Gov. James K.
Vardaman
The
Great Southern Orator
American public life holds no more
striking figure today
than
James K. Vardaman, former Governor of Mississippi
AS AN INDIVIDUAL, Governor
Vardaman is unique and in a class by himself. He combines the great human
sympathy, the strong heart, sound common sense and homely philosophy of
Abraham Lincoln, the fire and bluntness of Senator Tillman of South
Carolina, without Tillman's crudities of expression, together with an
ability as an orator which places him in the class with Ingersoll, Grady
and Ingalls. Yet, his oratory, his manner, his personality, are all his
own!
Mississippi has ever been the home of great orators,
and in Governor Vardaman seems a reincarnation of the shade of Sargent S.
Prentiss, her giant of ante-bellum days. With a presence Which compels
attention and attracts, with a voice vibrant of intense feeling, with a
message of import to deliver, and with the ability to deliver it and lose
none of its weight, Governor Vardaman has become perhaps the foremost
orator in America today. Others may have the voice, but not the message;
or the presence without either voice or message; but he combines them all.
He looks the part of the latter day prophet, verily a "Daniel come to
judgment," and during the delivery of his great lecture, "The Impending
Crisis," there is not a dull moment, nor a minute where the interest
flags.
This lecture is the foremost deliverance upon that
most absorbing question, the race problem, with which the people have yet
been favored. Governor Vardaman knows his subject. He has gotten his
materials first hand; he has lived among the negroes and has studied them
for Years; intensely interested, he began long ago to try to find the
answer.
All that history, or the latter day writings of
authorities could give, he took, and assimilated, and applied to present
day conditions, and then in the light of his own observation, extending
over twenty-five years, he began to evolve his own ideas about it. So true
were they that upon them he was elected Governor of Mississippi; so
convinced were the people that he was right, that the members of the
Democratic party in Mississippi tried to send him to the United States
Senate, where he could tell the truth and be heard by all. He missed the
election by a narrow margin of a few hundred votes, but to this day he is
the dominant political factor in Mississippi politics, and tile future has
much in store for him.
Governor Vardaman is the Cato of
these latter days. He has seen the truth and he has a message to deliver;
and that message is, in brief, that the white race must be supreme; that
it never has and never will divide sovereignty with a lower race, and that
the encroaching attempts to divide that sovereignty will result simply in
debasing the white race-mongrelizing Our civilization and leaving our
country an easy prey to attack and enslavement from without, and decay,
damnation and desolation from within.
Governor Vardaman
was abused at first; he was called an agitator, an alarmist, a firebrand;
but at last the sober second thought of the people began to waken and they
began to listen. Today what he has to say on the race problem, is the word
of the supreme authority. Combining all the knowledge of writers on this
question, from dawn of history to tile present time, applied and measured
by personal observation and first-hand knowledge, Governor Vardaman has a
message to deliver of huge import to the American people
today.
As an orator, Governor Vardaman has no superiors,
and few equals in America. His stage presence is commanding, striking; his
voice full and resonant, and capable of every shade of expression. Wit of
the keen and scintillant kind, humor which brings the ready smile; pathos
which rends the heart-strings, are mixed and mingled with tile great
thoughts which compel attention and force the listeners to think for
themselves, are all mixed and mingled in his great lecture, "The Impending
Crisis."
SUBJECT: "The Impending Crisis"
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Master of Oratory .-Gov. Vardaman has a remarkable vocabulary and bursts into poetry and pathos with a facile power that impresses memory's tablets. His spontaneous similes and his rapid flights from the humorous to the serious are absorbing and his words are trenchant and yet spoken with such grace that the hearer is carried aloft to the speaker's conclusions and this with a degree of intensity that is magnetic. The speaker does not deliver a cut-and-dried speech, but is so full of his subject that his oration is a consecutive argument with every conclusion logical. He is not bitter, His speech sounds much different than his written words would indicate. He is a master of oratory and he knows his subject from alpha to omega. The applause elicited last night was ample manifestation of the admiration of his hearers. Those who missed the lecture missed a treat.-- San Angelo (Tex.) Daily Standard.
Negro a Menace to the Whites .--"It ought to be made as much a crime to sell whiskey or cocaine to a negro as it is to sell it to an Indian," declared Governor James K. Vardaman, of Mississippi, when seen at the Menger Hotel this morning. Of pleasing personality, urbane and polished, Governor Vardaman gives the impression of high-strung sensibility, which is intense and magnetic. Speaking in generalities, he touched lightly on the questions prohibition and of the menace of the negro in a manner that gave the impression of a smouldering volcano ready to burst into eruption. -- San Antonio (Tex.) Gazette.
The Impending
Crisis .-The auditorium at the Fair Grounds was fairly well crowded
last night by an audience there for the purpose of hearing Governor
Vardaman's address entitled "The Impending Crisis." The lecture deals with
the negro problem, and advocates, as a remedy for existing conditions, the
repeal of the fifteenth amendment and the material modification of the
fourteenth amendment to the Federal constitution. The lecture was well
received.--Dallas (Tex.) Daily Times.
Defended
Negroes from Mobs .-Gov.
