The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1917-02-03

wasn't until week before their open
meeting that they finally got him. They
ran him into the society on the very
night of our own open meeting-held a
special meeting early to do it-and
then they came over in q body and lis
tened to our poor, squeaky little pro-
gram with jeers written all over their
faces.
Club and l barely existed during
that week. The thought that we had
lost so promising a young orator filled
us with deepest woe. But it wasn't
half as deep as our suspense. What if
something should jar his relations with
Adelphi. and he should really come
back to US after all? Between Shivers
of woe and quivers of fear we had no
peace at all.
On the night of the meeting we went
early in order to get good seats. well to
the rear.
The chairman took his seat amid
great applause. and after the trifing
preliminaries, such as roll call, the
reading of the minutes. and the few
parliamentary sparrings, just to show
the visitors the perfect working Of the
machinery. the Adelphi quartet took
the stage and, performed with ire
mendouS eclat.
The quartet retired after the third
encore. and then, with something Of
flourish. the chairman stepped forward
and in a few well-chosen words pre-
pared the audience for an unexpected
treat. There had come to college re-
Gently. he said. young man. unher-
aided. unknown. unconscious even OF
the great genius which he bore with
him to Siwash. He was Jonesville
youth. Kindly fortune had guided his
footsteps into Adelphi. where sterling
character and future abilities are al
And 1t has been discovered that within
this modest, blushing youth there
lurked abilities such as fixed Demos
themes permanently in history and
made the fame Of the younger Pitt
burgeon and wax forever. He was re-
ferring. he said, to the newest Adel-
phian. and one whom he predicted
might some day be the most famous
Adelphian-Mr. Mordecai Boggs, who
would now deliver the freshman ora
ton ON the subject, "Our Nations
Peril"
A great cheer rang out from Adelphi
and young Poggs stepped forward. 1t
waa the proudest moment Of his life
and he was loaded for it. Without
any preliminaries he plunged into "Our
Nations Peril" laying open the past
with one sweeping cash, and calling
Caesar. Alexander and Nero from their
musty tombs in the first paragraph.
For minute we Gnothautiians were
dazed. Boggs certainly did have a
sweep Of language. It was good lam
guage, too, because it had been care
fully cobbled up by leading Adelphians,
and Boggs was sticking strictly to the
text. He sketched in the condition of
the world during the days Of Rome
with a few reverberating sentences,
and as he rose to his first climax Fra
zier and I lifted up our voices and
gave tremendous cheer.
We had asked and pied just one
favor from our fellow Gnothautiians in
that meeting. 1t was that they should
cheer when we did. They now rose to
the task and swelled the uproar. The
other visitors, slightly surprised, joined
in. A bright smile burst out on Boggs'
face and he plunged ahead with re-
doubled energy. >
1t was certainly a grand grafton. We
had to admit it. Boggs sent the Roman
empire bowling down to the abysmal
depths of degradation in six minutes
by the watch, and grabbed up Spain
even a pause for breath. Once
again he scared and once again we
Gnothautiians allowed cheer to burst
from us, overcome by his eloquence.
There is nothing so contagious as an
extempore cheer from the audience.
Everybody picked it up and the old
hall fairly rocked. 1t was elixir for
Boggs. He took a deep breath, shook
his head slightly, as If to indicate that
what had transpired was merely
warming-up exercise, and then he went
at the rest Of that grafton like a lion
insurging against all Africa. Within
five minutes he had left the track and
had skidded into extempore eloQuence
with an average of four lapses in gram
mar per lungful of speech.
It was magnificent. We cheered him
at every pause. The Adelphians were
getting nervous now and the chairman
tried to rap the meeting to order. But
he might as well have said "H-sh" to
a windstorm. Boggs was in full career.
He was young man Of large chest de-
and great endurance, cou-
pied with voice which howled and
like steam siren as he swept
dizzily from climax to climax. He SET
tied the Spaniards, demolished Ma.
poleon and then went back and kicked
over the Grecian civilization In four
hoarse yells. We rose to our feet and
cheered him wildly. He Numbered
down to the present, fought four reyo-
Iutionary battles in one chromatic
whoop, and then apotheosized Lincoln
with an upward swoop of the arm