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The Art of Public Speaking
BY
J. BERG ESENWEIN
AUTHOR OF
"HOW TO ATTRACT AND HOLD AN AUDIENCE,"
"WRITING THE SHORT-STORY,"
"WRITING THE PHOTOPLAY," ETC., ETC.,
AND
DALE CARNAGEY
PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING, BALTIMORE SCHOOL OF COMMERCE AND
FINANCE; INSTRUCTOR IN PUBLIC SPEAKING, Y.M.C.A. SCHOOLS, NEW
YORK, BROOKLYN, BALTIMORE, AND PHILADELPHIA, AND THE
NEW YORK CITY CHAPTER, AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF BANKING
THE WRITER'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY J. BERG ESENWEIN
THE HOME CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL
SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1915
THE HOME CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TO
F. ARTHUR METCALF
FELLOW-WORKER AND FRIEND
Table of Contents
THINGS TO THINK OF FIRST—A FOREWORD
CHAPTER I—ACQUIRING CONFIDENCE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE
CHAPTER II—THE SIN OF MONOTONY
CHAPTER III—EFFICIENCY THROUGH EMPHASIS AND SUBORDINATION
CHAPTER IV—EFFICIENCY THROUGH CHANGE OF PITCH
CHAPTER V—EFFICIENCY THROUGH CHANGE OF PACE
CHAPTER VI—PAUSE AND POWER
CHAPTER VII—EFFICIENCY THROUGH INFLECTION
CHAPTER VIII—CONCENTRATION IN DELIVERY
CHAPTER IX—FORCE
CHAPTER X—FEELING AND ENTHUSIASM
CHAPTER XI—FLUENCY THROUGH PREPARATION
CHAPTER XII—THE VOICE
CHAPTER XIII—VOICE CHARM
CHAPTER XIV—DISTINCTNESS AND PRECISION OF UTTERANCE
CHAPTER XV—THE TRUTH ABOUT GESTURE
CHAPTER XVI—METHODS OF DELIVERY
CHAPTER XVII—THOUGHT AND RESERVE POWER
CHAPTER XVIII—SUBJECT AND PREPARATION
CHAPTER XIX—INFLUENCING BY EXPOSITION
CHAPTER XX—INFLUENCING BY DESCRIPTION
CHAPTER XXI—INFLUENCING BY NARRATION
CHAPTER XXII—INFLUENCING BY SUGGESTION
CHAPTER XXIII—INFLUENCING BY ARGUMENT
CHAPTER XXIV—INFLUENCING BY PERSUASION
CHAPTER XXV—INFLUENCING THE CROWD
CHAPTER XXVI—RIDING THE WINGED HORSE
CHAPTER XXVII—GROWING A VOCABULARY
CHAPTER XXVIII—MEMORY TRAINING
CHAPTER XXIX—RIGHT THINKING AND PERSONALITY
CHAPTER XXX—AFTER-DINNER AND OTHER OCCASIONAL SPEAKING
CHAPTER XXXI—MAKING CONVERSATION EFFECTIVE
APPENDIX A—FIFTY QUESTIONS FOR DEBATE
APPENDIX B—THIRTY THEMES FOR SPEECHES, WITH SOURCE-REFERENCES
APPENDIX C—SUGGESTIVE SUBJECTS FOR SPEECHES; HINTS FOR TREATMENT
APPENDIX D—SPEECHES FOR STUDY AND PRACTISE
GENERAL INDEX
THINGS TO THINK OF FIRST
A FOREWORD
The efficiency of a book is like that of a man, in one important respect: its
attitude toward its subject is the first source of its power. A book may be full
of good ideas well expressed, but if its writer views his subject from the wrong
angle even his excellent advice may prove to be ineffective.
This book stands or falls by its authors' attitude toward its subject. If the
best way to teach oneself or others to speak effectively in public is to fill
the mind with rules, and to set up fixed standards for the interpretation of
thought, the utterance of language, the making of gestures, and all the rest,
then this book will be limited in value to such stray ideas throughout its pages
as may prove helpful to the reader—as an effort to enforce a group of principles
it must be reckoned a failure, because it is then untrue.
It is of some importance, therefore, to those who take up this volume with open
mind that they should see clearly at the out-start what is the thought that at
once underlies and is builded through this structure. In plain words it is this:
Training in public speaking is not a matter of externals—primarily; it is not a
matter of imitation—fundamentally; it is not a matter of conformity to
standards—at all. Public speaking is public utterance, public issuance, of the
man himself; therefore the first thing both in time and in importance is that
the man should be and think and feel things that are worthy of being given
forth. Unless there be something of value within, no tricks of training can ever
make of the talker anything more than a machine—albeit a highly perfected
machine—for the delivery of other men's goods. So self-development is
fundamental in our plan.
The second principle lies close to the first: The man must enthrone his will to
rule over his thought, his feelings, and all his physical powers, so that the
outer self may give perfect, unhampered expression to the inner. It is futile,
we assert, to lay down systems of rules for voice culture, intonation, gesture,
and what not, unless these two principles of having something to say and making
the will sovereign have at least begun to make themselves felt in the life.
The third principle will, we surmise, arouse no dispute: No one can learn how to
speak who does not first speak as best he can. That may seem like a vicious
circle in statement, but it will bear examination.
