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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1923)
— '■ II-'—— ■ The Commoner ISSUED MONTHLY --*--1 Entered at the Postofflce at Lincoln. Nebraska, as second-class matter. WILLIAM J. BRYAN, CHARLES W. BRYAN, Editor and Proprietor Associate Ed. and Publisher Edit. Rms and Business Office, Suite 207 Press* Bldg. One Year .$1.00 Three Month*.25 Six Month* .50 Single Copy.10 In Clubs of Five or Sample copies Free, more per year ., .75 Foreign Post 25c Extra SUBSCRIPTIONS can be sent direct to The Com moner. They can also be sent through newspapers which have advertised a clubbing rate, or through local agents, where such agents have been ap pointed. All remittances should be sent by post office money order, express order, or by bank draft on New York or Chicago. Do not send individual checks, stamps, or currency. RENEWALS—The date on your wrapper shows the time to which your subscription is paid. Thus, January 24 means that payment has been received to and including the issue of January, 1924. CHANGE OF ADDRESS—Subscribers requesting a change of address must give old as well as new address. ADVERTISING—Rates will be furnished upon application. Address all communications to— THE COMMONER, LINCOLN. NEB. William Jennings Bryan %nd Bourke Cockran as our two greatest orators. It is impossible to compare them—their styles were so different. Bryan’s voice has greater carrying power than Cockran’s ever had, more bell-lilte qualities, but no such range or music as Cockran’s had. Cock ran used every trick known to the master of oratory and thought the highest art was to con ceal art. Bryan, like Marc Antony, as Shake speare says, speaks straight on like a pla n blunt man—and like Marc Antony possesses a power to whip an audience to such passion and fury —as probably Cockran never had. Cockran was a scholar, a student, a classicist and never for got it in anything he spoke or wrote; he loved sesquipedalian words and long singing sentences, whose clauses ebbed and flowed like the myriad waves of the sea. In short Cockran was a Latin ist with all the formality of Cicero and his school. Bryan is just the opposite. He is a Greek. Consciously or unconsciously he has builded himself upon Demosthenes. He had all the lire, all the directness, all the terseness, all the qualities of simplicity of form and straight ness of thought which have made Demosthenes the greatest orator in the world. Like John Bright— 11 am Jennings Bryan uses the lan guage c i people and thereby worms himself into the >;de’s hearts. He seldom ’goes to the pages of the classics for his illustrations, he finds them in the everyday life about him—and in the Bible. No orator of recent times knows the Bible as Bryan; no orator knows its lan guage as Bryan does; and therein lies one of the secrets of his power; for "there is a magnetic oratorical potency in the language, the imagery, and the inspiration of the Bible. Both Bryan and Cockran stand among our greatest orators, as to which is the greater, that is a matter of personal choice. They were too different to admit of a just comparison—one would be the greater on one occasion, the other the greater on another. They clashed in debate in the famous coinage battle of the 54th or 55tb Congress—and to this day, men who heard the debate, differ as to which one had the better of it. But of present day orators in America— Bryan and Cockran lead the list. And two other men just ahead of them share the laurel wreath which the Greeks of old were wont to give for excellence in oratory. Henry W. Grady, with his “New South Speech” in Boston, goes down into history as one of the greatest of our orators— and “Bob” Ingersoll, writh a score of master pieces, covering subjects of divers kinds and hues—will live as a master of the glittering phrase, the golden word, the spoken sentence that stirs the soul and flutters the heart. Inger soll, Grady, Cockran and Bryan are our four greatest orators of this period—and of the four Bryan alone remains to prove that oratory Is not dead—and that given the propitious opportunity, the auspicious occasion and the festering time— oratory can fire men’s souls as it fired them in the days of Peter the Hermit and move nations as it did in the time of Demosthenes and Cicero. “Behold, a Man!” (From Miami, Fla., Metropolis.) If you happen to know a governor who would appreciate this tribute to Gifford Pinchot, gov ernor of Pennsylvan a, send him a market copy. It comes under the caption, “Behold, a Man!” on the clip-sheet issued by the Board of Tem perance, Prohibition and Public Morals of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Washington, D. C. You will find the article worth reading. That paragraph beginning “Not much mush or gela tine in this kind of talk” will appeal to you. And you will, of course, earnestly applaud a gov ernor who says that he is “going to see to it that men who administer the government of which he is head are dry.” The boozer or the tippler in public office these days is a flagrant stain on the honor of the executive who keeps him there. But read the entire article, and then send it to some governor who may need a little stiffen ing of his moral fibre. It says: “No utterance in the past decade by a man in public life has struck so close to the enthusiasm of Christian people as the prohibition statements of Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania in his in augural address. “Mr Pinchot said that while he is Governor he is going to see to it that he is dry himself. “He said that he going to see to it that the men who administer the government of which he is the head are dry. “He said he is going to make an honest, earn- . est and determined effort to make Pennsylvania dry to the absolute limit of possibility. * * * “Not much mush or gelatine in this kind of talk. The article continues, “It is causing the people of the United States to suspect that Penn sylvania has a male man for Governor and that th's man has a real, tested steel backboue. No pussyfooting or hedging. No attempt to carry water on one shoulder and beer on the other. No indication that the drys are simply being treated to a nice mess of words, but straight, honest man talk, indicating the certainty of straight, honest man action. That kind of lead ership throughout the country when the prohibi tion amendment went into effect would have sim plified prohibition enforcement immeasurably. It is the kind of leadership that the people are going to get everywhere at -the earliest possible <*. moment. “In words which constitute the truest call of leadership yet emanat'ng from a place of such high authority, Mr. Pinchot said: “ ‘Power and responsibility for enforcing the Volstead law rests in the nation and also in the state. Under the eighteenth amendment the two have concurrent jurisdiction. Both are at fault for the intolerable situation which confronts us. “ ‘A general conviction exists throughout this commonwealth not only that the Volstead act is not enforced, but that no vigorous effort has ever been made to enforce it. Our people have seen men known to be opposed to the enforcement of the law selected to compel obedience to it on the part of others. They are told that appointments to the position of enforcement agent are treated as political spoils, and that politicians opposed to all that the law stands for are permitted to name such agents. They believe that persons high in official place are constantly and openly violating the spirit if not the letter of the law, and winking at its violation by others. * * * “ ‘With such beliefs in mind, the people $re necessarily led to conclude that the law is sys tematically disregarded by those whose peculiar duty it is to respect or enforce it. * * * * * * “ ‘I regard the present flagrant failure to en force the Volstead law as a blot on the good name of Pennsylvania, and the United States. If allowed to continue it will amount to a serious charge against the fitness of our people for gen uine self-government. I share in the belief that no determined concerted effort to enforce the law has yet been made, and I propose not only to press with all my power for the abolition of the saloon, but also to make sure that the govern ment of this state takes its full and effective nart in such an effort. " ‘Pennsylvania must either control the crimi nals who are openly breaking the law or be con trolled by them. With all good citizens, I be- ' lieve that this commonwealth is greater and more powerful than any band of lawbreakers whatsoever, and I intend to act on that belief “ ‘This administration will be dry. The exe cutive mansion will be dry, and the personal practice of the governor and his family will con tinue to be dry, in conformity to the spirit and letter of the eighteenth amendment. “ The law is the law. It is the foundation of order, safety and prosperity, and of the common wealth itself. Every state official takes oath, and is in honor bound to obey it. I shall expect and demand from every public servant appointed by me, or subject to removal by me, from the high est to the lowest, entire and ungrudging obedi ence to the eighteenth amendment and the Vol stead law. They are part of the law of the land.’ ” THOMAS E. BARKWORTH The passing of Hon. Thomas E. Barkworth yesterday marked the close of probably the most active career of any man in the city during the past forty years—the career of a man whose life was governed throughout by the highest motives, whose attitude was fearless in the cause he ad vocated, and whose efforts were untiring for what he considered the right. Thomas E. Barkworth was a man of ideals and convictions, to which may be attributed his fail ure to reach the heights he might have attained in political and business callings, but which made him a beloved leader in religious circles. As an English immigrant Mr. Barkworth landed in Liberity township and for some four years while working as a farm hand he utilized every spare hour in the study of law and de veloping the character that for more than forty years identified him with every movement for civic betterment and religious uplift in Jackson, made him a power in state religious work, and his name a household word in Jackson. Truly the world is better for “Tom” Bark worth having lived. As a lawyer he was an hon or to his profession, being governed by justice rather than what others might term success; as a business man he worked under and advocated the standard of honest dealings; in politics he was always found on the side of principle rather than personal or party preferment; but it was in connection with the church, and particularly his Sunday school work, that his real life was spent, and while he has gone to his reward Christianity’s cause has lost a splendid adovcate. Politically, while he was honored by the Demo cratic party, and respected by its opponents, the outstanding trait in his character was shown in his devotion to William Jennings Bryan in his campaigns for the presidency. Thoroughly con vinced of the wisdom of the Bryan policies no sacrifice of time or effort was too great in their support. Had Mr. Bryan been successful in his candidacy it was freely predicted that Mr. Bark worth would be made a member of his cabinet, but this was not a consideration in his support of Bryan. Mr. Barkworth was decidedly of the common people. He wasted no time on what might be termed wealth or aristocracy. The janitor had from him the same courtesy and consideration bestowed on the wealthiest client. His earlier years gave him a knowledge of the dignity of la bor that he could not forget. His life was spent in the cause of mankind, and his hosts of ad mirers feel deeply the loss that is theirs.—Jack son, Mich., News. THE MEADOW LARK Hail, sweet lark, tenant-entail of the meadow. Partner of the man in the furrow; Pause for a moment and gladden my ear— Tell me thy wondrous story. Who tapped upon thy shell-encrusted home And bade thee enter on thy simple life? * Whose hand, distilling sparkling drops of dew, Transmuted them ntc they liquid notes? Who taught thy wings their jaunty, jerky flight? Thy brain the craft that guards thy co7y nest? I seek thy counsel—fain would learn of thee; Forbid me not to borrow from thy store. Teach me, I pray, the treaty-making art By which thou fram’st the age-long pact Between thee and the tillers of the soil. Why do thy greet thy coming in the Spring And mourn thy going when the snows return? T.s not, thou sayest, the music of thy voice? Nor modest garb of white and grey and gold, Tho’ fairer far than costliest Paris gown? Nor yet thy cheerful air and pleasant way? These lend a charm, but not the cause supreme? Work, willing wo-rk, till working gives delight— This wins thee friends and holds them fast to thee? Thanks for the secret of thy happiness Translated into joyous song. May He who graved upon thy heart the law That makes thee welcome guest on every farm; My hands, my feet, my mind, my soul compel To tireless service in the Master’s field. —Anonymous.