Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1917 — Page 3

RUNAWAY ORATORY

by GEORGE FITCH

,‘ r r H/W< ’ • *■' *'*» .• ’ • (r-’W . i W va just been reading the romantic I story of Montague Barnes, who begah life a poor boy with only one parent and two"SßC*s and who had Just taken his seat in congress in firm, resounding tones It’s all excessively interesting to me and would be, even -4f-ariy of the facts menl ioned were true. For I know Monty Barnes; I’ve known him for years—ever since the time we sat in the literary socletj’ together at Si wash college and Monty used to get up and make speeches with ' a voice that sounded like a dried leaf in a wash boiler. I remember Monty,is first speech as plainly as if I had heard it., 1 can repeat it word forworcLHe said ::“M-mr. Ch-chairman, I—l m-murn we adjoove." He was holding on to two chairs when he made it. Told me afterward that he stopped them aft they were going around him and used them as substitutes for knees. He was the shyest man and rhe worst speaker who ever got into the Gnothautii Literary society. He had sat for a year before he dared make the above speech. And it took him another year to get so fluqjit that he cbuld address the Society with the aid of only one chair. I remember how we used to look forward to the nights when Monty ran the As a chairman he reminded me of a puny child trying to herd wildcats. You could cliase him into the rafters with a point of order and paralyze him for a whole evening with an amendment to an amendment] Monty tfrns so meek when we took him in that he had to have a written, permission to sneeze in chapel. I used to watch him trying to arrange his knees when he wanted to speak. You know bow important it is that your knees shall be fn-good-volce when you want to address a meeting. Time after time he would get part way up with a few remarks balanced on the end of his tongue and then his knees would balk and ihsurge. and by the time he had braced them up he had mislaid his remarks and the meeting had surged on. I used to pity him, though goodness knows I wouldn’t have gotten up at that time for the world. I was worse than he* but I was resigned to it; I remember, too, the night when Barnes suddenly fount! himself sailing along about one thousand miles above sea level, riding his train of thought and feeding new thoughts into his mind as fast as he emptied it. I can see now the look of ecstasy on his sac the look of a man who lias just discovered how to drive an airplane and ride the gale on an even keel. From that time on you couldn’t head Barnes off. He becatne a society nuisance. He dehated and orated and remarked at —every meeting, ami it was a common thing for some member to rise in the middle of his eloquence and say. “Mr, Chairman, 1 fhink it is about time to cap the gas .well.” And now little Barnes is in congress. It’s two years since lie hung out hls J law shingle. I’ll bet lie started political speaking before he got his sign painted, and I’ll bet they couldn't stop him, either, until he had said what he wanted to. I’d like to have heat'd his campaign. I'd like to have seen the surprise of some of the tough old politicians who rose up to smother him with scorn and got banged qn the head with the unabridged dictionary. Aud I’ll bet congress doesn’t worry him either. He’s had Gnothautii training. Monty has, and no measly speaker is going to head him off when he has a face full of words. That’s What old Gnothautii did for Monty. did!» Idti fqr all of - us, too. There Is nothing in college that can touchffieTiterarysocietyfo r tda cli I rig a man to get up and slam a few choice, hand-picked sentiments the other fellpw at a minute’s warning. Looking back on those society nights I cannot feel surprised at the large number of awkward youngsters who afterward went out and began bossing congressional districts before they could raise mustaches. After , a man has spent a few years baling up and delivering bis ideas in the face of parliamentary objections, whoops, yells, sarcasm and sometimesfurniture, a little thing tike hypnotizing a well-policed ward caucus is only Child’s play for him. They were so fatally critical tn our society. You could talk, to it 'as long as you interested it and no longer. And the members were so pleasantly frank about your little faults of speaking. You didn’t have to guess at, tpose faults—eh, no- ’At the’bhd of the meeting the critic got »p and gold the society about JiMOglWhnatt#' pjaln. We. always took, care to choose a critic Who had a good command of language. •] - K , i; Literary society .night was a great feature at old SI wash. Friday an<LSaturday nights wofrlvoledand on Sun-; day nights we studied. Monday, Tuesday% and Wednesdays we. filled up in various unholy ways, but on Thursday nights we went to literary society. On Thursday might ’ chums sepirated, brothers parted and enemies lined up side by side, for half of us went to Gnothautii and half of us to Adelphi,