Many teachers have begun with the how. Vain effort! It is an ancient truism that
we learn to do by doing. The first thing for the beginner in public speaking is
to speak—not to study voice and gesture and the rest. Once he has spoken he can
improve himself by self-observation or according to the criticisms of those who
hear.
But how shall he be able to criticise himself? Simply by finding out three
things: What are the qualities which by common consent go to make up an
effective speaker; by what means at least some of these qualities may be
acquired; and what wrong habits of speech in himself work against his acquiring
and using the qualities which he finds to be good.
Experience, then, is not only the best teacher, but the first and the last.
But experience must be a dual thing—the experience of others must be used to
supplement, correct and justify our own experience; in this way we shall become
our own best critics only after we have trained ourselves in self-knowledge, the
knowledge of what other minds think, and in the ability to judge ourselves by
the standards we have come to believe are right. "If I ought," said Kant, "I
can."
An examination of the contents of this volume will show how consistently these
articles of faith have been declared, expounded, and illustrated. The student is
urged to begin to speak at once of what he knows. Then he is given simple
suggestions for self-control, with gradually increasing emphasis upon the power
of the inner man over the outer. Next, the way to the rich storehouses of
material is pointed out. And finally, all the while he is urged to speak, speak,
SPEAK as he is applying to his own methods, in his own personal way, the
principles he has gathered from his own experience and observation and the
recorded experiences of others.
So now at the very first let it be as clear as light that methods are secondary
matters; that the full mind, the warm heart, the dominant will are primary—and
not only primary but paramount; for unless it be a full being that uses the
methods it will be like dressing a wooden image in the clothes of a man.
J. BERG ESENWEIN.
NARBERTH, PA.,
JANUARY 1, 1915.
THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
Sense never fails to give them that have it, Words enough to make them
understood. It too often happens in some conversations, as in Apothecary Shops,
that those Pots that are Empty, or have Things of small Value in them, are as
gaudily Dress'd as those that are full of precious Drugs.
They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling
preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious
Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie
so much exposed to the Weather.
—William Penn.
CHAPTER I
ACQUIRING CONFIDENCE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE
There is a strange sensation often experienced in the presence of an audience.
It may proceed from the gaze of the many eyes that turn upon the speaker,
especially if he permits himself to steadily return that gaze. Most speakers
have been conscious of this in a nameless thrill, a real something, pervading
the atmosphere, tangible, evanescent, indescribable. All writers have borne
testimony to the power of a speaker's eye in impressing an audience. This
influence which we are now considering is the reverse of that picture—the power
their eyes may exert upon him, especially before he begins to speak: after the
inward fires of oratory are fanned into flame the eyes of the audience lose all
terror.—William Pittenger, Extempore Speech.
Students of public speaking continually ask, "How can I overcome
self-consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me before an audience?"
Did you ever notice in looking from a train window that some horses feed near
the track and never even pause to look up at the thundering cars, while just
ahead at the next railroad crossing a farmer's wife will be nervously trying to
quiet her scared horse as the train goes by?
How would you cure a horse that is afraid of cars—graze him in a back-woods lot
where he would never see steam-engines or automobiles, or drive or pasture him
where he would frequently see the machines?
Apply horse-sense to ridding yourself of self-consciousness and fear: face an
audience as frequently as you can, and you will soon stop shying. You can never
attain freedom from stage-fright by reading a treatise. A book may give you
excellent suggestions on how best to conduct yourself in the water, but sooner
or later you must get wet, perhaps even strangle and be "half scared to death."
There are a great many "wetless" bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one
ever learns to swim in them. To plunge is the only way.
Practise, practise, PRACTISE in speaking before an audience will tend to remove
all fear of audiences, just as practise in swimming will lead to confidence and
facility in the water. You must learn to speak by speaking.
The Apostle Paul tells us that every man must work out his own salvation. All we
can do here is to offer you suggestions as to how best to prepare for your
plunge. The real plunge no one can take for you. A doctor may prescribe, but you
must take the medicine.
Do not be disheartened if at first you suffer from stage-fright. Dan Patch was
more susceptible to suffering than a superannuated dray horse would be. It never
hurts a fool to appear before an audience, for his capacity is not a capacity
for feeling. A blow that would kill a civilized man soon heals on a savage. The
higher we go in the scale of life, the greater is the capacity for suffering.
For one reason or another, some master-speakers never entirely overcome
stage-fright, but it will pay you to spare no pains to conquer it. Daniel
Webster failed in his first appearance and had to take his seat without
finishing his speech because he was nervous. Gladstone was often troubled with
self-consciousness in the beginning of an address. Beecher was always perturbed
before talking in public.
Blacksmiths sometimes twist a rope tight around the nose of a horse, and by thus
inflicting a little pain they distract his attention from the shoeing process.
One way to get air out of a glass is to pour in water.
Be Absorbed by Your Subject
Apply the blacksmith's homely principle when you are speaking. If you feel
deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else.
Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too
late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so
centre your interest on what you are about to say—fill your mind with your
speech-material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out
your unsubstantial fears.
