Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/188

 *form in the old tent, under the flaring lights, with the eager crowd before him—there were never such intelligent audiences to speak to as those in Cleveland, unless it were those in Toledo—and he was at his best when the crowd was heckling him. He was like Severus Cassius, who, as Montaigne says, "spoke best extempore, and stood more obliged to fortune than his own diligence; it was an advantage to him to be interrupted in speaking, and his adversaries were afraid to nettle him, lest his anger redouble his eloquence." He voluntarily introduced the custom of heckling so prevalent in England and Scotland, because at first he was not a proficient speaker; he was so simple, so direct, so positive, that he could state his position in a very few words. Thus, as he told me once, his speeches were too short for the customary political meeting in a state where political oratory flowed on and on indefinitely, and he asked the crowd to put questions to him. This stirred him up, put him on his mettle, stimulated his thought, and he was best at this short range. And no one ever got the better of him. Once an opponent triumphantly demanded, in a campaign in which Johnson's administration was charged with extravagance:

"Mr. Johnson, is it not a fact that under your administration the Cleveland workhouse has lost money?"

"Yes, sir," the Mayor replied promptly.

"How do you explain that?"

"We are not trying to make money in the Cleveland workhouse," the Mayor replied instantly, "we are trying to make MEN!"