James Allen Rice

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Figure

Subjects

Pearls and Swine
Social Parasites
For Man or Mammon


James Allen Rice


JAMES ALLEN RICE
SOME men enter certain fields of endeavor for the money they hope to make, while others enter the same fields for the good they hope to do.  The Lyceum and Chautauqua platforms afford unquestioned opportunities to both classes, but the men of the latter class are most desired and needed by the public.  We are just now going through a political reform and civic housecleaning such as our nation never before experienced.  Party ties and fealty are being broken and ignored, while graft, extravagance and corruption in public office are being exposed and the betrayers of the people and the public welfare are getting their just dues.  This is as it should be, and the men who have had the courage to speak or write fearlessly of men and things as they are have done most to bring it about.

Of these latter is James Allen Rice.  He was born and raised on a farm.  At twenty he was sent to college.  At twenty-five he was admitted to the bar.  Before he was thirty he was mayor of his adopted city, Canton, Ohio, and was re-elected by a largely increased majority, although the candidate of the minority party.  During his four years in that office he presided as police judge.  All the while he studied human nature and human conditions.  He liked politics and gained prominence in his party.  Although not a candidate, he was at one time second choice of a state convention of his party for nomination for governor.  He was nominated for presidential elector from Ohio, and later for attorney general.  In the days of this political activity he made many speeches in many states, and learned the rules of the political game.  He finally came to know so much about politics and politicians that he insurged, and has been insurging ever since.  He was entreated and warned and threatened by friends, real and pretended.  He was told that he was sacrificing a brilliant future; that he was digging his political grave; and that he was burning his bridges behind him.  He replied that nothing done or foregone for the general good is a sacrifice; that the only men who dig their political graves are those who seek or gain political preferment by dishonest or corrupt means and methods; and as to the bridges, he would never need them as he would never journey back that way.

Mr. Rice yields first claim upon his time and efforts to his clients.  He does not lecture as a business or to make money, but to gratify what he says has become the consuming ambition of his life, that is to do and be something that will help the other fellow.  The number of Lyceum engagements he is enabled to fill is necessarily limited because of this work coming at a time of year when courts are in session.  During the summer Chautauqua season, however, much of his time is available for lectures.

Mr. Rice's lectures are Pearls and Swine, Social Parasites, and For Man or Mammon?  The first deals with child labor in its various phases, and its inevitable effects upon the present and future,—physical, mental and moral,—of the citizenship of the nation.  The second treats generally of the useless and vicious elements in our social and political structure, and especially of the liquor traffic and its drain upon domestic, commercial, mental and moral resources of human society.  The third distinguishes between the joys and rewards of men who live to serve their fellowmen and those who see riches only in the possession of money.

If you are interested in these subjects and desire the services of Mr. Rice, address H. E. Kretschmer, Secretary to Mr. Rice, 602 City National Bank Building, Canton, Ohio.



JAMES ALLEN RICE

Some Idea of Mr. Rice's Style and Ability as an Orator may be Gathered from the Following:

The Coshocton Standard, Coshocton, Ohio.
Although a young man he has acquired from experience a clear and accurate knowledge of human nature and men.  * * * As a public speaker and debater he is the peer of any orator in this country.


The Stark County Democrat, Canton, Ohio.
* * * * He is eloquent and forceful, his language chaste, his construction ornate and his style and manner, combined with it all, carries conviction to the hearts of his hearers.  He made as good a speech as has ever been made in this district and was frequently interrupted by applause, laughter and enthusiastic cheers.  * * * *

Editorially:

* * * * For over two hours he held the audience spell-bound and in a clear, logical and convincing manner he discussed the issues of the day without uttering a single word of abuse against his opponents.  * * * *


The Auglaize County Democrat, Wapakoneta, O.
* * * * The Mayor spoke for two hours, and swayed his audience as he willed by his powerful logic and matchless oratory.  * * * *


The Daily Advertiser, Tiffin, Ohio.
* * * * He is gifted with a resonant voice trained to all the range of oratorical expression from the thunders of denunciation to the softest cadence of pity and pleading.  His facial expression and gestures suit the action to the word, and the audience was alternately immersed in argument, enlivened by biting satire, enthused by flights of eloquence, roaring with laughter, and moved to the tender sentiment of pity, just as the speaker willed.  * * *


The Paterson Guardian, Paterson, N. J.
Mr. Rice's address last night was a brilliant oratorical effort.  When he began to talk, the people in the audience thought they were going to be disappointed.  The speaker appeared embarrassed and to lack a knowledge of his subject.  After Mr. McDermott, the man from Canton seemed to lack something in beginning his speech.
But Mr. Rice was only fooling.  He had sized the audience up while sitting on the stage.  With the finished art of an orator he knew how to handle his hearers.  Disappointment soon gave way to surprise, then came interest, then admiration, and in fifteen minutes Mr. Rice had that audience completely in his power.  He led them on by gradual stages, and before he finished he brought them to a pitch of enthusiasm rarely seen in a political gathering.  It was a wonderful exhibition of the power of a public speaker when his words find an echo in the hearts of his hearers.  * * * *


Editorially:

Former Mayor J. A. Rice, of Canton, Ohio, proved a revelation as a campaign speaker, and his address fitted well with the speech of the gentleman who preceded him.  He began with gentle zephyrs, but soon had an oratorical gale in his grasp.  His speech was, withal, accompanied by so much of wit, humor, illustration, convincing argument, and merited denunciation, that his flights of oratory at times suggested the whirlwind as his auditors were fairly swept off their feet.