and between the two there was alguH-, as wide as the misunderstanding between the national party factions!. J t as a society was to conduct debates, <f tirßtinns. (*Xte UNJOlN—speeches and perfect ourselves in the art of ruling a. meeting with a firm hand when in the chair, and of upsetting It in the interests of the minority when on the tioor —fwo accomplishments on which the' noble art of selfgovernment was based until , they began to ring in these new-fangled nnd un-American primaries. But. after all. nyr deepest and most throbbing interest was our rivalry with Adelphi. It was hereditary. The two societies - Kfid been organized within a year of each other and the first act of Gnothautii Was to defy the prestige 1 of the atrogaht Addlpliiahs. In the late '4os the two societies fought on the streets after meetings. During»the war Gnothaqtli paraded its twenty enlisted members and jeered at Adelphi, which could only produce fifteen. In the '7os Adelphi produced its first governor,and for three years swept in all the impresstonabte youngsters on the strength <>f-the glorious future which the society generously provided its members. In the ’Bos the two societies built fine halls, a dead heat in cost and equipment, and started out on the long task of paying for them. After that the rivalry spread out into a long skirmish line with a hundred fighting points. We owed more money than Adelphi' did—but we polled off grander lecture courses. They had a piano—but we had two magnificent plaster busts of Cicero and Demosthenes. They had more interstate oratorical winners than we —but we had twice as many debate .winners. They had tinted and decorated walls in their meeting hall —but we had a splendid set of leather upholstered chairs; They Were ritualistic; we were practical and plain. They were careless in parliamentary practice; we held firmly to formal rul'es and grew rich in fines. They would start a debate on the desirability of Cuba and end it on the desirability of whiskers. On the other haitd, they charged that at the end of a forty-five-minutb Oration by one of our leading men, during rqy freshman year, the speaker had to waken the chairman in order ,that the rest of the society might be fined for sleeping. On every point we viewed each other with scorn and defiance. It added zest to our meetirigs and made hard work a pleasure. It made us outdo ourselves each year in our annual open meetings, to which the outside world was invited —and that reminds me that away back about nine o’clock I started to tell about one of these same open meetings, which I shall now do or forfevef hold tny peace. The year’s rivalry always culminated in these open meetings. We held them on succeeding Thursday nights in the late spring. First Adelphi performed while we Gnothautii sat with the-other giiests and tried not to show our amusement at their boyish efforts. The next week we unchained otir soaringest orators and most peppery debaters, and I must say that the Adelphians in the audience always acted like a lot of rhinocerl, so far as appreciation of wisdom went. Then we spent the next year aspersing eiicfi other’s last meeting and preparing for the next display. . No one realized better than L /hat while I was a loyal member of Ghothautil I was not doing my full share to maintain her glory. I attended regularly, paid as much in fines as anyone, and Could hold my own against any three Adelphians in a rongh-and-tum-ble talk about our merits on • the campus. But as a debater, an orator, a prize winner, or any sort of a future great member, I was a ghastly failure. I had not contributed a peep to the fame of the society. It worried me un? , til I realized that there must be hfiinbje camp followers and sappers and miners in every army as well as tall, towering monuments of gold braid,[ Then I . cheered up and. began to sap andjmine Adelphi to the very best of my ability. I harassed Adelphi from every quarter. I did it unremittingly and relentlessly. If I could not make Gnothautii proud I could at least , keep Adelphi worried. _I harassed them by gelling into the basement and turning out their lights. I coaxed a watermelon out of their anteroom over into ours. Together with Tom Andrews I persuaded two from the town to go into their meeting and sing banjo selections. The frivolous Adelphians welcomed them with great relief until the singers gave a final encore from the rear door with a line of retreat established. I wrote tfitft.en'core nays/lf. It was all about Adelphi, and I still think tt *was my finest literary effortThat spring it was evident, even to us, that unless something desperate was done. Adelphi would make our open meeting sound like a pale, timid hoot in a churchyard. Adelphi was roaringly prosperous. She had the Interstate' orator. She had the best de* ’ haters In school. She had a humorist I who was in tremendous demand in

THE - EVENTS REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER. IND.

