[Sam P. Davis, An Oratorical Reminiscence, from Short Stories (1886)]

 

AN ORATORICAL REMINISCENCE.

            There is an old story told at the expense of Tom Fitch which for years has been current as an anecdote with the lawyers all over the Coast. No one can tell the story better than Tom Fitch himself. A good many years ago a suit was brought against the Ophir Mining Company at a time when its power and prestige overshadowed everything on the Comstock. Stewart and Baldwin were attorneys for the defense at the beginning of the suit, which dragged along for several years and

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wound up with Tom Fitch as counsel. The plaintiff's attorney was Tom Cox, of Virginia, a lawyer who has of late years dropped out of sight and no one seems to know what has become of him. His speech will live forever. It was as follows :

            " May it please the Court. Only a few years ago, when this suit was brought, the word of Ophir might have stood against the world ; but the time is fast approaching when there will be none so poor to do it reverence. It was an act of unexpected courage in my client when he determined to measure swords (purses he could not) with this formidable but now declining power. The outlook was indeed unpromising, but how changed is the situation. In proportion as our cause has strengthened that of our adversary has been undermined. We grappled with a giant, but are now dealing with a child. When we dared to sue the Ophir Company its power overshadowed the land, and sedate functionaries delighted to obey its highest behest. It was the only king of the Comstock lead ; it had an unfathomable mine of solid silver, and besides its buried ore, it had piles of yellow gold above the surface. It had a locust host of officers, agents and employes. It ran great tunnels into the earth and unlocked the secret vaults where treasures lay entombed. It built magnificent bridges, spanning wide lakes and noble streams. It erected a costly mill and surrounded it with a fence so close and high that the outside world was in continuous darkness as to what was ground up within. It did more. It owned public officers, it commanded the legislators, and it had for its advisers a man who developed into a United States Senator, and another who had become a United States District Judge. Behold it now. [A long pause.] How

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mournful the change which has come upon the spirit of its dream ! [Another pause.] What do we see ? No longer does it awe its adversaries into submission. It no longer shines like a fixed star. Its portion of the Comstock lead is a miserable disappointment ; its servants are poorly fed and poorly feed [sensation], and they no more hasten hither and thither with alacrity. Its magnificent bridges have crumbling arches. A hush has fallen upon its works. Its great mill is desolate and its high fence prostrate. Its bank vaults are empty. Its mine is flooded with hot water and choked with desert sands, and as if stern fate decreed its cup of humiliation should overflow, it has been compelled to fall back on Tom Fitch as one of its attorneys."

            As Cox spoke he pointed down at Fitch and looked at him with the air of a man who was trying to discern some small object on the ground. For the first time in his life Fitch was too nonplused to reply. A roar of laughter went up lasting for several minutes. It was finally subdued by the Sheriff, and when all was still again, Fitch, whose brow had all along worn a scowl of contempt, suddenly burst into a laugh, as if he had just comprehended the joke, and next day he was repeating the oratorical effort of Cox, word for word, to admiring listeners. To-day he knows that speech better than he does the Lord's Prayer.