Japanese

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J01

Words and Their Stories -- a program about special expressions. Today, "to barnstorm" meaning to travel across the country to get the widest public support for a political or economic program.

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J02

Before television, American Presidents found it difficult to reach the people of the small towns and villages for political support --grass-roots support as it is called. At first, political leaders or candidates for office had to travel by train to small out-of-the-way places. They were called whistle stops because trains did not usually stop there. You had to use a special whistle to make them do so. With the arrival of the train, a small group of country people would gather around the back of the last car of the train. On the open platform, the President or presidential candidate would speak directly to those who came to hear him. It was an event to be remembered.

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J03

Whistle-stop campaigning was an old political tradition that came from the earliest days of American independence. Of course, train-travel was slow. But, then, travel by air came into use. It was faster, and a candidate could cover much more ground. That was "barnstorming" in the old sense of the word. And many Presidents and candidates were very successful because they showed a special skill in being able to talk to grass-roots groups -- to the farmers and agricultural workers of the nation and to the industrial workers of small towns. Some modern Presidents went barnstorming when they could not get the approval of Congress for important programs, or failed to get legislative support in the field of foreign policy.

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J04

The phrase, "to barnstorm," is an old expression that was taken from the theater. It goes far back to the time when there were few theaters or halls for traveling actors or entertainers. They produced their plays in the barns of country villages. Many of these traveling players were ham actors. That is how many people felt about them. They seemed to overact and spoke their lines like amateurs and badly trained actors. But they thought their acting was so effective that they took their audiences by storm. Thus, the phrase, "to barnstorm." Some of these village-barn audiences, however, liked this noisy style of acting and speaking, and groups of ham actors took the barns by storm like soldiers.

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J05

Some time around the middle 1800‘s "barnstorming" became part of American political language to describe quick visits by political speakers to small country towns. Some may have made speeches in barns, but usually they were made in the village square, out in the open. Barnstorming, as we have long known it, is slowly disappearing. In most out-of-the-way villages, people can listen to the President or political candidates on television. Still, many political candidates like meeting people face to face and talking directly to them. Moreover, television is very costly, and many candidates do not have the money to campaign by TV. So, the old methods of campaigning are not completely dead. There is more life to "barnstorming" than the cold, stagy image of a television screen.

Voice of America

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