Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1898 — SPEAKER REED’S ORATIONS. [ARTICLE]

SPEAKER REED’S ORATIONS.

He Always Commits His Set -Speeches, but Is Happier in Debate. Speaker Reed, talking about set speeches, said: "I haye spoken from memory for two hours. It is always a hard task and I am never free from the fear that somewhere along the course I am going to falter and break. I feel many a time as if I were not going to make the next hurdle, but somehow I usually manage to gather myself for the leap.” When Reed was a schoolboy up in. Brunswick it is to be feared he was not tho closest of students as a rule, until It dawned on him that a little special effort was necessary if he expected to come out with credit at the end of the term. At any rate, he set to work to learn his lessons, and this was the way In which he got into the habit of committing to memory. Butler’s Analogy was one of the tasks set for the

class and Reed determined to maatec it The day before each reettatioa ha wo6ld shut himself np with the analogy and commit a page, word for word. Ha was always letter perfect in recitation, and that was the end of It. Nobody ever saw Mr. Reed refer to manuscript while making a speech, but he has never made a speech of any lm> porta nee on a set occasion that was not drudgingly and patiently “boned” and memorized. Yet his Impromptu outbursts in debate are as perfect in form and matter as the addresses he has ao carefully prepared.—Buffalo Express.