~ ■ ■ i. ■■ i ii i r— ; ■ ■ college affairs. She had s real author, whxrhad received genuine money frrim' an gftual ‘magazine, mid she had. r ‘quartet * which sang J oftgtnal ■ Songs; Against this we had nothing out of the ordinary to put up, except a poor old poet who taught school for several years before coming to college, and whose verse/fnade the college paper with difficulty. We were greatly depressed over the outlook. Somehow I felt thls was my ciety, not by orating for U—the Idea gave jne cold shivers—-but by putting some'klnd of a crimp In the Adelphi program. This was. a most uncomfortable feeling to have, because 1 didn't* shave the slightest idea how to carry It out. i>o crude methods, like pufitlng disulphide jin the ball or. cutting off (he heat, would do. That would be tike winning a race by hiring someone to hdld one’s riyal. I had to make AucipUi Slnvtti tljp ivS OWii ItiCVlHlg. It was an awful ambit ion. I was allarge for me. They kept me feverish and out. of. condition half -the ti me. I tried to tell this plan to go He down find let me Alone. It was keeping me awake nights. But it wouldn’t. It hung around and sat on the edge of my bed and got me hollow-eyed arid so nervous that' i got to wandering around the tOwii nights to get* away from myself. That wa% how I happened to stumble into an entertainment Ifi a little church in the South end. It was being given by a church’literary society—everyone had literary societies in Jonesville—and as soon as I heard the extempore speaker I began to get all prickly and perspiring. This was the first symptom of a great idea with me. The extempore speaker was

NOT OVER HALF THE VISITORS WERE LEFT. THE MOMENT OF TRIUMPH HAD ARRIVED.

a very young man with wavy hair and a flow of words that made Niagara sound trickly in comparison. He was a natural orator. Anyone within three blocks could, tell that. They told me as he thundered that he could speak on any subject, and that his word pictures were marvelous. They told me also that they always put him on at the emf of the program, in order that the audience might leave them when it got enough, for the young man had no •terminal facilities whatever. Beyond .this one fault he was a fine speaker, they declared, and I admitted it as I listened to him. He rode metaphors and..similes as soaringly as the eagle rides a gale. He plunged into the past and drew oiit hundreds of years df liistory at a grab., He rose shriekingly to denuhclatirih and sank gracefully into poetry. He’wus unconquerable and unquenchable; also his grammar was most interesting. I stayed until most of the society had gone, and when I left I was happy. The young man was still spegkipg,. and each hoarse wheo’p whleli followed me down the street made my idea seem more dazzling. The freshman.speeel) was rine of the features of our open meetings. It gave each society a chance to parade its most -= promising freshmun orator. Usually it was declaimed with a grpat fury and as much eloquence as the youngster could muster. We all laughed at these speeches—you couldn’t help laugldng at the wildly revolving arms —but we took a deep interest in them —for these Roys were future college orators and debaters, and whenever a society had an infant phenom it gave him full swing at its open meeting. This year t here were no phenoma on either side. I was resigned to this fact as far as Gnothautii was jObncerned, but I was desperately anxious to rdund out Adelphi’s program. If only Adelphi could have this young man to begin its open meeting 1 didn’t seem to care who closed- it. They might even Import their senator alumnu* If they chose. It would give me great pleasure to see him wait his turn. I tdok my large new Idea home with me and sat on it patiently for a few days. But It didn’t hatch. It was a fine idea, bfavthe shall wu too thick..

