The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1908-07-02

OAOoC olICAIlOlA was dlW dyo SllOWH W
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 man
is he?" and not what are the issues?"
And SO the orators scared in and out
of the issues like 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 flight does in the air above
the rivers current.
But they were watching him, and
shrewdly or otherwise making nm
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. It was
usually based on a strictly scientific
degree of accuracy 1t started from
self-evident and bitterly contested con-
clusion, 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 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
eze of flowery defamation and talk
about the practical benefits to be de-
rived by a party victory THE thir.
teen struggling colonies were all
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 the
victory was gained, and what there
was in it for them"
The business and professional men
of the ward followed their callines
on precisely the same plan. They,
also, were looking in their line for pc
cuniary rewards and emolument. Yet
they sneered at the politicians. What
difference did it make to fellow who
was out of place in the city col
lector's office, whether a measure of
public policy smacked of Hamiltonian.
ism or Jeffersonianism? What he
wanted was the job. So a great deal
Of the local political oratory was prac-
tical to degree.
At the political banquets, however,
the real oratory was supposed to be
uncorked, and we always attended
these banquets, usually at from three
to five dollars "a throw" or a plate,
as the more polite termed it, But the
science of after-dinner speaking
prandial oratory, as it is called, is
largely dependent upon eXtraneous
and particularly as to the
state of receptivity on the part of the |
audience. After a man has drunk, !
say two or three glasses of sauterne,
4 couple of glasses of claret, and four
Dr. Ave or eleven glasses of cham
Dagne, he is usually in very uncriti-
,al condition. And almost any /
1owery bunk" goes with him as some
hing grand.
But just let man stick to little
I'D aqua pura" all during the banquet;
ct him up-eud his glass and say:
'Nay,g nay, Pauline" to the teetering
waters who hover near with the Bac-
,hanalian fluids, and what change
S there, my country-men," in his
Judgment of the post-prandial slush
hat is ladled out to him. The Joe