Self-consciousness is undue consciousness of self, and, for the purpose of
delivery, self is secondary to your subject, not only in the opinion of the
audience, but, if you are wise, in your own. To hold any other view is to regard
yourself as an exhibit instead of as a messenger with a message worth
delivering. Do you remember Elbert Hubbard's tremendous little tract, "A Message
to Garcia"? The youth subordinated himself to the message he bore. So must you,
by all the determination you can muster. It is sheer egotism to fill your mind
with thoughts of self when a greater thing is there—TRUTH. Say this to yourself
sternly, and shame your self-consciousness into quiescence. If the theater
caught fire you could rush to the stage and shout directions to the audience
without any self-consciousness, for the importance of what you were saying would
drive all fear-thoughts out of your mind.
Far worse than self-consciousness through fear of doing poorly is
self-consciousness through assumption of doing well. The first sign of greatness
is when a man does not attempt to look and act great. Before you can call
yourself a man at all, Kipling assures us, you must "not look too good nor talk
too wise."
Nothing advertises itself so thoroughly as conceit. One may be so full of self
as to be empty. Voltaire said, "We must conceal self-love." But that can not be
done. You know this to be true, for you have recognized overweening self-love in
others. If you have it, others are seeing it in you. There are things in this
world bigger than self, and in working for them self will be forgotten, or—what
is better—remembered only so as to help us win toward higher things.
Have Something to Say
The trouble with many speakers is that they go before an audience with their
minds a blank. It is no wonder that nature, abhorring a vacuum, fills them with
the nearest thing handy, which generally happens to be, "I wonder if I am doing
this right! How does my hair look? I know I shall fail." Their prophetic souls
are sure to be right.
It is not enough to be absorbed by your subject—to acquire self-confidence you
must have something in which to be confident. If you go before an audience
without any preparation, or previous knowledge of your subject, you ought to be
self-conscious—you ought to be ashamed to steal the time of your audience.
Prepare yourself. Know what you are going to talk about, and, in general, how
you are going to say it. Have the first few sentences worked out completely so
that you may not be troubled in the beginning to find words. Know your subject
better than your hearers know it, and you have nothing to fear.
After Preparing for Success, Expect It
Let your bearing be modestly confident, but most of all be modestly confident
within. Over-confidence is bad, but to tolerate premonitions of failure is
worse, for a bold man may win attention by his very bearing, while a
rabbit-hearted coward invites disaster.
Humility is not the personal discount that we must offer in the presence of
others—against this old interpretation there has been a most healthy modern
reaction. True humility any man who thoroughly knows himself must feel; but it
is not a humility that assumes a worm-like meekness; it is rather a strong,
vibrant prayer for greater power for service—a prayer that Uriah Heep could
never have uttered.
Washington Irving once introduced Charles Dickens at a dinner given in the
latter's honor. In the middle of his speech Irving hesitated, became
embarrassed, and sat down awkwardly. Turning to a friend beside him he remarked,
"There, I told you I would fail, and I did."
If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You will.
Rid yourself of this I-am-a-poor-worm-in-the-dust idea. You are a god, with
infinite capabilities. "All things are ready if the mind be so." The eagle looks
the cloudless sun in the face.
Assume Mastery Over Your Audience
In public speech, as in electricity, there is a positive and a negative force.
Either you or your audience are going to possess the positive factor. If you
assume it you can almost invariably make it yours. If you assume the negative
you are sure to be negative. Assuming a virtue or a vice vitalizes it. Summon
all your power of self-direction, and remember that though your audience is
infinitely more important than you, the truth is more important than both of
you, because it is eternal. If your mind falters in its leadership the sword
will drop from your hands. Your assumption of being able to instruct or lead or
inspire a multitude or even a small group of people may appall you as being
colossal impudence—as indeed it may be; but having once essayed to speak, be
courageous. BE courageous—it lies within you to be what you will. MAKE yourself
be calm and confident.
Reflect that your audience will not hurt you. If Beecher in Liverpool had spoken
behind a wire screen he would have invited the audience to throw the over-ripe
missiles with which they were loaded; but he was a man, confronted his hostile
hearers fearlessly—and won them.
In facing your audience, pause a moment and look them over—a hundred chances to
one they want you to succeed, for what man is so foolish as to spend his time,
perhaps his money, in the hope that you will waste his investment by talking
dully?
Concluding Hints
Do not make haste to begin—haste shows lack of control.
Do not apologize. It ought not to be necessary; and if it is, it will not help.
Go straight ahead.
Take a deep breath, relax, and begin in a quiet conversational tone as though
you were speaking to one large friend. You will not find it half so bad as you
imagined; really, it is like taking a cold plunge: after you are in, the water
is fine. In fact, having spoken a few times you will even anticipate the plunge
with exhilaration. To stand before an audience and make them think your thoughts
after you is one of the greatest pleasures you can ever know. Instead of fearing
it, you ought to be as anxious as the fox hounds straining at their leashes, or
the race horses tugging at their reins.
So cast out fear, for fear is cowardly—when it is not mastered. The bravest know
fear, but they do not yield to it. Face your audience pluckily—if your knees
quake, MAKE them stop. In your audience lies some victory for you and the cause
you represent. Go win it. Suppose Charles Martell had been afraid to hammer the
Saracen at Tours; suppose Columbus had feared to venture out into the unknown
West; suppose our forefathers had been too timid to oppose the tyranny of George
the Third; suppose that any man who ever did anything worth while had been a
coward! The world owes its progress to the men who have dared, and you must dare
to speak the effective word that is in your heart to speak—for often it requires
courage to utter a single sentence. But remember that men erect no monuments and
weave no laurels for those who fear to do what they can.
