Public Speaking: Principles and Practice

by Irvah Lester Winter

Now, gentlemen, I am about to present a name for your consideration,— the name of one who was the comrade, associate, and friend of nearly all the noble dead, whose faces look down upon us from these walls to- night; a man who began his career of public service twenty-five years ago.

You ask for his monument. I point you to twenty-five years of national statutes. Not one great, beneficent law has been placed on our statute books without his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided in formulating the laws to raise the great armies and navies which carried us through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship of those statutes that restored and brought back "the unity and married calm of States." His hand was in all that great legislation that created the war currency, and in all the still greater work that redeemed the promises of the government and made the currency equal to gold.

When at last he passed from the halls of legislation into a high executive office, he displayed that experience, intelligence, firmness, and poise of character, which have carried us through a stormy period of three years, with one half the public press crying "Crucify him!" and a hostile Congress seeking to prevent success. In all this he remained unmoved until victory crowned him. The great fiscal affairs of the nation, and the vast business interests of the country, he guarded and preserved while executing the law of resumption, and effected its object without a jar and against the false prophecies of one half of the press and of all the Democratic party.

He has shown himself able to meet with calmness the great emergencies of the government. For twenty-five years he has trodden the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of "that fierce light that beats against the throne"; but its fiercest ray has found no flaw in his armor, no stain upon his shield. I do not present him as a better Republican or a better man than thousands of others that we honor; but I present him for your deliberate and favorable consideration. I nominate JOHN SHERMAN, OF OHIO.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

From "The Speeches and Addresses of William E. Russell." Copyrighted 1893, by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, publishers.

BY WILLIAM E. RUSSELL

As I stand here to-night, a Democrat, speaking to Democrats, and to men whose conscience party could not bind,—men who carry their sovereignty each under his own hat,—there comes vividly back to me the stirring words with which the chairman opened a similar meeting on the eve of the great battle of 1884, "This is a union meeting;" and, as he spoke, the minds of his hearers went back to war days, when principle was placed above party, and patriotism above partisanship.

Our union is not for the triumph of any man, but for the triumph of ideas; for a living faith, a progressive spirit. It is of that to-night I speak.

It has often been said that there was little difference between the two parties. Perhaps that was the criticism of honest men, whose earnest desire for honest candidates led them to look no farther. To-day every intelligent man in Massachusetts knows that there is a wide difference between the parties,—all the difference that there is between standing still and moving forward. I do not believe that this difference is accidental. It is the natural evolution of the history and purpose of the parties. A political prophet of a generation ago, who knew this history, who had studied the Democratic faith, had seen the birth of the Republican party and its purpose, could have predicted the position of the parties to-day. The Democratic party is old enough to have outlived and defeated all other parties, young enough to represent the progressive spirit of to-day. It must be founded on vital principles and have a living faith. Its creed from its first to its thirty-ninth article is an abiding trust in the people, a belief that men, irrespective of the accident of birth or fortune, have a right to a voice in the government that rules them. Its principles are the equality and freedom of all men in affairs of State and before the altar of their God,—that there should be allowed the greatest possible personal liberty, that a government least felt is best, that it should lightly and never unnecessarily impose its burdens of taxation and restriction, that in its administration there should be simplicity, purity, and economy, and in its form it should be closely within the reach and control of the people.