Massachusetts’ scholarly Edward Everett once concluded an elegant speech in the House with a long quotation in Latin from Tacitus and then took his seat.
No sooner was he seated than up sprang a burly Congressman from the West. Obviously irritated by Everett’s erudition, the Westerner, a former Indian agent, began pouring out a vehement harangue in Choctaw. After a while the Speaker called him to order. “I don’t see why my freedom of speech should be abridged,” protested the Westerner. “You let the gentleman from Massachusetts run on, and I didn’t understand the first word of his lingo any better than he does mine.”
Reporting the incident, one journal expressed the belief that “it struck the death-knell of further classical quotations in Congress.”
Source:
Boller, Paul F. “On the Floor.” Congressional Anecdotes. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. 192. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Clark, Quarter Century of Politics, II, 302.
Further Reading:
No comments, yet...