A Great Lecturer.
By Opie Read.
I wonder whether many of the people of Nashville remember a newspaper printed in that city in 1876? To the few it was known as the Evening Mail. To the many it was not known at all. We had not advocated municipal ownership, we who conducted the enterprise, but the sheriff somehow took it into his head that we did; and as he could not turn the property over to the city, he kept it for the county. I don’t know what was finally done with it. I suppose it became but an echo of dust.
The paper was “established” by a number of printers and newspaper men who had nothing else to do. As we were to share alike in the profits we went alike to the free lunch counter. It was a pure democracy and the man who owned fifteen shares of stock received no more than the man who owned one. The paper was edited with longing and printed with hope. We were all of us optimists. If a cloud arose in our sky we looked upon it as a balloon ascension. I remember but one day of reproof and censure. The foreman came into the “sanctum” and said to the editor-in-chief: “There is trouble in the composing room, sir.”
The editor, an old gentleman who loved to write and who vaguely believed that eventually one of his editorials might be read from beginning to end, looked up and sighed.
“Trouble?”
“Ah, and serious trouble, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Why, Ewing says that he’s got to eat.”
“Eat!” echoed the editor. “What can he mean by such impudence? Did you reason with him?”
“I did, sir; I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself.”
“And was he?”
“No, sir; he forthwith gave me an example of insubordination. He accused me of hiding a sandwich in my desk.”
The editor thought a long time. He had written on the situation in Europe and had given advice to England, France and Germany—he had told the Powers what to do with Turkey, but this sandwich required deeper meditation. “How many shares of stock does Ewing hold?” he inquired.
“Ten, I believe, sir.”
“Well, it seems to me that a man holding so many shares ought to be possessed of more dignity. Let him transfer his stock to some one who stands not high in his regard, and resign. You may go. But, wait a moment, foreman. If you should happen to have a sandwich hidden in your desk, don’t forget me. We have always been good friends, you know.”
It was about this time that Major DeMaine made his appearance in Nashville. He came with a heavily-worded recommendation from the Boston School of Oratory. It was declared that he was the greatest orator of the day or night. He had talked in Faneuil Hall. It appeared in the paper Flanel Hall, but that made no difference. He would have been the greatest of all actors but that he was religiously inclined and deplored the thought of giving up his earnest life to the trivial mimickry of the stage. He was not well dressed but we ascribed this lack of duds to his individuality. But some of us questioned his greatness until he came around to the office and put into the Mail a full page advertisement. Then we knew that he was great. This full page was an announcement together with the press notices of his great lecture on Humanity. Beecher said that it was profound and in an autograph letter Mark Twain swore that it was funnier than Artemus Ward among the Mormons. We were possessed of a small job press, and on this machine the tickets were printed. We were to receive so much a hundred and we looked forward to a time when we might eat, sitting down. One man, a pampered youth named Billings, said that he must have a pair of shoes. At first we took this for badinage, for one of this fellow’s whimsical jokes, but soon we discovered that he meant it. We called a meeting of the faculty. The editor sighed. For a man who possessed all wisdom he was the most sighing man I ever knew. With him a sigh answered for declaration and for epigram. He was never at a loss for sigh. So he sighed and asked Billings if he had well considered the situation. Billings answered that he thought he had.
“And you must have shoes, you Beau Brummel! Just at this time of dawning prosperity you must come forward to swamp our hope with needless extravagance. Transfer your stock, Billings, and resign.”
The lecture was to be given in a building which stood somewhere in Summer Street. We were to sell the tickets to our friends and were to share in the profits. And with what will we went forth! A stranger might have thought that the city had been invaded by a gang of hold-up men. Well, the night came. We were present, eighteen of us. The editor and the business manager were absent, having been invited to attend a luncheon given by a politician. But eighteen of us were there to hear that great out-rush of the human mind. It may have been that the learning was too deep for us, that the humor was too skilfully hidden. There was a large audience and at first there was much applause, but it dropped off along about the second round. At the close, however, there came something to arouse our interest. Upon the table the lecturer emptied about a bushel of cubes wrapped in paper. “Each one of these cubes contains a piece of soap,” said he. “It is the finest that has ever been made. And this is the offer that I shall make to you: I shall sell these cubes at twenty-five cents each, and in at least half of the papers is contained a yearly subscription to the Evening Mail, a paper which Mr. Watterson declares is the freest and best-written journal in America. He himself is thinking of taking the editorship of it on the first day of next July. Let us open a few of these papers. Ah, we here have a subscription, here is another—another—why, there are no end of them. I will now pass out among you.”
They bought his soap. He was giving our paper a boost and none save a great man could do that. Surely, the day of our prosperity was about to dawn. “I will be around early in the morning to settle for the advertisement, the tickets and the many subscriptions,” he said to one of us. “And now don’t think me presumptuous in what I said. Watterson has his eye on this paper.”
He did not come around the next day. We called on the business manager and he said that no arrangements for subscriptions had been made with him. We spoke to the editor and he sighed. Then, and for days afterward, there came broken streams of people with orders for yearly subscriptions. It was difficult to explain. The most of our stockholders had been present and had heard the promises made by Major DeMaine. So we dozed off into the bed prepared by the sheriff.
The last time I saw the editor he took my hand with a sigh and said: “It was a great pity that I went to that political luncheon. Ah, politics, ruination of mighty empires!”
Years afterward, in company with Col. Zeb. Ward, I was going through the Arkansas penitentiary. Near the wall I observed an oldish man washing a buggy. He had a familiar look, in spite of his stripes, and I spoke to Colonel Ward concerning him. “He is known as Commodore Sassafrac,” said the Colonel. “He got up a great land scheme down in the bottoms—told the negroes that he had the management of the great Mexican war land claim. Seventy million acres were set aside for the colored citizens, and all they had to do was to show an order from the Commodore, which he gave for five dollars apiece.”
I went up to him and spoke. He looked at me. I reminded him of the Nashville Evening Mail. “Ah,” said he, “I am pleased to meet anyone from the glowing past. Back upon that time I look with fondness. Your great journal made life worth living.”
DAVID BISPHAM,
One of the great stars of Grand Opera, who devotes a few weeks of his time each season to lyceum work. The fact that an artist of Bispham’s standing can be brought to the platform, is one of the strong evidences of its phenomenal development.
DR. THOMAS E. GREEN.
Dr. Thomas E. Green, whose lecture, “The Key to the Twentieth Century,” has been so widely and favorably commented upon by the Press of the Country within the last year, will add a few Southern cities to his platform itinerary, the coming season.
MISS CLYDA B. REEVES,
of Whitewright, Texas,
one of the brightest and most promising aspirants for platform honors, among Southern young women.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.