Connecticut western news., 1922-06-22
WENT ALL UNSUNG
Tragedies in the Wake of Unde-
 IiVered Speeches.
Men Have Bowed to Fate, but Will Women, Pedestal of Rights"
 Survive Disappointment

Of all the tragedies of masculine ex- perience ever since the Stone age none has been more poignant than that of the undelivered speech. And now one wonders whether the women, the dear souls, will prove more or less sensi- tive to the blighting sorrow of prepar- ing a graceful speech for some impor- tant occasion and then being cheated by fate of the opportunity of deliv- ering it.
 And when it's a clever speech, truly brilliant speech, with a carefully pre- pared climax seasoned with flashes of wit and drolI anecdotes that would make 'em roar-what a tragedy Is there Horatiol
 How different the history of the village, of the county, of the world might be If all the speeches that were ever prepared had been actually de- livered according to schedulel But some pesky accident happens. The hour grows late. Earlier speakers hog more than their share of the time. Careless people in the audience get sleepy and go home. The chairman has to catch a train. Somebody has to move a vote of thanks and you Alas poor you, after hours of an- gushing suspense, you with that mag nificent speech in your pocket, you who have so fulsomely clapped for the other tiresome speakerS-you, the most promising orator in the place. are left biting your nails with all your music in you" It's maddening.
 That blighted sorrow fell upon a nice woman in Washington the other day, remarks the New York Sun. She was the head of ia distinguished fe- male delegation that called at former President Woodrow Wilson's house to present their respects to him in for nal way. She had prepared a speech, perhaps a most able and moving one. But the delegation was accorded no more than a fleeting and dramatic glimpse of the invalided statesman
 It's an old story for the hardened male sex, but a new one for the wom- en-a silver-tongued orator left with the mouth open," as the Spanish say. And 1t sets the imagination wander ing into the highways and byways of history in search of the speeches that might have been delivered if things had gone a little differently.
 For instance, 1t Is probable that among the papers of the former kaiser is a manuscript of the speech that he was going to deliver at that Christ mas dinner in Paris.
 And then there's the speech that General Semenoff was just about to deliver when he arrived in New York and mistook Sheriff Nagle and bunch of deputies for the mayor and alder men He thought they had come to the station to present him with the freedom of the city, and he was just opening his mouth to make a properly rhetorical response when somebody explained to him in Russian that the paper the sheriff was showing him was warrant for his arrest.
 Frederick MacMonnies may have prepared a speech to deliver to any delegation of women who should dare to beard him on the subject of the manners of the stalwart young man who symbOlizes Civic Virtue in the sculptor's statue of that name. But as feminine agitation over the statue Is simmering down the sculptor's speech to his amateur critics may be fated to pass into the limbo of speeches that never got themselves spoken