POLITIC WHO BUY SPEECHES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12278, 23 May 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

POLITIC WHO BUY SPEECHES.

" Of long speeches, and ambitious ones, delivered in Congress," says a writer in the Century Magazine, "there are, of course, plenty. A strong incentive to prolixity is the practice of reading speeches from manuscript, and even printing speeches which are not delivered at all. But undue expansiveness is not the only fruit of the written, speech. Many members who are not rhetorically gifted, but wish to make a respectable showing in the Record, buy speeches from men who make a trade of writing them, and the custom has not infrequently led to the sale 01 duplicate speeches to different members, either through accident or malice. This happened not very long ago in the case of two statesmen who were called upon for obituary tributes to a departed colleague. " The first instance of the kind ever discovered, I believe, was in the thirty-seventh Congress. An, agent of the ' literary lobby' wrote a speech for Representative William Allen, of Ohio, for which he expected 75 dollars (£ls). When he delivered the manuscript Mr. Allen handed him fifty dollars (£10).

"' Twenty-five more,' said the hack, sharply. "' Not another blanked cent,' was the response.

"'Then return the speech,' persisted the author.

Allen would neither pay more nor return the manuscript. So he appears in the Congressional Globe as having delivered his speech, which is printed with-the heading, 'Confiscation of Rebel Property.' The author of the speech evidently retained a copy of it, for on a neighbouring page it appears again as delivered by Representative R. H. Nugen, also of Ohio. " The only differences discoverable are changes of a few words, and the shortening ot the version given, to Mr. Nugen. " History does not relate which of the two statesmen was the angrier when the double-dealing of the literary person was discovered."