The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-04-05
Z. White TO
LECTURE HERE

Next Tuesday evening at s, o'clock
the Town Criers club will listen to a
very interesting lecture by John u.
White, one Of the most popular lec-
turers on the platform today. Mr..
White speaks under the auspices OF
the Henry George Lecture association.
will talk IN The Commission Sys-
tenn of Government.
1t was impossible to get a date with
Mr.. White prior to the election, but
the subject will be of interest to Far
goans whether the proposition wins or
loses Monday. If it wins Mr.. White
will talk on what Fargo may expect
from commission government, n if
it loses he will tell why it lost.
There will be a dinner by the club
at $50 and the members who expect
to attend should notify M. G. Boecher
by 9 o'clock Tuesday morning. The
general public is cordially invited to
the lecture at s o'clock. g.
The Public, speaking of Mr.. White,
says:
He is a man whose name is more
familiar than his features to thou
sands of people whom the public
reaches in the United States and
Canada, and as far as Europe and
Australia. For twenty ear Mr..
White has been a prominent leader in
Chicago, and echoes of his local repu-
tation have gone abroad. Until re-
Gently he made the propagation of his
cause his play rather than his work.
He even held aloof from the occupa-
ton hat would have best enabled him
to serve his cause and for which his
Intellectual qualities and requirements
gave him exceptional fitness. This
was not lightly done. At one time ne
studied law with the intention of
practicing. It's theories were in ac-
cord with his intellectual bent, and it's
principles and problems were attrac-
tive to his logical and philosophical
cast of mind. But his first glimpse of
the arena of actual practice repealed
him.
1t was not from the conflicts of
practice that he shrank, for he is a
born fighter, but from the p~ettifogging
and chicanery which, with varying
shades of difference as to ~politeness
of method, seemed to him to charac-
terize the whole profession, from
crude and vulgar police court practi-
TONERS all the way up to 'oleaginous
leaders in the first rank at the bar.
So Mr.. White abandoned the law
while yet a student, and withdrew to
a printing office, where he has ever
SlilSS o. iAlo living a "a rJSNAA ASS
man compositor.
But HI did not let his mind run
down in the monotony of his mechani-
cal vocation. His theoretical studies
were continued and the public life in
to which he was willingly drawn, has
afforded him ample opportunity for
that clash of mind with mind, over
practical affairs, which is necessary
to prevent such studies from degen-
Grating into idle and impracticable
dreams. The qualities so developed in
White have been the occasion of no
little establishment to men who know
nothing of him except that he is a
journeyman printer. One of these was
Lyman j. Gage, late secretary of the
treasury. Upon hearing White in ali
impromptu debate which called for
ready application of the principles Of
philosophy to rectical problems in
economies and politics, Mr.. Gage re-
marked: while journeyman printers
a think as clearly and reason as
logically On public questions as that,
we need have no fear for the future
of our country
Mr.. White is a persuasive as well as
convincing speaker. He car swing
~oratorical clubs, when occasion de-
mands it, and logical argument
naathematically adjusted in his de-
light; but he can lead as well as drive,
and when his suspicious of bad faith
are not aroused he inclines to that
course. He is not an orator as niger
soil was nor as Cochran is. His is
the .oratory of c~olloquial speech, much
the same on his feet as in a chair.
Yet he is distinctly one of the leading
orators of the United States today.
In this respect he is in a class by him
self. If he lacks in the picturesque
elements of the orators art, it more
than makes UP for it in accuracy and
strength. In the art of leading (driv-
ing When necessary his hearts from
what they know and believe In to
what they do not know or to not be-
lieve in, he has few equals. Taking
his altogether. his ideals and his
powers, Mr.. White lis the kind of man
one could wish to see on the floor of
congress when minions of p~ultocracy
are pulling at the pillars that support
the democracy of our republic.