Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1916-06-18
CONVENTION ORATORS.

We have Just had downpours Of
oratory ut Chicago and st. Louis, and
the deluge soon will be upon the
whole country. The keynote speeches
were chiefly remarkable for the me-
chanleal labor bestowed upon them.
Senator Harding resorted to the an
olent and now generally discarded de-
vice OF ALTERATION. Former Governor
Glynn, at ST. Louis, devoted his ener-
giles TO hyperbole, smile ana sopho-
morlc rhetorical flowers.
As keynoters, Giynn was better than
Harding, which Is not very high
praise. Either keynoter might have
done much better without making II
lasting reputation in the field OF
political oratory
But 1t was the nominating speeches
that shone Carlyle never dreamed
of such heroes az were fashioned By
those nominating speeches. The die
tionarles OF phrase and fable and ev-
cry psalm Of praise were searched for
periods and peans The parts Of
speech were thrown about as reck-
lessly as drunken sailor scatters his
money when ashore. The orators
didn't care how they spent words.
Here, for example. Is how orator
NJ Il. olbrch presented senator La
Toilette:
In all the galaxy of gallant cap
tains pressing forward to command,
Wisconsin's champion alone meets
In fun the exacting measure Of this
hour OF earth's greatest extremity,
when America must not, dare not,
| fail"
II is quite safe to say that none
Of the orations at Chicago ana st.
Louis viii live in literature In fact
when one thinks of the number of
keynotes that have been sounded ana
the nominating speeches that have
been made in the national conventions
of the two old parties, It is rather a
shock to find How few Of them have
any place today In the literature OF
oratory.
The speech of lngersoll, nominating
Blaine IN 1876, still lives. Ingersoll
at that time had little more than n
local reputation for oratory. II was
only after considerable maneuverinR
that the Blaine managers consented
to entrust the job TO him. But he
had not spoken two minutes before he
had the convention by the ears, and he
nearly created stampede to the man
from Maine when he doomed
Like an armed warrior, like a.
| plumed knight. James G. blaine has
! marched down the halls of the
American congress ana has thrown
! his shining lance full and fair against
the brazcu forehoads of the defamers
OF his country ana the maligners OF
! its honor"
I Another nominating speech that
has lived was the one in which Ros-
ooe Conkling nominated Grant, IN
1880. for third term. Conkiing was
| always theatrical. He rushed down
the aisle OF the convention hail,
sprang upon the table at which the
/ reporters were seated kicking aside
their ink-wells and copy paper for
which they cursed him roundly and
audibly, and began his speech with
the couplet which was its keynote:
III you ask me where he came from,
my sole reply shall me,
That he came from Appomattox, and
the famous apple tree"
The couplet sounds tame enough at
this distance from the civil war and
from L. S. Grant. hut Conkling was
a master declaimer; and away went
the convention. and the standards OF
the states supporting Grant followed
that OF New York in the parade
around the hall
Yet neither the speech OF lnger-
soil, nor that Of Conkllng, nominated
Its candidate The same was true of
the really celebrated speech OF James
A, Garfield when he used all OF his
masterful oratory in 1850, in placing
John sherman Ia nomination. The
convention turned from sherman, as
it turned from Grant and nominated
Garfield, which Sherman believed to
his dying day was what Garfield in
! tended
Thus OF all the nominating oratory
three speechds~ lngersoll's in 1876
and Conkllng's and Garfield's in 1850
alone live as worthy Of preserva-
! ton IN the literature of oratory.