For over two hours that vast throng were glad to sit and stand and listen.  It was a splendid tribute.

In a letter written on January 2, 1911, D. W. Pugh, Acting Secretary of the Y. M. C. A. of Bowling Green, Ohio, said:—

On November 6th, 1910, Hon. James A. Rice of Canton delivered an address at the Opera House before a large audience on the subject of 'Good Citizenship.'  Every one present said it was the best address on that subject they had ever heard.  Mr. Rice occupies a warm place in the hearts of people of Bowling Green.

In a letter under date of December 22, 1910, written by Professor Lewis G. Westgate of Ohio Wesleyan University, concerning addresses delivered in Gray Chapel under the auspices of The Law and Order League on the evening of October 30, 1910, and before the student body of that University on the morning following, Prof. Westgate said:

The talks were a clear, forcible and stirring presentation of the new politics by a man of ideals who knew political conditions, and were interesting from start to finish.  I hope we may have him with us again.





JAMES ALLEN RICE
Mr. Rice was three times engaged for lectures in Springfield, Ohio, in eleven months.  Of his lecture on Feb. 6, 1910, the Springfield Daily News said:

There has been no address delivered to the big audiences at the Fairbanks theatre during the winter course of high class Sunday afternoon lectures that has been of greater force than that made yesterday afternoon by former Mayor James A. Rice of Canton.

(Bishop Quayle and Geo. R. Stuart were among the speakers who preceded Mr. Rice.)

Mr. Rice is a big man.  His physical makeup radiates force.  His ideas are in keeping with his powerful build and his blows are delivered with terrible energy.  He is an orator of the sort that audiences love.  His voice perfectly modulated, capable of infinite graduation of modulation, his machine-gun fire of argument, his wholly pleasing mannerisms—above all his sincerity which he could not hide and an earnestness that seems an inspiration, combine to procure a type of speaker that is not often found.

Yet if what he was and the way he said it won his audience at the beginning, it was what he said before he had proceeded far in his discussion of things in which the Fairbanks audiences are tremendously interested that woke the echoes and set the hands to clapping and the voices to approving.

The first part of his address was devoted to child labor, which he characterized as a crime.  If anybody in the big audience had ever before had the idea that the child labor crusade was a thing for women and a few faddish men to take up he would have gained a new insight in the course of a very few minutes.  As the big fellow stood there, in all the power of perfect physical manhood, and denounced the system that annually sacrifices thousands of children's lives for the sake of a few dollars, there could be no doubt but that it is a man's work to 'hit this thing and hit it hard,' as Lincoln said of the form of slavery which preceded this.

Of his lecture on March 29, 1910, The Daily Morning Sun said:

Congressman Richmond P. Hobson sent a telegram stating that he could not be present and former Mayor James A. Rice, of Canton, spoke in his place in the afternoon program.  Mayor Rice held the afternoon audience as Governor Hanly held his listeners in the evening.

Subsequent to his lecture on Jan. 8, 1910, the following correspondence occurred:

Angola, N. Y., Jan. 11, 1911.

Mr. A. E. Flindt, Springfield, Ohio.

Dear Sir:—I am informed that Mr. James A. Rice has just appeared in Springfield under the auspices of your association, and that it was his third appearance in your city in less than a year.  I should be glad to have direct from the field an estimate of Mr. Rice's work as we wish to introduce him more generally in my territory another season, so I am going to ask you if you will write me your opinion of the lecture and of the lecturer.  I shall regard it as a great favor.

Thanking you in advance for the anticipated courtesy, I am,

Very truly yours,
L. E. DAVIDSON, New York Representative, Coit Lyceum Bureau.

The Young Men's Christian Association, Springfield, O., Jan. 13, 1911.

Mr. L. E. Davidson, Angola, N. Y.

Dear Sir:—We have used J. A. Rice three times as a speaker for our big Men's Meetings.  He has measured up well.  He has something to say worth the hearing and knowns how to say it in a bright and attractive manner.

He is a clean, inviting-looking man,—a gentleman.

On an average he has had eight hundred face him each time he was here, and I have yet to hear unfavorable comment.

Yours truly,
A. E. FLINDT, General Secretary.


The Springfield Daily News, Jan. 9, 1911.
Ex-Mayor Rice, of Canton, Ohio, whose splendid lecture last February still is fresh in the minds of those who heard him, delivered another lecture in this city Sunday afternoon at the Fairbanks theatre, under auspices of the Y. M. C. A., taking as his subject, 'For Man or Mammon?'  * * * *


The Daily Morning Sun, Jan. 9, 1911.
* * * * Ex-Mayor of Canton delivers an instructive address on 'For Man or Mammon?'  * * * *
* * * * Taking for his subject, 'For Man or Mammon?' the speaker delivered one of the most touching and beautiful appeals that has been made in any of these meetings.  * * * *,'





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