Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 July 1890 — MAKING A SPEECH. [ARTICLE]

MAKING A SPEECH.

It Usually Involves a Very Serious Physical Strain. Philadelphia Telegraph’s Washington Let er. It may look like a very easy thing for a member, having his speech written, to deliver it during the course of an hour in the House, but it is not such an easy thing as it looks. The average speaker gets a deal of athletic exercise in the course of an hour’s speech. There are some members in the House who can stand and read a speech without lifting a hand except to turn the pages, nnd almost without changing position; and there are others who can talk all day without getting tired; but the average speaker perspires as if he were sawing wood. An off-hand speeoh of ten minutes does not count, but the man who throws his arms in the air as if whirling Indian clubs, hammers his desk like a blacksmith, and dances all around the place for an hour or more, is taking very violent exercise. Experience has taught some of them that it is not safe to make such a speech without taking extra precautions against cooling off too quickly afterwards. I know several members who take extraordinary precautions. They do not speak often. They know for weeks beforehand that they are to speak, and after all preparations are made for the speech itself, and the day comes for the effort, they have a servant bring a complete change of linen and underwear and a heavy overcoat to the Capitol, and wait with these things at hand until the speeoh is ended. Then the speaker, with the perspiration pouring off him, rushes to the cloakroom, where the servant stands with the coat ready, and throws it over his shoulders as soon as he comes within reach. Next, the member, with the. collar of his overcoat turned up high, tucks his dry underclothing under his arm and makes for the bath-rooms. There he enters the waiting-room, where the temperature is high and there can be no draught, being under ground, and Waits to cool off a little preparatory to a bath. There is no more work for him in the House that day. When he has got his bath, he makes for his lodgings as fast as he can, and stays there until thoroughly rested.