Pieces of Hate and Other Enthusiasms

by Heywood Broun

...some living and present person for him to speak against. Upon one occasion we heard him make a particularly dreary discourse, and incidentally a political one, until he came to a point where a group in the audience took exception to some statement and attempted to howl him down. It was like the touch of a whip on the flanks of a stake horse. Roosevelt returned to the statement and said it over again, only this time he said it much more dogmatically and twice as well. Before that speech was done he had climbed to the top of a table and was putting all his back and shoulders into every word. Even his platitudes seemed to be knockout blows. He was inspiring. He was magnificent. The after-dinner speaker needs this same stimulus of emotion. He ought to have something into which he can get his teeth. Every well conducted banquet should include a special committee to heckle the guests of honor. Even a dreary person might be aroused to fervor if his opening sentence was met with a mocking roar of, "Is that so!" Loud cries of "Make him sit down" would undoubtedly serve to make the speaker forget his entire stock of anecdotes about Pat and Mike. There would be no calm in which he could be reminded of anything except that certain desperadoes were not willing to listen, and that, by the Old Harry, he was going to give it to them so hot and heavy that they would have to. The scheme may sound a little cruel, but we ought to face the fact that a time has come when we must choose between cutting off the heads of our after-dinner speakers or slapping them in the face. We believe that they deserve to have a chance to show us whether or not they have a right to live. XXV THE YOUNG PESSIMISTS Bert Williams used to tell a story about a man on a lonely road at night who suddenly saw a ghost come out of the forest and begin to follow him. The man walked faster and the ghost increased his pace. Then the man broke into a run with the ghost right on his heels. Mile after...

227 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1922

About the author

Heywood Campbell Broun was an American newspaper columnist and critic, best known for his strong stance against social injustice, and his long-running column "It Seems to Me." Broun worked for the New York Tribune from 1912 to 1921, and the New York World from 1921 to 1928, where his "It Seems to Me" column began. In 1928 he transferred to the New York World-Telegram, where "It Seems to Me" appeared until he moved to the New York Post near the end of his life. Broun was a founder of the American Newspaper Guild, and its first president, from 1933 until his death. Broun regularly used his column to defend the underdog, point out social injustice, and back various labor unions. And in 1930 he ran unsuccessfully for congress on the Socialist ticket.

Broun was also a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an informal literary group that met regularly at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City, from its inception in 1919 to its decline in 1929. In 1917 Broun married writer and feminist Ruth Hale, and their only child, Heywood Hale Broun, grew up to be a television personality and a writer in his own right. Broun died of pneumonia in 1939, aged 51.