Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-05-25
The Observer on After-Dinner Speakers

q counrmod After-dtn0ef
n speaker, I an wondering what
n 10 going to hsppen to my tribe
when the country goes Ary.
II 70 barely possible that there will
be bsnquets with speeches. hut I
don't know. 1t always has struck me
that the man who had the most vine-
gar aboard enjoyed the after-dinner
speeches most. and tho one with the
least liquid seemed most terribly
bored.
being, In the main. a prohibittonist-
IL had not been participating. al
ways has been q source of great
wonder to me.
One way. suppose. viii be to let
every one make q speech. That ought
to send every one home satisfied. l
even made a test Of this plan the
other night giving each of thirty
five men q chance to say what they
had to say and it went over pretty
wen.
OF course. some prompting is nee
essary to get speakers started and
some force sometimes must be called
into play to get speakers stopped. but
1t can be done. One way to bring
about this result is to strike the
speakers over the head with a mall
let, an az or a Delaying pin. These
methods are rough. Of course, and
could not we'll be applied at church
sociables and the like, but they are
all right at the average banquet The
speakers themselves won't mind par
ticularly. for they usually are ready
to die after they have made q fizzle Of
their addresses, ana IL they can stand
rough treatment. surely their listen.
ers can. For all OF that. I've Travelled
rather widely in the after dinner cir
cult and I have as yet to see the
listener at a banquet who was not
perfectly willing that the speakers
be dispatched to the happy hunting
grounds after they had relieved them
selves Of their speeches. Or even be-
fore they were half relieved, so far
as that goes.
This particular banquet of which
speak started in the regulation way.
When the fowl had been chewed with
almost no impression on it and the
gooey strawberries had been passed,
the POSTMASTER (first person singu-
lar) rose and started his set remarks.
Immediately the diners began to look
sad and at their watches. After he
had cracked two good Jokes that he
once heard at q Ward & vokes show
and pulled q couple that he lifted
from q funny magazine, while watt
ing for his turn in a chair at the bar
Der college, he saw that he was
slumping dismally. Hence he began,
to look around for a good chance to
leap out a window. The windows be-
Ing nailed down, he fioundered badly
and might have done a mop on the
green carpeted floor II another gen.
tleman had not risen to his feet, sug-
gested that the toastmA ster was punk
and took up the white mans burden
himself.
The second speaker was quite as
bad as the first, He pulled a couple Of
Chauncey Depew's best witticisms and
was going merrily when somebody
threw the outskirts OF a dish Of let
tucs ana tomato salad in his general
direction. Then, In great disgust, and
still full Of oratory, the second speak
or sat down.
A third ana fourth speaker ieaped
into the ereech, but the crowd was out
OF patience hong before the speakers
were cut Of breath, and they failed
too.
1t was then that the first toast
master decided 1t would be a good
thing to ct every one have a chance
to talk. All Of which he did. Pass
ing from one diner to another, he per-
United them to Introduce themselves
and say all they could say in one
minute. Most Of them got through
before their time limit expired. they
not having had time to prepare ex-
temporaneous addresses. And most
of them were we'll pleased.
might add that there was Just
enough snake bite on tap to make the
gentlemen long for more SO, in a way,
it might have been said to have been
a typical prohibition banquet. The
time never will come. I suppose, when
1n