The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-20
ORATORY AND HISTORY
By SAW 0YARD

Washington, July s.-(special.) )-If there had been no such publication as the Congressional Record, Canadian reef procity would have been enacted by the last Congress. and Gods patience would have been spared the present session of the Sixty-second Congress. No other pub lication in the world contains so much transformation, so much non-inforfna- ton. Abolish it, and Congress will do it's work much better than it does, and in half the time 1t takes. Such thing as buncombe speech would be left to the stump, and nobody would debate in either House who did not have something to say. Until our Congress abolishes the Record. the British house of commons will remain the first senate in the world" In England every seepch in either house of parliament worth a rap is preserved in the public pres; but with us the cant of patriotism, the error Of statecraft the mendaeity of statistics, the ridiculosity of eloquence, the hyperbole of rhetoric, and all the other fooleres and furbelows and concomitants of hum- bug and asshood remain and it makes lit
 
 Pitts and Foxes, Burkes and Gladstones, Clays and Calhouns, Websters and Pinck- neys.
 Why, it is got to be so that a speech of "three-days-h " is a moderate address in the Senate. Indeed, it some times takes LaFollette a week to tell what he knows and amplify what he does not know about matters and things. Cum- mns Is nearly as bad, and there are others. Nobody but the orator himself ever hears those speeches, and nobody but the orator and the proof-reader ever reads them. l have. long had the opinion that the greatest orator ever heard was a professor in the Senate of Mir, LaFol- lette, and am sure that Matt Carpen- ter never held the floor in that body as long as two hours But when Carpenter spoke, every one listened Nobody made a point of order that there was no quorum present, parliamentary expedient that is daily resorted to in the Senate now days However. that is a digni1ed and therefore senatorial way to flibuster, and eminently parliamentary. But abolish tho Record and we will be rid of deal of nonsense in the guse of congressional eloquence. l.. Q. c. Lamar refused to have one of his greatest efforts printed in the Record, and at least two of Frank Hurd's splendid speeches that he deliv- cred on the floor are missing therefrom
 
 In a torrential burst of eoquence and a tidal wave of ecstasy the Hon. Champ Clark delivered himself of the following apos ostrophe in a speech in the national Congress: 'The greatest calamity that has overtaken mankind since the fall of Adam was the election of Grover Cleve- land as President of the United States" or words of that import. It is rather an extravagant and an incorporate state ment, and one that would probably pro- yoke challenge from some millions of men who belong to the party of which Mir. Clark is so conspicuous and distin- guished a member. Of course. it was merely piece of hyperbole-sound. fury, nothing-called forth. doubtless. by some exigepcy more seeming than real.
 But it is not of Grover Clevelands s cleo tion I would write,, but of his defeat, and in my poor opinion that was an event simply stupendous for the calamities that succeeded The campaign of 1888 was unskillfully and improvidently managed. There were knaveries and treacheries practiced. Attempts were made to carry Michigan that should have been directed to saving New York, where Quay played with Tammany and the other democratic heifers. F .4ls.
 Had Cleveland heen reelected in 1888 the Mills tariff would have been enacted. Instead. we had the Mckinley tarif1. which was a revision up Had Cleve- land been reelected the purchasing clause of the Bland-Allison silver law would have been repealed Instead. we had the sherman silver law that diluted the cur 1 rency with 5,0O0.oO0 silver dollars monthly and put everything but the United States | treasury on the silver basis. Had Clevc- l land been reelected, no annual pension l appropriation would have amounted to as ] much as $iOo,0Oo GOO and thus enough OH that account alone would have been saved