Vardaman told of going across his state
six times while the chief executive officer to take negroes from the hands
of mobs, because he wanted to see the country run by law. He said he
realized that every time a white man takes the life of any one it is a
step toward degeneracy and against law enforcement. Gov. Vardaman tried to
show how hard it was to wait for justice to be meted out in such
instances, but said: "We want a government by law, not by revolution, and
if we are to have it the white man must occupy the position of supremacy.
That Abraham Lincoln recognized the whites and negroes would never be
politically and socially equal was held by the speaker, when he read a
statement of Mr. Lincoln's views. He quoted the martyred president as
saying: "Inasmuch as there must be a division between the superior and
inferior, I am in favor of giving the white Man superiority." -- Des
Moines (Iowa) Register .
One Must Hear
Him .--Governor Vardaman is deeply in earnest in this question and no
matter what one's views are in regard to the race question, if he will
hear Mr. Vardaman man upon this subject he cannot fail to be convinced of
the importance of the issue and the overwhelming interests at stake. One
must hear him to be fully cognizant of the stupendous importance of this
question. The Review hopes it may be possible to have him deliver this
lecture in Athens some time in July when he will be in the state again.
Governor Vardaman is an orator of the highest rank. He is a man of most
lovable character, The Review has never met a public man he felt closer to
in so short a time. His advice to every person who has never heard the
Governor on this question is to be sure to do so at very first opportunity
All other questions pale into utter insignificance in comparison with this
one. Hear Governor Vardaman and You will be convinced. He is decidedly the
most entertaining speaker we have heard at any time. -- Athens
(Texas) Daily Review.
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Gov.
James K. Vardaman
A Large, Crowd .-Governor James K. Vardaman lectured before a packed house last night at the Grand on the subject, "The Impending Crisis." Governor Vardaman is a very forceful and resourceful speaker, and he is so easy and graceful of manner and so pleasing in his address that he readily captivated the audience. He carried his listeners through a logical process of reasoning on the negro question. He gave them the fruit of a lifetime of study and preparation on the subject. At times he waxed eloquent in his reference to the old South, and her heroes and heroines. And here he paid a beautiful tribute to the ante-bellum negro mammy. --Helena ( Ark.) World
Governor Vardaman of Mississippi at Chautauqua.-- When it was announced from the Chautauqua platform that Governor Vardaman of Mississippi was to appear on the program in the place of Senator Bob Taylor, not many of our people were disappointed because they were pleased fully as much to have the opportunity of hearing the famous Mississippian as the Senator from Tennessee. And after the number was filled we were more than satisfied with the Governor's appearance. He gave us an excellent address, and he won our respect and admiration too. He has convictions on political matters and also on the negro problem, and he has the courage to pronounce those convictions. The man impressed his audience here as representative of the cultured element of the Southern whites, a gentleman, every inch of him, honest, moral in principle and thoroughly loyal to his country a splendid type of citizen. He appeared in a cream sack suit with long black hair extending in large volume over his collar, and he talked as though the words came warm from his heart. As he said, he would give us no cold storage product, but some hard facts for us to chew on mentally. -- Central Michigan Times, Mt. Plesaant, Mich.
A Great Occasion . -- The
orator of the Memorial Day exercises, Governor James K. Vardaman of
Mississippi, completely captured the large audience which assembled at
Live Oak cemetery yesterday after-
noon to do honor to the confederate dead. He did not speak long, but his speech was of the old time eloquent kind that in the days gone by thrilled the hearts and souls of men. Gov. Vardaman is a sturdy, well built specimen of mahood, with an intellectual head, flowing hair and a clear, well sounding voice. He is a good man to speak of the confederate dead. -- Selma (Ala.) Journal.
Big Crowd Hear Him at Citronellle, Ala. -Possibly 2,500 strong, the vast throng assembled, visitors from far and near, to listen to the distinguished Mississippian at the Citronelle Chautauqua's auditorium, were held spell-bound for over two hours, yielding rapt, undivided attention and very frequently prolonged applause. Charmed by his manly frankness and soothed by his peerless eloquence, with not a sentence to shock the modesty of even a school girl, Governor Vardaman virtually took the hearts of all by storm. -- J. Potts Holt, in the Bay St. Louis (Miss.) Echo .
Gov. Vardaman at
Eagle Grove.-Owing to the duties of Senator Taylor in the United
States Senate he was unable to meet his engagement here for Sunday
afternoon, and Governor Vardaman was substituted. There was some concern
here as to the probable nature of the Governor's address, stimulated
somewhat by the Des Moines Register and Leader, and the attitude of
Governor Tillman toward the North and toward the negro. It was expected by
many Governor Vardaman would out-Tillman Tillman in brutality and abuse of
everything and everybody, but all were most agreeably surprised with his
candor, gentlemanly deportment on the platform, and kindly consideration
for those differing from him, and he had the audience with him in a very
short time. He began his lecture by stating he was the friend of the
negro. In the legislature of Mississippi he had helped appropriate money
for their education, to care for their blind and unfortunate and to give
every possible uplift to their race-said the old type of the faithful,
trustworthy negro was fast disappearing and a different type was
supplanting it -- Eagle Grove (Iowa) Eagle .
EXCLUSIVE WESTERN MANAGMENT
THE MUTUAL LYCEUM
BUREAU
Orchestra
Building F.
A. MORGAN President
CHICAGO, ILL.
