Evening star., 1925-04-27

The age of after-dinner oratory is
not gone. 1t did not vanish with pro-
hibition's advent, as that prince of
postprandial artists, Chauncey M.
Depew, once asserted. Depew aver
red that the only result of the
eighteenth amendment was to make
speeches drearier and speakers duller,
The banquet of the American Society
of International Law in Washington
into a cooked hat. There were five
speeches. Each was a gem. They
were brief, learned and witty-a COM
bination seldom encountered. They
demonstrated that the art of genial
speech is no nations monopoly.
Briton, Dutchman and American met
in verbal combat. Honors, by almost
unanimous consent, went to the
Netherlander. He spoke in English
that Borah or. Lloyd George might
envy.
America ought to elect Charles
Evans Hughes national toastmaster
for life. He presided over the Inter
national Law dinner with grace and
eloquence, plus a nimble humor that
Is not popularity associated with the
former Secretary of State. Hughes
typifies In supreme degree the gift for
oratorical charm inherent in the
American to an extent not found in
the citizen of any other country. In
language, power of expression and
that ebullition which must mark the
ideal toastmaster, Hughes Is incom-
parable He scintillates mainly be-
cause he likes to do that sort of
thing. 1t is not an effort. 1t comes
naturally. He can lapse from the
yifh q
strain He can tell stories as well as
Choate ever told them and in the next
breath stir hearers to emotional en-
thusiasm with some appeal to their
moral or spiritual sense. AS we are
a speechmaking nation, we ought TO
have a national toastmaster, subject
to draft on state occasions. For that
useful s-office 1 nominate Charles
Evans Hughes of New York.
X x X X
Men and women at the international
Law feast could not help noting the
difference between the virility of
Hughes and the lesser buoyancy
of Secretary Kellogg. Interest In
Hughes introduction of his successor
was heightened by the common un-
derstanding that it was he who first
suggested to President Coolidge that
Kellogg should become Secretary of
State. 1t was with a graceful flour
ish that Hughes presented Kellogg to
the dinner company. "A keen blade
of the law" he called him. "a man
with the learning of the scientist, the
conscience of the jurist and the wit
of the politician" Mr.. Kellogg brand
ished a surprisingly vigorous orator
teal sword. Beginning haltingly, he
developed speed and force as he pro-
ceeded When he reached his appeal
for American adhesion to the World
Court, Kellogg was in Western Tight
ing trim. He thrust out boldly and
struck hard. His maiden speech on
foreign affairs in Washington can be
set down as triumph.
X y *
Mr.. Hughes repeated story re-
Gently told by Sir Esme Howard, in
which the British Ambassador liken.
ed the Old World to an old lady in
a London omnibus, who sat on the
false teeth in her pocket, and was so
seriously bitten by them that she de-
yeloped hydrophobia. Dame Eu-
rope said Ambassador Howard, lis
sitting on her false teeth-the upper
set composed of fear; the lower of in
herited belief in the power of arma-
ments to maintain peace. Between
them she has been dangerouly bit
ten" Mr.. Hughes breezily suggested
that Europe could hardly expect