The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1909-11-04
The Ten-Year-Lone Dream That Made
lnqersotI Famous

Any standard American encyclopedia
or biographical dictionary will tell you
tina Colonel Bob" Ingersoll was one
of Americas most famous orators.
certain 1t Is that in many respects
lngerson stands out as the greatest
orator America has yet produced.
Emotionally, this is SO, and as a
Shakespearean orator, so called, it is
generally conceded that none has
aqualled him. He, too, possessed the
rare gift of putting that elusive some-
ming into his periods that make them
Send thrills along ones backbone when
they are dead, as they did when their
creator delivered them with all the
power Of his magnificent eloquence and
personality. Few, very few, of the
worlds famous orations so arouse the
| blood when they are scanned on the
printed page.
AS everybody familiar with Inger-
solPs career knows, he gained national
fame through his "Plumed Knight
speech. The day before he delivered
name was on the lips OF the country.
But not until now has it been told how
.ngersoll came to conceive his master
piece, how he built 1t up sentence by
sentence through a period Of years, and
then, to please his brother, clinciled his
hold on fame by writing 1t down in a
few minutes.
One Memorial day. two or three
years after he had begun the practice
Of law in New York city, Colonel In
gerson stood on a corner watching the
veterans Of the civil war as they
marched past the reviewing stand.
There We're tears in his eyes as he
looked upon the old soldiers, and turn
ing to me he repeated the opening SEN
tence of his justly celebrated Memorial
day address, which you can see en-
craven in rome in the National ceme-
terry at Arlington: THE past rises be-
fore me like a dream" He saw, almost
as vividly as he had seen in the days
Of the war itself. the soldiers on their
march, rallying to the attack, charging,
falling, dying for their country.
AS he walked away in my company
after the procession had passed I Ask
I'd him If it We're true that he wrote his
famous "Plumed knight" speech at
about midnight one night, as had been
incidentally reported.
Selling my arm and moving slowly
through Madison Square, Colonel In
gersoll said:
That story is partly correct. But
the real truth is that I was 10 years
writing that speech. I had been a
great adnlirer Of James G.. Blaine from
the time he was first a member Of
congress. l thought he was a typical
American and would make q great
president. I pictured to myself Blaine
In political action. He often fasci-
IN ~ L saw Illl SlIllIlS III
the hair Of the speaker Of the House
Of Representatives. Every now and
then a thought would come to me in
which I expressed to myself my ideas
and my ideal OF Blaine.
Il went to the republican national
convention Of 1875, at Cincinnati, In the
company Of my brother. We shared a
parlor n had two bedrooms at the
hotel. My brother knew that / had
been asked to place Blaine in nomi-
nation. He became very nervous be-
cause l did not sit down and write out
my speech. He was continually prod
ding me to do this, but l put him off.
But I was really writing that speech
all the time, mentally. I composed
part of it on the railway train on the
way to Cincinnati. All the ideas that
had come to me from time to time re-
speeding Blaine / mentally gathered
preston Of my thought.
"On the evening Of the day before
the nominating speeches were to be
made my brother said to me: Bob, you
nave got to write that speech before
you go to bed
"'All right I said, TIL write 1t this
evening" So, a little before midnight ]
took my pen and nix and two or three
sheets of paper and wrote out the
was in my mind, what I had been years
writing. You know. that is the way
Webster prepared his famous reply to
Hayne. After I had don that I went
to bed and was soon sound asleep. I
simply did 1t to please my brother, and
that Is the way what they call the
Plumed knight speech was put down
on paper at midnight in 10 minutes"
copyright, 1909, by E.. J.. Edwards.)