of the issues like a swallows flight
above a river, and their analysis of the
| questions of the day left as much an
impression on their hearers minds as
the birds fight does in the air above
the rivers current.
But they were watching him, and
shrewdly or otherwise making up
their minds as to his sincerity, his
| courage, his honesty and his general
ability to fill the office he was seek
ing, The main issue was always some
thing that no one, not even the origi-
majors of it, really understood. 1t was
usually based on a strictly scientific
degree of accuracy. 1t started from
~self-evident and bitterly contested con-
c%lusion, and arrived in a labyrinth of
contradiction from which there was
no outlet. The celebrated traction is
sue, for instance, was one on which
several campaigns were fought, and
no honest man ever really pretended
to understand it The question had
as many angles to it as three-cushion
carom billiards, and as fast as one
perfect solution to the puzzle was Of
fered, something would bob up that
would change the status of affairs and
make it as much of a mystery as be-
fore.
The main uses Of campaign oratory
in the wards was to enthuse the work.
ers, to get the "hustlers' in the vari.
GUS precincts busy in getting out the
votes. To do this required that the
speaker descend from the high trap
exc of fiowery defamation and talk
about the practical benefits to be de
rived by a party victory. THE thir
teen struggling colonies were al
right in their place, but that was
several years back, and what the
workers wanted to hear about was the
patronage to be distributed, the pos
!, sibility of jobs and positions when thu
+ victory was gained, and what Their
4 was in it for them"
o The business and professional mel
of the ward followed their calling
A on precisely the same plan. They
/, also, were looking in their line for pc
cuniary rewards and emolument. Ye
they sneered at the politicians. Wha
G difference did it make to a fellow VIII
a was out of a place in the city co
~lector's Office, whether a measure Q
public policy smacked of Hamiltoniar
, ism or Jeffersonianism? What h
d wanted was the job. So a great dea
C of the local political o atory was prat
n tical to a degree.
S At the political banquets, howeve'
the real oratory was supposed to b
n u%ncorked, and we always attende
v these banquets, usually at from thre
o. to five dollars "a throw" or a plat,
Il as the more polite termed 1t. But tn
o science of a~fter-dinner speaking-pos
r. prandial oratory, as it is called,
largely dependent upon %extraneou
# conditions; and particularly as to tn
state of receptivity on the part of tn
II audience. After a man has DRUM
say two or three glasses of sautern'
a couple of glasses of claret, and for
or five or eleven glasses OF chan
4 payne, he is usually in a very uncrit
cal condition. And almost an
q lowery bunk" goes with him as som
thing grand.
But just let a nan stick to "littl
N old aqua pura'' all during the banquet
let him up-end his glass and say
. NAY, nay, Pauline" to the teeterir
walters who hover near with the Ba
chanalian fluids, and what a chanl
is there, my country-men," in h
!" Judgment Of the post-prandial slus
I. that Is ladled out to him. The y
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