Word: soapboxer
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Dates: during 1940-1940
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Next afternoon, over the dust-deep roads of Walker County, fierce with Alabama's autumn sunshine, 25,000 people went to pay their last respects to "Mr. Will." Jasper's First Methodist Church was roped off-a piece of twine strung from a telephone pole to a soapbox to a fireplug to another telephone pole. Men in overalls and blue denim shirts lined the street. Fans waved under tattered parasols. The loudspeaker brayed a prayer. Sweat-stained hats came off; the crowd's murmur hushed. Children scuffed their feet in the dusty heat...
Harry Dalton, 29, is a big, friendly Manhattan building contractor who used to play halfback at West Point. He is also a devout Catholic and vigorous American. Strolling with some friends one evening a few years ago, he paused to listen to a soapbox orator in full cry under a huge cross set up in Manhattan's Columbus Circle. Some of the things the rabble-rouser spouted as "Catholic" doctrine burned Harry up. "I was in Jesuit schools twelve years," he growled, "and I never heard stuff like that." He began to growl louder. The speaker kicked...