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MEMBERS OF THE CALHOUN AND KALAMAZOO
COUNTY BARS BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
The best things in his speeches were the sudden flashes and the thoughts not dreamed of before. " Here is where Littlejohn, as an orator, found his great opportunity; when these new thoughts inspired him his language would have "the power of prose to take poetic tone, the power which loads a sentence with impressiveness" and enabled him to carry his audience to the height of enthusiasm by his grand eloquence.
The true orator's thoughts receive color from his surroundings, and he is1 better understood when he speaks through them to his auditors. Littlejohn, in his speech at Battle Creek, in the political campaign of 1856, seeing in the hickory pole, that had just been erected, an emblem of the democratic party, exclaimed: "That hickory pole, standing firm and strong while bearing aloft the flag of our Union, represents the leader of our party, proudly bearing aloft our time honored banner. That pole is sound to the heart like the principles of our party and, like it, clad in an invulnerable armor for the handling of its enemies. " I have given but a crude idea of his illustration, but as he gave it in his own graphic and eloquent words, it was received with
tumultuous applause. William A. Blake and Jas. H. Hopkins, of Galesburg, who heard Littlejohn during this campaign, say that his eloquence was grand beyond description.
P. H. Whitford says he went from Galesburg to Marshall on July 4, 1845, to hear Littlejohn deliver an oration there. The orator stood on the steps of the old court house, and when he came to the point where the revolutionary sires were summoned to arms, he raised his hands, as he stepped forward, while his voice thrilled through the large audience and made every heart beat with a patriotic fervor, and everyone present feel like going to battle.
Michigan Bar
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