Most political meetings are too long. Very often two or three speakers are engaged, each harboring the erroneous opinion that duty requires him to talk an hour. Now, any speaker who cannot say something good, useful and inspiring in fifteen minutes, is incapable of saying anything good, useful or inspiring at all.
Except in times of great excitement or in out-of-the-way country districts where meetings are few and the hearers, like savages in a forest, must gorge themselves when they have a chance, the speaking should never, on any occasion, last more than an hour and a half.
Where there are three speakers, not only should each be limited to half an hour but the chair should be filled by a man with pluck and personality sufficiently great to tap the speaker on the shoulder when his time is up.
I have seen more hoggishness displayed at political meetings than ever at a dinner table. The man who sits down at a table and eats everything in sight before his friends arrive, is a gentleman compared with the fellow who occupies the time of his colleagues at a public meeting; because, if by one man's greed all the food on the table is eaten, other food can be obtained, but when some oratorical hog monopolizes the opportunity of his fellow-speakers, he takes from his colleagues what can never be replaced.
Our volunteers will accomplish a great work for humanity indeed if one of their number succeeds in inventing a method to stiffen the backbones of presiding officers sufficiently to enable them to sit down on that species of "bore" who push themselves to the front, ask to speak first by pledging to quit at a specified time and then talk on until the audience begins to disperse. Few people appreciate the great loss caused to a party or movement by the vacillating weakness of presiding officers and the greedy instincts of men who like to be heard and, in order to satisfy this instinct, "hog everything in sight."
One mission of the volunteer speaker is to teach etiquette to the political speakers of our own party and when "Ex-Governor So-and-So" and "Prosecuting Attorney Other-man" and "Judge Dry-Bones" and "Ex-Judge Old Fogy" and "The Honorables" and "The Colonels" and "The Generals" and the bulldozing youthful speakers assume to occupy time not intended for them, to take the chairman by the arm and stand by his side until he redeems the pledge made before the meeting and stops the mouth of the insolent fellow who has not sense enough to regard the rights of his fellow-workers.
AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION.
If a prominent man, known to be long-winded and lacking in this one requisite of a gentleman, is present and it is uncertain that the presiding officer has the courage necessary to call him down at the right time, our voluble celebrity should be told that the position of honor being the last on the program, it has been POSITIVELY given to him. Thus the other speakers will have a chance to plant a few ideas in the minds of their auditors before they are hopelessly wearied. Although the last speaker may injure the general effect of the meeting by his prolonged and drawn-out harangue, the self-assertive and independent ones among the listeners can, at least, leave the room when they get fatigued, without missing the opportunity of listening to those whom they came to hear. This point is purposely emphasized, and strong language not inadvertently used.
Where more than one speaker participates, there is nothing more essential for a successful meeting than that each speaker be limited in time by a pre-arranged plan, and that each be forced by the presiding officer strictly to observe that limit.