[to begin with, the hoy wasn’t in cotlege. To end With. wasn’t in Adeiphl. I batted my head against this beginning and this ending for a while, and then took the whole business over to “Chub” Frazier and asked him If hg could see anything In it. “Chub” Frazier’s real college name was “Chubby." '"Chub” was only an affectionate diminutive. He was a tall, lantern-jawed young mfln. Who could have used a double-bAtTelSd shotgun -for -a y>alr of pants-if ft hadtr't -beewfor his feet. He contributed a layge share of the ozone in Giiothautii meetings and was always adding to the joy of us listeners by rising soberly to inquire for a blue print ami-workings plans of the speaker’s pet joke, or to 1 announce that the last debater's batting average on _dates, wus only .187, and to ask Indignantly if heedless young students were to be permittwl to piassacre Nero 200 years before bls birth without a protest from the society. “Chub” was a junior, and skilled in vain deeds, and wht*n he heard 11» y story he embraced me with vigor. “Petey. my boy, I have misjudged you.” said he. ”"I have wondered why you persisted in sitting around Tn Gnothautii and breathing up so much of our nice air. I apologize. You are a patriot. Lead me to this young windstorm.,” It didn’t take “Chub” two hours to arrange the plan of campaign. But he didn’t g<> to the young man first. He went to the church society and ek-"' plained to the leaders’ how shocking it was that so taldhted a young man should be driving a grocery wagon when he should be attending college * and preparing to represent his country |n congress. He did this so well that a subscription was taken no, and within-

two weeks Mordecai Boggs was only delivering groceries in his spare hours. The rest of the time he was specializing at Slwash in rhetoric, composition, oratory and English literature. He was a shy," freckled young man, was Mordecai, for all his eloquence on the stage, and he djd not get acquainted very fast. This was just as it should be, for, naturally eriough, before anyone else in college noticed him “Chub” and I were fast friends and felt sure we .could. lead Mm into our sacred society with a wave of, the hand, We felt so sure about it that we couldn’t help bragging a little. In fact, I was so indiscreet as to mentloh to Pilcher, an Adelphi freshman, as we were dressing in the gym one' evening late in March that we had a young freshman cinched for our open meeting who would. not only out-orate their whole society hut would set the world's record for freshman screechers of all weights, heights and cylinder areas. Pilcher was - so scornful that he didn’t spend over half an hour trying to worm the freshman’s name out Of me. It didn't do any good, I can keep a secret." But Chub couldn't. He got to talking with an Adelphi senlqt the. very next day, and in the heat 6f an argument over the societies’ merits, running back to the time, when Banning, Gnothautli '46, won nine inter'society debates in a rovv, he not only bragged about our new fresbmSn but let his name klip out. And the vpr/ next day we. caught two Adelphians taking Boggs down to stuff him with oysters and fiction about Adelphi. W.e were so mad that we "made the whole campus echo. Both Chub and 1 went to the Adelphi president and deuoiineed tbeir efforts as high-handed, underhanded, backhanded and twofaced, to say nothing of cloven-hoofed. We had practically pledged.this young man to our (pciety. we declared. We had induced.him to enter college. He was opr property.»' If they were »*n they would go away and leave him to us. We almost cried as we pled. Would they go away? Will the tiger _go awayfrom the nice, succulent young lamb? They just laughed at u«. "W made a desperate effort to persuade Boggs to stay with 'us. and Chub and I hung around him ao closely that it

