_Sept. 30_.--I see President Hayes has come out West, passing quite
informally from point to point, with his wife and a small cortege of
big officers, receiving ovations, and making daily and sometimes
double-daily addresses to the people. To these addresses--all impromptu,
and some would call them ephemeral--I feel to devote a memorandum. They
are shrewd, good-natur'd, face-to-face speeches, on easy topics not
too deep; but they give me some revised ideas of oratory--of a new,
opportune theory and practice of that art, quite changed from the
classic rules, and adapted to our days, our occasions, to American
democracy, and to the swarming populations of the West. I hear them
criticised as wanting in dignity, but to me they are just what they
should be, considering all the circumstances, who they come from, and
who they are address'd to. Underneath, his objects are to compact and
fraternize the States, encourage their materialistic and industrial
development, soothe and expand their self-poise, and tie all and each
with resistless double ties not only of inter-trade barter, but human
comradeship.
From Kansas City I went on to St. Louis, where I remain'd nearly three
months, with my brother T.J.W., and my dear nieces.