The Carolina Spartan

A Reporter's Speech.

At the recent editorial celebration in Washington, Major Ben. Perley Poore, of the Boston Journal, one of the prominent reporters and letter writers at Washington, was called out and said:

Thanks for this compliment, ladies and gentlemen, and I wish that I could acknowledge it by pulling out of my pocket a carefully prepared speech, all ready to be read when "unexpectedly called upon"

But we who are here at the metropolis, as reporters and correspondents, have so much to do with the speeches of other people, that we have neither time nor inclination to indulge in oratorical displays of our own. [Applause.] But a correspondent is the last man you should have called upon to speak, especially after having listened to eloquent and intensely interesting remarks from the President, from members of Congress and from high officials. No monarch, it is said, is a hero to his valet de chambre—no playgoer should get a peep at the poor devils who shift the scenes—boys who blow the organ are never considered a portion of the choir, and if you, ladies and gentlemen, were better acquainted with metropolitan usages you would know that correspondents are but little esteemed by those whose good deeds they proclaim, and to whose short comings they are charitably blind. [Applause.] No correspondent should ever be called upon to speak, especially when the universal theme is the probable perpetuity of the Republic, founded by him to whose grave we have just made a pleasant pilgrimage.

In the reporters' galleries disunion is regarded as a myth, and Union-saving as a humbug. [Applause and laughter.] True, we see the honorable gentlemen beneath us indulging in oratorical and sometimes pugilistic displays, and we send abroad accounts of their heroic conduct, tinted to suit the political complexion of the newspaper which is to pay for the letter. [Laughter.]

But although, like lawyers, we endeavor to earn our retaining fees, we have our individual opinions, and we have no fear that any of these combatants will fail to get, for their pay and mileage to the "United States." so long as we see our guelphs and ghibellines walk arm in arm from their arenas, eat fraternally at the same festive boards, mingle in the masses of the same dance, or play poker at the same table. [Boisterous laughter.] You cannot persuade a correspondent that there is any ground for alarm—especially one who, like myself, comes from old Massachusetts, from whose rock-bound coasts the ship of State was launched upon the troubled waters of political strife, and whose sons will ever be ready to aid in repelling boarders or in suppressing mutiny. [Three cheers for Massachusetts.]

You, editors of the Mississippi valley, have it in your power to stop all this uncalled for excitement, if you will just determine not to publish one word about any politician who will even allude to the possibility of knocking into pi this political form which our fathers imposed with so much care, and on which so many glorious impressions of prosperity, and power, and good feeling have been worked off. [Cheers.]

Your pen, scissors and paste have made these agitators what they are, and they are only kept alive on printer's ink. Stop advertising them, and they will be powerless.

In conclusion (that most acceptable phrase in a Congressional speech to a reporter.) let me recommend to you a platform, the adoption of which can but promote the prosperity of our native land. Take, as its four supports the printer's case, the citizen's ballot-box, the volunteer's cartridge-box, and last, (but by no means least.) the ladies' band-box. And on these place the sheet of an honest, independent country newspaper, which has the county advertising and a good list of advance-paying subscribers. [Applause.]

With that platform the country will be safe.