Wasn’t until < week before open meetiiifc that they finally got hU». They ~r(w him into the qoylet’y on the verf night ow« open meeting—held a, special meeting .early to do it—and tlien they came over in a body and lls-; tened to our Kqueaky tittle program with jeers written all over their faces. Chub and I barely existed during that week. The thought that we bad lost so promising a young curator tided half as deep ns our suspense. What if soihet-hing should Jar his relations with' Adelphi, riml he should really come back to us after all? Between shivers of woe and quivers of fear we had no pwtce’at all. , L J - On the night Of the meeting we went early in order to'get good seats, well to thejear. i ~r* The chairman took his seat amid great applause, and after the tpitliug prfellffiifiaffe.% . such as roll call,- the reading of the minutes, and the few -partianibntary sparrings, just th show_ tiie visitors the perfect working of the machinery, the Adelphi quartet took tlie stage arid' performed with tremendous eelat J The quartet retired after the third encore, and then, with something of a flourish; the chairman stepped forward and in a few well-chosen Words prepared the audience for an unexpected treat. There had come to college recently, he said, ir young man. unheralded. unknown, unconscious et(en of the great genius which he bore with him to Slwash. He was a Jonesville youth. Kindly fortune had guuled his footsteps into Adelphi, where sterling character And future abilities ar# always welcomed and made the most of. And it tips been discovered that Within this modest, blushing youth there lurked abilities such as fixed Demosthenes permanently in history and made the fame of the younger I’itt burgeon and wax forever. He W|as referring. he said, to the newestjAdelphian. aiid one whom he predicted might some day be the most famous Adelpklan—Mr. Mordecal Boggs, who would now deliver the freshman oratlon on the subject, “Our Natiou’s Peril.” A great cheer rang out from Adelphi and young Boggs stepped forward. It was the proudest moment of his life and he Was loaded for IL Without any preliminaries he plunged into “Ouij Nation's Peril,” laying open the- past with one sweeping gash, and calling Caesar, Alexander and Nero from their, musty tombs in the first paragraph. dazed. Boggs certainly did have a sweep of language. It was good-lan-guage, tod, because It had been carefully cobbled up by leading Adelphians, and Boggs was sticking strictly to the text. He sketched in the condition of the world during the days of Rome with a few reverberating sentences, and as he rose to his first climax Frazier and I lifted up our voices and gave a tremendous cheer. We had asked and pled just one favor from our fellow Gnothautligns tn that meeting. It was that tfiey should cheer when we did. They now rose to the task and swelled the uproar. The other visitors, slightly surprised, Joined in. A bright smile burst out on Boggs’ face and he plunged ahead with redoubled energy. Tt was certainly a grgnd, oration. We had to admit it- Boggs sent the Roman empire howling down to the abysmal depths of degradation-in six minutes by the watch, and grabbed up Spain without even a pause for breath. Once again he soared and once again we Gnothautlians allowed a cheer to burst from us, overcome by his eloquence.

There is nothing so contagious as an extempore cheer from the audience. Everybody picked it up and the old hall fairly rocked. It was elixir for Boggs. He took a deep breath, shook his head slightly, as if to. indicate that what had transjiired was merely a warming-up exerciSe, and then he went at the rest of that oration like a Hon insqrging against ail Africa. Within five minutes he had left the track and had skidded into extempore eloquence with an average of four lapses in grammar per lungful of speech. £ It was niagriifiCent. We cheered him at every pause. The Adelphians were getting nervous now and the chairman., tried to rap the meeting to order. But he might as well have said “11-siij to a windstorm. 7T()ggs wfis in full <' ;) revr. He was a young man of large chest development and .great endurance, coupled with a voice which bowled’ arid shrieked like a steam siren as he swept dizzily from climax to climax. He settled the Spaniards, demolished Napoleon and then went back and kicked over the Grecian- civilization in four hoarse yells. We rose to our feet and cheered him wildly. He thundered .down to the present, fought fw toolutionary battles in one chromatic whoop, and then apqtheosized Lipgqln with an upward swoop of the arm which sentt him reeling to the wall* Nbver had the society heard anything like it. We got upon our cliairs„to emphasize our appreciation. The chairman hammered frar.tieaHy and several sergeants at anus came Over to us and talked threateningly. But what could they do? When you invite a hall full of peoplA to listen/o -your speeches you can t throwthem out for applauding them. Boggs was perspiring freely and the" light In his eyes was wild. It was his greatest triumph and he intended-to gorge himself on it. In another ten minutri* he had lapped up American history and had settled down comfortably though volcanically into a discussion of present-day problems. We encouraged him as best we could and the resRH warmed our hearts. It was certainly pieasaat to extend a friendly hand to a shrinking freshman, and to assure him about four times a minute

