CHAPTER 8
Websters of the Columbia
...graceful and electric as few have been in speech, ardent and vigorous in debate....thomas starr king
Oratory has descended from the greatness and glory it enjoyed in Oregon in pioneer times. Other forms of communication have substracted from its prestige and usefulness, and the radio, by means of which can be heard the great of the nation, has made it pretty hard on the local orator winning his way, or who had won his way before such big-league competition responded tothe turn of a dial.
And otherwise the times are sadder for those with silver tongues. While the chance of turning up a cater through oratory is hardly considered any more, facility in discussion and exposition is widely cultivated. Thus the few have no such eloquence as the few in the old days, but the rank and file are far ahead of the rank and file of their forefathers. Audiences are divided up and specialized; they do not all flock together in a vast and inspiring conclave to hear one man, at least one local man. A newcomer with exceptional platform ability might be popular in something of the ancient way in his community for a few weeks ora few months; but his hearers, ultimately fatigued, would eagerly desert him for the next forensic immistant.
In pioneer times public loquacity was something you were born with, like poetry. The frontiersmen, scant and embarassed themselves in discourse, looked upon a smooth flow of words spontaneously on tap as a spe-