Is all this unsympathetic, do you say?
Man, what you need is not sympathy, but a push. No one doubts that temperament
and nerves and illness and even praiseworthy modesty may, singly or combined,
cause the speaker's cheek to blanch before an audience, but neither can any one
doubt that coddling will magnify this weakness. The victory lies in a fearless
frame of mind. Prof. Walter Dill Scott says: "Success or failure in business is
caused more by mental attitude even than by mental capacity." Banish the
fear-attitude; acquire the confident attitude. And remember that the only way to
acquire it is—to acquire it.
In this foundation chapter we have tried to strike the tone of much that is to
follow. Many of these ideas will be amplified and enforced in a more specific
way; but through all these chapters on an art which Mr. Gladstone believed to be
more powerful than the public press, the note of justifiable self-confidence
must sound again and again.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES.
1. What is the cause of self-consciousness?
2. Why are animals free from it?
3. What is your observation regarding self-consciousness in children?
4. Why are you free from it under the stress of unusual excitement?
5. How does moderate excitement affect you?
6. What are the two fundamental requisites for the acquiring of self-confidence?
Which is the more important?
7. What effect does confidence on the part of the speaker have on the audience?
8. Write out a two-minute speech on "Confidence and Cowardice."
9. What effect do habits of thought have on confidence? In this connection read
the chapter on "Right Thinking and Personality."
10. Write out very briefly any experience you may have had involving the
teachings of this chapter.
11. Give a three-minute talk on "Stage-Fright," including a (kindly) imitation
of two or more victims.
CHAPTER II
THE SIN OF MONOTONY
One day Ennui was born from Uniformity.—Motte.
Our English has changed with the years so that many words now connote more than
they did originally. This is true of the word monotonous. From "having but one
tone," it has come to mean more broadly, "lack of variation."
The monotonous speaker not only drones along in the same volume and pitch of
tone but uses always the same emphasis, the same speed, the same thoughts—or
dispenses with thought altogether.
Monotony, the cardinal and most common sin of the public speaker, is not a
transgression—it is rather a sin of omission, for it consists in living up to
the confession of the Prayer Book: "We have left undone those things we ought to
have done."
Emerson says, "The virtue of art lies in detachment, in sequestering one object
from the embarrassing variety." That is just what the monotonous speaker fails
to do—he does not detach one thought or phrase from another, they are all
expressed in the same manner.
To tell you that your speech is monotonous may mean very little to you, so let
us look at the nature—and the curse—of monotony in other spheres of life, then
we shall appreciate more fully how it will blight an otherwise good speech.
If the Victrola in the adjoining apartment grinds out just three selections
over and over again, it is pretty safe to assume that your neighbor has no other
records. If a speaker uses only a few of his powers, it points very plainly to
the fact that the rest of his powers are not developed. Monotony reveals our
limitations.
In its effect on its victim, monotony is actually deadly—it will drive the bloom
from the cheek and the lustre from the eye as quickly as sin, and often leads to
viciousness. The worst punishment that human ingenuity has ever been able to
invent is extreme monotony—solitary confinement. Lay a marble on the table and
do nothing eighteen hours of the day but change that marble from one point to
another and back again, and you will go insane if you continue long enough.
So this thing that shortens life, and is used as the most cruel of punishments
in our prisons, is the thing that will destroy all the life and force of a
speech. Avoid it as you would shun a deadly dull bore. The "idle rich" can have
half-a-dozen homes, command all the varieties of foods gathered from the four
corners of the earth, and sail for Africa or Alaska at their pleasure; but the
poverty-stricken man must walk or take a street car—he does not have the choice
of yacht, auto, or special train. He must spend the most of his life in labor
and be content with the staples of the food-market. Monotony is poverty, whether
in speech or in life. Strive to increase the variety of your speech as the
business man labors to augment his wealth.
Bird-songs, forest glens, and mountains are not monotonous—it is the long rows
of brown-stone fronts and the miles of paved streets that are so terribly same.
Nature in her wealth gives us endless variety; man with his limitations is often
monotonous. Get back to nature in your methods of speech-making.
The power of variety lies in its pleasure-giving quality. The great truths of
the world have often been couched in fascinating stories—"Les Miserables," for
instance. If you wish to teach or influence men, you must please them, first or
last. Strike the same note on the piano over and over again. This will give you
some idea of the displeasing, jarring effect monotony has on the ear. The
dictionary defines "monotonous" as being synonymous with "wearisome." That is
putting it mildly. It is maddening. The department-store prince does not disgust
the public by playing only the one tune, "Come Buy My Wares!" He gives recitals
on a $125,000 organ, and the pleased people naturally slip into a buying mood.
How to Conquer Monotony
We obviate monotony in dress by replenishing our wardrobes. We avoid monotony in
speech by multiplying our powers of speech. We multiply our powers of speech by
increasing our tools.
The carpenter has special implements with which to construct the several parts
of a building. The organist has certain keys and stops which he manipulates to
produce his harmonies and effects. In like manner the speaker has certain
instruments and tools at his command by which he builds his argument, plays on
the feelings, and guides the beliefs of his audience. To give you a conception
of these instruments, and practical help in learning to use them, are the
purposes of the immediately following chapters.
