Palatka daily news. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1919-1994, 1922-02-22
BRYAN DELIGHTS
ROTAR|ANS WITH
MATCHLESS ART
"Commoner" Does Not
Refer to Politics
Directly
SPEAKS IN LIGHT VEIN
Addresses School Chill
dren, Too - Caugh
Between Trains

ver-tongued orator Of the Platte"
thrice candidate for the highes office
in the power of American citizenship
to bestow, and now unquestionably
Florida's foremost citizen, entertain
ed the members of the Rotary club
yesterday their weekly luncheon.
~ hESing Rotary week, commence
ratnlN the seventeenth anniversary
of the organizations foundation, Mr..
Bryan's visit lent auspiciousness to
the occasion.
The program was in charge of
FLAP" Merryday, who upon intro
ducing Hr. Bryan said but twenty
minutes could be allowed the speak
err, bringing the rejoinder from the
commoner that it is "never difficult
to tell the college from which man
was graduated by the time he allots
a speaker" Mr.. Bryan said he had
been compelled to make a two hours
speech in an hour, and had accom-
plished it; he had even made the
same speech in fifteen minutes, and
once in five minutes, but that he had
been crowded. As an extempora-
neous speaker the remarkable abil-
ity of the man was impressed on all
his hearers. Holding interest closely
in amusing anecdotes, running from
the number of times he had been
buried in many places, the number of
people who daily met him, and his
powers of telling whether they were
democrats or republicans, down to
his confidence in there having been
few democrats voting recently, Mr..
Bryan more than established himself
with his audience.
Every point in the speakers elo-
quent address was illustrated.
Stressing the certainty and convic-
ton that truth would prevail, Mr..
Bryan asked what would be the eff
feet of every man in the United
States being compelled by law to
commence work at the sams.' bonr
Setting 7 o'clock as A n X for COM
parlsoh' 1enpJlhted out that o'clock
atrSaalatka meant o'clock in Allan
ia and Chicago, S o'clock in Denver
and 4 o'clock in San Francisco; that
west of Florida people would be aris-
ing before sunup, or, if the situation
were reversed and the law compelled
everyone to commence their days
srvice when it was o'clock in San |
Francisco, local people would have to
remain in bed for three hours more.
"How then is this regulated? Our
accepted hour for service to God and
man il when the light of day comes
ssus. That is the point, my friends.
When the light comes to US we must
begin. 1t matters not that by CO.
operation you can accomplish much,
but who will proclaim the truth as he
sees it."
Ranging himself against the pro-
of any doctrine of agnos-
ticism, atheism or Darwinism, Mr..
Bryan said a monkey might be
taught to do certain things, but the
best proof that man, made in the ,
image and likeness of God, never
sprung from a brute or lower ami !
NAL, was in the fact that no animal
ever died for the truth, yet men,
down even to today, were doing it.
His hearers accepted from this that
the speaker would continue to his
last day, stepping out into service
when the light shone forth.
The entire address was interspers-
I'd with Biblical quotations, showing 7
he commoner to be a deep reader of Q
he Book of Truth. No point in his {
speech which consumed forty-five I
minutes, lacked in illustration, and \
he wealth of human interest stories T
applicable to every issue, more than h
satisfied those who heard the speak v
r, that Florida has been greatly en- il
iched by the addition of the Hon.
William Jennings Bryan to its long
ist of intellectuals and pHblic serv-
rts. 9
Mr.. Bryan accepted the invitation h
Professor Cassels to address the I,
Ugh school students, and impressed v
n the pupils that he cared not so :
,uch to have them bear in memory ID
no had spoken to them, as he wish e
he might leave with them thoughts
ringing a determination that would T
nd them out in the world with a II
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