that the world was j Ith him. “And ain’t it true. on gath- ; ered here tonight; iM|BjJki are not getting richer and theTPfr"; y citizens, sinking slowly down into tb»' slimy jaws of ine slou^ M cS*m^pb«»dT** -“Hurrah!” we answered frautldaHj l .. “And then, you take the money; power. Who’s got at! the money this country? T tell you, little do ww realise the gravity of this here country at this sittratiod. The dollar that -the poor man earns by the sweat of his brow is filched forth from his pocket by the siren call of the financial octopus.” “Hurrah!” we yelled again. “You say politics! Bah I Politics in rotten. We think we are free men in America, but what good does a vote do? Tfip most rotten and obliquTtdfiß friend of the classes lias got more power 1 say than a million free-boni? voters of the masses, of whom we are some right here in this room tonigfit—” ~ ‘‘Hurrah, TiOfrSK hurrah for the masses!’’ We didn’t have to lead these cheers. The rest of the visitors were frantic with delight, and ae Boggs responded to every cheer with another superhuman shout of defiance against wickedness tliey laughed and shrieked with, for" us GnothiMtiians, we sab ■hiore or less quiet, partly from exhaustion and partly from a solemn Joy which was flooding our entire beings. Boggs ii;pl already.spoken three-quar-ters of an hour and was still warming! np. The break must come soon. It did. A few old ladles, subject tot headache, got up nervously and tot-* tered away. Members of Adefphi pled! with them to wait for the reit of the program, but they would non be persuaded. In another ten minutes a dozen visitors had tiptoed out. Bqggs had! reached Ids final height and wtas gfad# ually running down. Human strength, had found its limitations. But he was coming down, slowly and easily cruising from cloud to cloud, and discussing religion,- philosophy and literature in fine but scrambled audience was melting rapidly now. The cheering had stopped, but Boggs hadn’t, though the pale chairman pulled at hi» coat every time he could reach him. Not over half the visitors were left. The moment of triumph had arrived. Quietly and with regret plastered deep over our faces Chub and I got up and oozed cautiously down the aisle. From various parts of the room other Gnothautiians arose and picked their way ..delicately to freedom. In their wake the rest of the visitors came —some -quietly,- some- with every -evidence of undue anxiety. And as we crowded through the anteroom Boggs thundered on. - / L There were scandalous rumors next day about that open meeting. It was hinted that the Adelphians not only stopped Boggs by violence but that they took him and ducked him before they left for home. I don’t believe this, because -Adelphi always had a reverence for oratory and had been noted for its encouragement. But Boggq did leave Adelphi and soon afterward presented his application to Guothautii. We took him in. but were firm with him and eventually made a fine speaker of him. What pleased us the most with the whole affair was that, mad and disgusted as Adelphi was over tbeir ruined meeting, they couldn’t blame anyone In fact, they kept so quiet About it that we had to chase an Adelphian a long way during the next two years before we could even mention the subject of open meetings. - (Copyright.) -

DINAH KNEW HER BUSINESS

Of Course Red Dress at Funeral Was Out of Order, but It Did Its Work. Mrs. Blank had in her employ a colored inaid who belonged to a “funeral club,” which binds all its members to attend every funeral of a member upon receipt of notification. Ode afternoon Dinah’s mistress saw her come down the stairs, ready to go out, dressed in a bright scarlet dress, with a large scarlet willow plume in her hat and a red parasol in tier hand. “Why. Dinah, I thought you were going to a funeral,” said Mrs. Blank. “Yes. I’se going to the funeral,* said Dinah. “But ybu ought not to wear red to ■ funeral.” said Mrs. Blank. “You ought to be dressed quietly in a dark dress Dinah poked the toe of her shoe with her parasol, and meditated a moment, and then sgid “Well, Ah reckon I won’t go back and change now; Pll just Wear this.” r., Some three weeks after this Dinah approached her mistress and told her she was going to he married. Mrs. Blank expressed her astonishment that Dinah even had an admirer. Di nail ’simpered, and twisted the corner of her apron, and said “No. I didn’t haveone until just lately! Boes yoa "remember that funeral Ali went to one time when I wore my red dress? Well, misus, dgt sljade of red done kotched de eye ob de corpse’s husband!”— Nautilus.

Parting Shot.

“But couldn’t you learn to love me. Stella?” he pleaded. “I don't think I could, Frank,” she replied. • He stood erect, then quickly reached for hie hat. “It is asl feared—voo are too old to learn.” —Everybody’s Magazine. ”

Proper Result.

.♦•That actress they are advertising in such a pushing way is a scream.” “Maybe that is why they are crying her up so.” ‘ HggM