Why did not the Children of Israel whirl through the desert in limousines, and
why did not Noah have moving-picture entertainments and talking machines on the
Ark? The laws that enable us to operate an automobile, produce moving-pictures,
or music on the Victrola, would have worked just as well then as they do today.
It was ignorance of law that for ages deprived humanity of our modern
conveniences. Many speakers still use ox-cart methods in their speech instead of
employing automobile or overland-express methods. They are ignorant of laws that
make for efficiency in speaking. Just to the extent that you regard and use the
laws that we are about to examine and learn how to use will you have efficiency
and force in your speaking; and just to the extent that you disregard them will
your speaking be feeble and ineffective. We cannot impress too thoroughly upon
you the necessity for a real working mastery of these principles. They are the
very foundations of successful speaking. "Get your principles right," said
Napoleon, "and the rest is a matter of detail."
It is useless to shoe a dead horse, and all the sound principles in Christendom
will never make a live speech out of a dead one. So let it be understood that
public speaking is not a matter of mastering a few dead rules; the most
important law of public speech is the necessity for truth, force, feeling, and
life. Forget all else, but not this.
When you have mastered the mechanics of speech outlined in the next few
chapters you will no longer be troubled with monotony. The complete knowledge of
these principles and the ability to apply them will give you great variety in
your powers of expression. But they cannot be mastered and applied by thinking
or reading about them—you must practise, practise, PRACTISE. If no one else will
listen to you, listen to yourself—you must always be your own best critic, and
the severest one of all.
The technical principles that we lay down in the following chapters are not
arbitrary creations of our own. They are all founded on the practices that good
speakers and actors adopt—either naturally and unconsciously or under
instruction—in getting their effects.
It is useless to warn the student that he must be natural. To be natural may be
to be monotonous. The little strawberry up in the arctics with a few tiny seeds
and an acid tang is a natural berry, but it is not to be compared with the
improved variety that we enjoy here. The dwarfed oak on the rocky hillside is
natural, but a poor thing compared with the beautiful tree found in the rich,
moist bottom lands. Be natural—but improve your natural gifts until you have
approached the ideal, for we must strive after idealized nature, in fruit, tree,
and speech.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES.
1. What are the causes of monotony?
2. Cite some instances in nature.
3. Cite instances in man's daily life.
4. Describe some of the effects of monotony in both cases.
5. Read aloud some speech without paying particular attention to its meaning or
force.
6. Now repeat it after you have thoroughly assimilated its matter and spirit.
What difference do you notice in its rendition?
7. Why is monotony one of the worst as well as one of the most common faults of
speakers?
CHAPTER III
EFFICIENCY THROUGH EMPHASIS AND SUBORDINATION
In a word, the principle of emphasis ... is followed best, not by remembering
particular rules, but by being full of a particular feeling.—C.S. Baldwin,
Writing and Speaking.
The gun that scatters too much does not bag the birds. The same principle
applies to speech. The speaker that fires his force and emphasis at random into
a sentence will not get results. Not every word is of special
importance—therefore only certain words demand emphasis.
You say MassaCHUsetts and MinneAPolis, you do not emphasize each syllable alike,
but hit the accented syllable with force and hurry over the unimportant ones.
Now why do you not apply this principle in speaking a sentence? To some extent
you do, in ordinary speech; but do you in public discourse? It is there that
monotony caused by lack of emphasis is so painfully apparent.
So far as emphasis is concerned, you may consider the average sentence as just
one big word, with the important word as the accented syllable. Note the
following:
"Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice."
You might as well say MASS-A-CHU-SETTS, emphasizing every syllable equally, as
to lay equal stress on each word in the foregoing sentences.
Speak it aloud and see. Of course you will want to emphasize destiny, for it is
the principal idea in your declaration, and you will put some emphasis on not,
else your hearers may think you are affirming that destiny is a matter of
chance. By all means you must emphasize chance, for it is one of the two big
ideas in the statement.
Another reason why chance takes emphasis is that it is contrasted with choice in
the next sentence. Obviously, the author has contrasted these ideas purposely,
so that they might be more emphatic, and here we see that contrast is one of the
very first devices to gain emphasis.
As a public speaker you can assist this emphasis of contrast with your voice. If
you say, "My horse is not black," what color immediately comes into mind? White,
naturally, for that is the opposite of black. If you wish to bring out the
thought that destiny is a matter of choice, you can do so more effectively by
first saying that "DESTINY is NOT a matter of CHANCE." Is not the color of the
horse impressed upon us more emphatically when you say, "My horse is NOT BLACK.
He is WHITE" than it would be by hearing you assert merely that your horse is
white?
In the second sentence of the statement there is only one important word—choice.
It is the one word that positively defines the quality of the subject being
discussed, and the author of those lines desired to bring it out emphatically,
as he has shown by contrasting it with another idea. These lines, then, would
read like this:
"DESTINY is NOT a matter of CHANCE. It is a matter of CHOICE." Now read this
over, striking the words in capitals with a great deal of force.
In almost every sentence there are a few MOUNTAIN PEAK WORDS that represent the
big, important ideas. When you pick up the evening paper you can tell at a
glance which are the important news articles. Thanks to the editor, he does not
tell about a "hold up" in Hong Kong in the same sized type as he uses to report
the death of five firemen in your home city. Size of type is his device to show
emphasis in bold relief. He brings out sometimes even in red headlines the
striking news of the day.
