PROPRIETY IN DEBATE
The race of demagogues we have always with us. They have
existed in every government from Cleon and the Sausage-maker.
They command votes and seem to delight popular and legislative
assemblies. But they rarely get very far in public favor.
The men to whom the American people gives its respect, and
whom it is willing to trust in the great places of power,
are intelligent men of property, dignity and sobriety.
We often witness and perhaps are tempted to envy the applause
which many public speakers get by buffoonery, by rough wit,
by coarse personality, by appeal to the vulgar passions. We
are apt to think that grave and serious reasonings are lost
on the audiences that receive them, half asleep, as if listening
to a tedious sermon, and who come to life again when the stump
speaker takes the platform. But it will be a great mistake
to think that the American people do not estimate such things
at their true value. When they come to take serious action,
they prefer to get their inspiration from the church or the
college and not from the circus. Uncle Sam likes to be amused.
But Uncle Sam is a gentleman. In the spring of 1869, when
I first took my seat in Congress, General Butler was in the
House. He was perhaps as widely known to the country as any
man in it except President Grant. He used to get up some
scene of quarrel or buffoonery nearly every morning session.
His name was found every day in the head-lines of the newspapers.
I said to General Banks one day after the adjournment: "Don't
you think it is quite likely that he will be the next President
of the United States?" "Never," said General Banks, in his
somewhat grandiloquent fashion. "Why," said I, "don't you
see that the papers all over the country all full of him every
morning? People seem to be reading about nobody else. Wherever
he goes, the crowds throng after him. Nobody else gets such
applause, not even Grant himself."
"Mr. Hoar," replied General Banks, "when I came down to the
House this morning, there was a fight between two monkeys
on Pennsylvania Avenue. There was an enormous crowd, shouting
and laughing and cheering. They would have paid very little
attention to you or me. But when they come to elect a President
of the United States, they won't take either monkey."
The men who possess the capacity for coarse wit and rough
repartee, and who indulge it, seldom get very far in public
favor. No President of the United States has had it. No
Judge of the Supreme Court has had it, no Speaker of the
House of Representatives, and, with scarcely an exception,
no eminent Senator.