Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-19
ORATORS TO HAVE
z STRICT TIMERS
World Contest Speakers Will
Be Limited and Applause
Restricted.

When the nine young orators take
the stage in Constitution Hall one week
from tonight in the Fourth Interna-
tional Oratorical Contest finals they
will deliver their respective l0-minute
speeches under the strict timing of two
officers of the American Army and
Navy.
The officers who have accepted the
contest directors invitation to act as
official timekeepers in the meet are
Mai. Gen. Harry L. Gilchrlst, chief of
Chemical Warfare Service, U. S. A, and
Rear Admiral Luke McNamee, director,
division fleet training, naval operations,
U. S. N.
Maj. Gen. Gilchrist and Rear Ad-
miral McNamee will be seated in front
of the stage during the contest. With
the first word of the speech proper of
each contestants bid for the world
championship, they will begin counting
off the minutes.
When 10 minutes will have elapsed,
the officers will sound a blast on a
whistle and if a contestant still is
speaking he will be obliged to halt in
Stantly and be judged by what he has
said up to the expiration of his time
II he continues to speak even after the
whistle has sounded, he will be dropped
automatically to last place in the Off
cial rating.
Restriction on Applause.
Because the time limit is to be so
strictly enforced, the audience will be
urged to refrain from all applause while
a contestant is delivering his speech.
The Commute period continues re-
CARELESS of interruption once it has be-
gun, so that instead of heartening a
speaker applause can serve only to
work handicap upon him.
The international contest finals in
variably invoke incredulity on the part
of audiences who hear the speeches.
The Latin countries entries always
seem to speak longer than their fellow
orators. Through the natural rapidiEy
with which Spanish is spoken is ex-
pected to permit the Mexican, Cuban
and Peruvian orators to deliver longer
speeches IL point of actual numbers
of words than the English and Danish
speaking orators, and probably even
longer than the two French speakers
In previous international contests lC
has been observed that the Spanish
speaking entrants delivered approx
mately one-fourth more words than
the average struck by the others.
English is probably the "slowest" of the
languages which will be heard in Con-
5IlGuIAOII nan IlCAG HlSHt.
German probably will prove itself the
second slowest in the impression 1t
makes upon the audience.
Foreign Language knowledge.
An audience ballot taken at last
years international finals indicated the
extent of the knowledge of the foreign
languages among the listeners. OF the
4,031 who cast ballots, 1926 declared
they understood only English, while $50
understood all four of the languages
used in that meet. One of the most
interesting things shown by the audi
ence ballot was that had these $50
-linguistS been the official judges,
their decision would have given victory
to the same contestant who was de-
clared world champion by the official
board of five multi-llnguist judges.
The audience ballot as a whole, how
ever, gave the American entrant first
place, but indicated without doubt that
had all the listeners understood each
of the speakers, the unofficial audience
decision would have conceded with the
official judgment which names Rene
Ponthieu of France champion.
The ballots showed that LTD I'M
the Frenchman, 755 under
stood the three Spanish speakers and
that TOP understood the German youth.
The count also showed that 226 I'M
derStood only French, German and
English; 1913 understood only French,
Spanish and English, and 81 understood
only German, Spanish and English.