It would be a boon to speech-making if speakers would conserve the attention of
their audiences in the same way and emphasize only the words representing the
important ideas. The average speaker will deliver the foregoing line on destiny
with about the same amount of emphasis on each word. Instead of saying, "It is a
matter of CHOICE," he will deliver it, "It is a matter of choice," or "IT IS A
MATTER OF CHOICE"—both equally bad.
Charles Dana, the famous editor of The New York Sun, told one of his reporters
that if he went up the street and saw a dog bite a man, to pay no attention to
it. The Sun could not afford to waste the time and attention of its readers on
such unimportant happenings. "But," said Mr. Dana, "if you see a man bite a dog,
hurry back to the office and write the story." Of course that is news; that is
unusual.
Now the speaker who says "IT IS A MATTER OF CHOICE" is putting too much emphasis
upon things that are of no more importance to metropolitan readers than a dog
bite, and when he fails to emphasize "choice" he is like the reporter who
"passes up" the man's biting a dog. The ideal speaker makes his big words stand
out like mountain peaks; his unimportant words are submerged like stream-beds.
His big thoughts stand like huge oaks; his ideas of no especial value are merely
like the grass around the tree.
From all this we may deduce this important principle: EMPHASIS is a matter of
CONTRAST and COMPARISON.
Recently the New York American featured an editorial by Arthur Brisbane. Note
the following, printed in the same type as given here.
We do not know what the President THOUGHT when he got that message, or what the
elephant thinks when he sees the mouse, but we do know what the President DID.
The words THOUGHT and DID immediately catch the reader's attention because they
are different from the others, not especially because they are larger. If all
the rest of the words in this sentence were made ten times as large as they are,
and DID and THOUGHT were kept at their present size, they would still be
emphatic, because different.
Take the following from Robert Chambers' novel, "The Business of Life." The
words you, had, would, are all emphatic, because they have been made different.
He looked at her in angry astonishment.
"Well, what do you call it if it isn't cowardice—to slink off and marry a
defenseless girl like that!"
"Did you expect me to give you a chance to destroy me and poison Jacqueline's
mind? If I had been guilty of the thing with which you charge me, what I have
done would have been cowardly. Otherwise, it is justified."
A Fifth Avenue bus would attract attention up at Minisink Ford, New York, while
one of the ox teams that frequently pass there would attract attention on Fifth
Avenue. To make a word emphatic, deliver it differently from the manner in which
the words surrounding it are delivered. If you have been talking loudly, utter
the emphatic word in a concentrated whisper—and you have intense emphasis. If
you have been going fast, go very slow on the emphatic word. If you have been
talking on a low pitch, jump to a high one on the emphatic word. If you have
been talking on a high pitch, take a low one on your emphatic ideas. Read the
chapters on "Inflection," "Feeling," "Pause," "Change of Pitch," "Change of
Tempo." Each of these will explain in detail how to get emphasis through the use
of a certain principle.
In this chapter, however, we are considering only one form of emphasis: that of
applying force to the important word and subordinating the unimportant words. Do
not forget: this is one of the main methods that you must continually employ in
getting your effects.
Let us not confound loudness with emphasis. To yell is not a sign of
earnestness, intelligence, or feeling. The kind of force that we want applied to
the emphatic word is not entirely physical. True, the emphatic word may be
spoken more loudly, or it may be spoken more softly, but the real quality
desired is intensity, earnestness. It must come from within, outward.
Last night a speaker said: "The curse of this country is not a lack of
education. It's politics." He emphasized curse, lack, education, politics. The
other words were hurried over and thus given no comparative importance at all.
The word politics was flamed out with great feeling as he slapped his hands
together indignantly. His emphasis was both correct and powerful. He
concentrated all our attention on the words that meant something, instead of
holding it up on such words as of this, a, of, It's.
What would you think of a guide who agreed to show New York to a stranger and
then took up his time by visiting Chinese laundries and boot-blacking "parlors"
on the side streets? There is only one excuse for a speaker's asking the
attention of his audience: He must have either truth or entertainment for them.
If he wearies their attention with trifles they will have neither vivacity nor
desire left when he reaches words of Wall-Street and skyscraper importance. You
do not dwell on these small words in your everyday conversation, because you are
not a conversational bore. Apply the correct method of everyday speech to the
platform. As we have noted elsewhere, public speaking is very much like
conversation enlarged.
Sometimes, for big emphasis, it is advisable to lay stress on every single
syllable in a word, as absolutely in the following sentence:
I ab-so-lute-ly refuse to grant your demand.
Now and then this principle should be applied to an emphatic sentence by
stressing each word. It is a good device for exciting special attention, and it
furnishes a pleasing variety. Patrick Henry's notable climax could be delivered
in that manner very effectively: "Give—me—liberty—or—give—me—death." The
italicized part of the following might also be delivered with this every-word
emphasis. Of course, there are many ways of delivering it; this is only one of
several good interpretations that might be chosen.
Knowing the price we must pay, the sacrifice we must make, the burdens we must
carry, the assaults we must endure—knowing full well the cost—yet we enlist, and
we enlist for the war. For we know the justice of our cause, and we know, too,
its certain triumph.
—From "Pass Prosperity Around," by Albert J. Beveridge, before the Chicago
National Convention of the Progressive Party.
Strongly emphasizing a single word has a tendency to suggest its antithesis.
