The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-08-07
L. CHM "A ~ ~ % nj e.


never was speech more sentimental,
windy, false, and utterly moving. The
slang words hokum and bunk were not
then in use, but even had they been
they never would have been applied,
by that appreciative crowd, at least,
to the fiowery and impassioned oratory
Of the Southwest Silver Tongue, Yam
cey Crayat.
Cheap, melodramatic, gorgeous, Inn
FASHIONED. A quart of whisky in him;
an enthralled audience behind him; a
white-faced woman with hopeless eyes
to spur him on; the cry Of his wronged
and righteous wife still sounding in
his ears-Booth himself, in his heydey,
never gave more brilliant, a more
false performance.
"Your honor! gentlemen Of the jury!
You have heard with what cruelty. the
prosecution has referred to the sins
of this woman, as if her condition was
Of her own preference. A dreadful
vicious-a revolving picture has been
painted for you Of her life and sur
really think that she willingly en-
braced life so repellent, so horrible?
No, gentlemen! A thousand times, no!
This girl was bred in such luxury,
such refinement, as few of us have
known. And just as the young girl
was budding into womanhood. cruel
fate snatched all this from her. bereft
her Of her dear ones, took from her,
one by one, with terrible and fierce
rapidity, those upon whom she had
come to look for love and support.
And then, in that moment Of darkest
terror and loneliness, came one of our
sex, gentlemen. A wolf in sleeps
clothing. A fiend in the guise of a
human. False promises. Lies. De-
ceit so palpable that it would have de-
ceived no one but young girl as inno-
cent, as pure, as starry eyed as was
this woman you now see white and
trembling before you. One of our sex
was the author of her ruin, more to
blame than she. What could be more
pathetic than the spectacle she pre-
moment ago you heard her reviled, in
the lowest terms man can employ
toward woman, for the depths to
which she has sunk, for the company
she keeps, for the life she leads Yet
where can she go that her sin does
not pursue her? You would drive her
out. But where? Gentlemen, the very
promises of God are denied her. Who
was it said, Come unto me all We that
are heavy laden, and will give you
rest? She is indeed heavy laden, this
trampled flower of the South, but if
at this instant she were to kneel down
before us all and confess her Re-
deemer, where is the church that
would receive her, where the COM
munity that would take her in? Our
sex wrecked her once pure life. Her
own sex shrinks from her as from a
pestilence. Society has reared its re
lentless walls against her. Only in the
friendly shelter Of the grave can her
betrayed and broken heart ever find
the Redeemers promised rest. The
gentleman who so eloquently spoke be-
fore me told you of her assumed
names, Of her sins, of her habits. He
never, for all his eloquence, told you
of her sorrows, her agonies, her hopes,
her despairs. But could tell you. /
could tell you of the desperate day
the red-letter day in the banner of the
great Oklahoma country-when she
tried to win home for herself where
she could live in decency and quiet.
:. When the remembered voices
of father and mother and sisters and
brothers fall like music on her erring
ears who shall tell what this
heavy heart, sinful though it may
seem to you and to me under
standing, pity, help, like music on her
erring soul oh, gentle
men gentlemen :"
But by this time the gentlemen, be-
tween emotion and tobacco juice, were
having such difficulty with their
Adams apples as to make wholesale
strangling seem inevitable. The beau.
tiful flexible voice went on, the hands
wove their enchantment, the eyes
held you in their spell. The pompous
figure of little Pat Leary shrank.
dwindled, disappeared before their
minds eye. The harlot Dixie Lee, in
her black, became woman romantic,
piteous, appealing. Sabra Cravat, her
pencil flying over her paper, thought
grimly:
ut isn't true. Don't believe him.
He is wrong. He has always been
wrong. For fifteen years he has al
ways been wrong. Don't believe him.
shall have to print this. How lovely
his voice is. It's like knife in my
heart. l mustn't look at his eyes,
His hands-what was that he said?1I
must keep my mind on music |
on her erring soul !. oh, my
love =. ought to hate him. :.
l do hate him. :"
1t was finished. Yancey walked to |
his seat, sat as before, the great |
buffalo head lowered. the lids closed |
over the compelling eyes, the beauti. |
full hands folded, relaxed.