Evening star., 1915-02-21

MNl||!!!g!!!!!''!!!!!!!:: r. + y: y: ::
.xx.l H - this little joke
|:F last night?
your lecture is not to be until aceek from tonight"
@Then I am afraid we shall have to get my astral
body to work." said I; "for week from tonight I
shall be at Hiawatha, Kansas How do you propose
to have the lecture deivered-by long distance tele
phone, parcel post?"
We gazed into each others eyes for moment, and
then-we both laughed 1t seemed the only thing do.
Gallantry forbids my saying which of us had made
the mistake under the terms of the written contract
Suffice it to say that months later l returned
that good little town, and received like conquer
ing hero by audience that its coriaty than
compensated for the distressing effects of "un-
lectured lecture"
WHAT promised to be a more serious complication
occurred about month later in Florida, where
in pursuance of instructions from my Southern
gers l arrived at Daytona Monday, to open the
fourishing Chautauqua Course, which has become a
permanent feature of life at that attractive Southern
resort The seriousness of the situation grew out of
the quality of the genius and the nature of the popular
ity of the other individual involved, who less
parsonage than the Hon. William Jennings Bryan.
Any minor star in the platform armament who comes
into collision with the planetary splendor of this Mon
arch of Modern Loquacty has about much chance
of escaping unscathed a tallow-dp would have in
a passage at with the itself
There is escaping the fact that Mr.. Bryan is the
idol of the Chautauqua Circuit and it is equally
that every bit of the he has achieved therein
he has earned many times l am not, have
been, and possibility of my becoming,
devotee of Mr. Bryans political fortunes but plat
form speaker he is far and away the most brilliant and
ikabe personality in the public eye today He is as
expert playing upon the emotions of audience large
s1nal-preferably large-as Dudley Buck in
the manipulation of the keys and stops of organ and
he at will strike chords in the human heart
searchingy appealing any produced by an Elman or
a Kreisler the violin, Paderewsk at the piano.
The keynotes of his platform work absolute sin
certy and magnetic humanness that irresistible,
and no individual who has listened to him in
tiers outside of political controversy however reluctant
to admit his greatness has failed fall beneath the
winning spell of man, matter, and method. He is
good man, and has greater number of points of
tact with the general of humanity than any other
public speaker of today. 1t is stimulating thing to
know that in this line of human endeavor he has got
his reward in the assured position he holds in
at which it is the fashion in uninorrned and
cynical quarters to sneer, but which point of fact
has had suprenely awakening effect upon the Amer
people, and for which all of the better off
"Al of which" as friend of mine once put it after
had expressed myself in similar terms concerning Mr.
Bryan, "is tribute for minded hide
bound bigoted old standpat reactionary antedluvian
Republican to pay hated rival"
l frankly appalled, arriving at Daytona to
find the town placarded from end to end with posters
Continued page IL