Notice how the meaning changes by merely putting the emphasis on different words
in the following sentence. The parenthetical expressions would really not be
needed to supplement the emphatic words.
I intended to buy a house this Spring (even if you did not).
I INTENDED to buy a house this Spring (but something prevented).
I intended to BUY a house this Spring (instead of renting as heretofore).
I intended to buy a HOUSE this Spring (and not an automobile).
I intended to buy a house THIS Spring (instead of next Spring).
I intended to buy a house this SPRING (instead of in the Autumn).
When a great battle is reported in the papers, they do not keep emphasizing the
same facts over and over again. They try to get new information, or a "new
slant." The news that takes an important place in the morning edition will be
relegated to a small space in the late afternoon edition. We are interested in
new ideas and new facts. This principle has a very important bearing in
determining your emphasis. Do not emphasize the same idea over and over again
unless you desire to lay extra stress on it; Senator Thurston desired to put the
maximum amount of emphasis on "force" in his speech on page 50. Note how force
is emphasized repeatedly. As a general rule, however, the new idea, the "new
slant," whether in a newspaper report of a battle or a speaker's enunciation of
his ideas, is emphatic.
In the following selection, "larger" is emphatic, for it is the new idea. All
men have eyes, but this man asks for a LARGER eye.
This man with the larger eye says he will discover, not rivers or safety
appliances for aeroplanes, but NEW STARS and SUNS. "New stars and suns" are
hardly as emphatic as the word "larger." Why? Because we expect an astronomer to
discover heavenly bodies rather than cooking recipes. The words, "Republic
needs" in the next sentence, are emphatic; they introduce a new and important
idea. Republics have always needed men, but the author says they need NEW men.
"New" is emphatic because it introduces a new idea. In like manner, "soil,"
"grain," "tools," are also emphatic.
The most emphatic words are italicized in this selection. Are there any others
you would emphasize? Why?
The old astronomer said, "Give me a larger eye, and I will discover new stars
and suns." That is what the republic needs today—new men—men who are wise toward
the soil, toward the grains, toward the tools. If God would only raise up for
the people two or three men like Watt, Fulton and McCormick, they would be worth
more to the State than that treasure box named California or Mexico. And the
real supremacy of man is based upon his capacity for education. Man is unique in
the length of his childhood, which means the period of plasticity and education.
The childhood of a moth, the distance that stands between the hatching of the
robin and its maturity, represent a few hours or a few weeks, but twenty years
for growth stands between man's cradle and his citizenship. This protracted
childhood makes it possible to hand over to the boy all the accumulated stores
achieved by races and civilizations through thousands of years.
—Anonymous.
You must understand that there are no steel-riveted rules of emphasis. It is not
always possible to designate which word must, and which must not be emphasized.
One speaker will put one interpretation on a speech, another speaker will use
different emphasis to bring out a different interpretation. No one can say that
one interpretation is right and the other wrong. This principle must be borne in
mind in all our marked exercises. Here your own intelligence must guide—and
greatly to your profit.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. What is emphasis?
2. Describe one method of destroying monotony of thought-presentation.
3. What relation does this have to the use of the voice?
4. Which words should be emphasized, which subordinated, in a sentence?
5. Read the selections on pages 50, 51, 52, 53 and 54, devoting special
attention to emphasizing the important words or phrases and subordinating the
unimportant ones. Read again, changing emphasis slightly. What is the effect?
6. Read some sentence repeatedly, emphasizing a different word each time, and
show how the meaning is changed, as is done on page 22.
7. What is the effect of a lack of emphasis?
8. Read the selections on pages 30 and 48, emphasizing every word. What is the
effect on the emphasis?
9. When is it permissible to emphasize every single word in a sentence?
10. Note the emphasis and subordination in some conversation or speech you have
heard. Were they well made? Why? Can you suggest any improvement?
11. From a newspaper or a magazine, clip a report of an address, or a
biographical eulogy. Mark the passage for emphasis and bring it with you to
class.
12. In the following passage, would you make any changes in the author's
markings for emphasis? Where? Why? Bear in mind that not all words marked
require the same degree of emphasis—in a wide variety of emphasis, and in nice
shading of the gradations, lie the excellence of emphatic speech.
I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way to empire over broken oaths
and through a sea of blood. This man never broke his word. "No Retaliation" was
his great motto and the rule of his life; and the last words uttered to his son
in France were these: "My boy, you will one day go back to Santo Domingo; forget
that France murdered your father." I would call him Cromwell, but Cromwell was
only a soldier, and the state he founded went down with him into his grave. I
would call him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. This man risked
his empire rather than permit the slave-trade in the humblest village of his
dominions.
You think me a fanatic to-night, for you read history, not with your eyes, but
with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse
of History will put Phocion for the Greek, and Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for
England, Lafayette for France, choose Washington as the bright, consummate
flower of our earlier civilization, and John Brown the ripe fruit of our
noonday, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue,
above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, TOUSSAINT
L'OUVERTURE.
—Wendell Phillips, Toussaint l'Ouverture.
Practise on the following selections for emphasis: Beecher's "Abraham Lincoln,"
page 76; Lincoln's "Gettysburg Speech," page 50; Seward's "Irrepressible
Conflict," page 67; and Bryan's "Prince of Peace," page 448.
CHAPTER IV
EFFICIENCY THROUGH CHANGE OF PITCH
Speech is simply a modified form of singing: the principal difference being in
the fact that in singing the vowel sounds are prolonged and the intervals are
short, whereas in speech the words are uttered in what may be called "staccato"
tones, the vowels not being specially prolonged and the intervals between the
words being more distinct. The fact that in singing we have a larger range of
tones does not properly distinguish it from ordinary speech. In speech we have
likewise a variation of tones, and even in ordinary conversation there is a
difference of from three to six semi-tones, as I have found in my
investigations, and in some persons the range is as high as one octave.—William
Scheppegrell, Popular Science Monthly.
By pitch, as everyone knows, we mean the relative position of a vocal tone—as,
high, medium, low, or any variation between. In public speech we apply it not
only to a single utterance, as an exclamation or a monosyllable (Oh! or the) but
to any group of syllables, words, and even sentences that may be spoken in a
single tone. This distinction it is important to keep in mind, for the efficient
speaker not only changes the pitch of successive syllables (see Chapter VII,
"Efficiency through Inflection"), but gives a different pitch to different
parts, or word-groups, of successive sentences. It is this phase of the subject
which we are considering in this chapter.
Every Change in the Thought Demands a Change in the Voice-Pitch
Whether the speaker follows the rule consciously, unconsciously, or
subconsciously, this is the logical basis upon which all good voice variation is
made, yet this law is violated more often than any other by public speakers. A
criminal may disregard a law of the state without detection and punishment, but
the speaker who violates this regulation suffers its penalty at once in his loss
of effectiveness, while his innocent hearers must endure the monotony—for
monotony is not only a sin of the perpetrator, as we have shown, but a plague on
the victims as well.
Change of pitch is a stumbling block for almost all beginners, and for many
experienced speakers also. This is especially true when the words of the speech
have been memorized.
If you wish to hear how pitch-monotony sounds, strike the same note on the piano
over and over again. You have in your speaking voice a range of pitch from high
to low, with a great many shades between the extremes. With all these notes
available there is no excuse for offending the ears and taste of your audience
by continually using the one note. True, the reiteration of the same tone in
music—as in pedal point on an organ composition—may be made the foundation of
beauty, for the harmony weaving about that one basic tone produces a consistent,
insistent quality not felt in pure variety of chord sequences. In like manner
the intoning voice in a ritual may—though it rarely does—possess a solemn
beauty. But the public speaker should shun the monotone as he would a
pestilence.
Continual Change of Pitch is Nature's Highest Method
In our search for the principles of efficiency we must continually go back to
nature. Listen—really listen—to the birds sing. Which of these feathered tribes
are most pleasing in their vocal efforts: those whose voices, though sweet, have
little or no range, or those that, like the canary, the lark, and the
nightingale, not only possess a considerable range but utter their notes in
continual variety of combinations? Even a sweet-toned chirp, when reiterated
without change, may grow maddening to the enforced listener.
The little child seldom speaks in a monotonous pitch. Observe the conversations
of little folk that you hear on the street or in the home, and note the
continual changes of pitch. The unconscious speech of most adults is likewise
full of pleasing variations.
Imagine someone speaking the following, and consider if the effect would not be
just about as indicated. Remember, we are not now discussing the inflection of
single words, but the general pitch in which phrases are spoken.
(High pitch) "I'd like to leave for my vacation tomorrow,—(lower) still, I have
so much to do. (Higher) Yet I suppose if I wait until I have time I'll never
go."
Repeat this, first in the pitches indicated, and then all in the one pitch, as
many speakers would. Observe the difference in naturalness of effect.
The following exercise should be spoken in a purely conversational tone, with
numerous changes of pitch. Practise it until your delivery would cause a
stranger in the next room to think you were discussing an actual incident with a
friend, instead of delivering a memorized monologue. If you are in doubt about
the effect you have secured, repeat it to a friend and ask him if it sounds like
memorized words. If it does, it is wrong.
A SIMILAR CASE
Jack, I hear you've gone and done it.—Yes, I know; most fellows will; went and
tried it once myself, sir, though you see I'm single still. And you met her—did
you tell me—down at Newport, last July, and resolved to ask the question at a
soirée? So did I.
I suppose you left the ball-room, with its music and its light; for they say
love's flame is brightest in the darkness of the night. Well, you walked along
together, overhead the starlit sky; and I'll bet—old man, confess it—you were
frightened. So was I.
So you strolled along the terrace, saw the summer moonlight pour all its
radiance on the waters, as they rippled on the shore, till at length you
gathered courage, when you saw that none was nigh—did you draw her close and
tell her that you loved her? So did I.
Well, I needn't ask you further, and I'm sure I wish you joy. Think I'll wander
down and see you when you're married—eh, my boy? When the honeymoon is over and
you're settled down, we'll try—What? the deuce you say! Rejected—you rejected?
So was I.—Anonymous.
The necessity for changing pitch is so self-evident that it should be grasped
and applied immediately. However, it requires patient drill to free yourself
from monotony of pitch.
In natural conversation you think of an idea first, and then find words to
express it. In memorized speeches you are liable to speak the words, and then
think what they mean—and many speakers seem to trouble very little even about
that. Is it any wonder that reversing the process should reverse the result? Get
back to nature in your methods of expression.
Read the following selection in a nonchalant manner, never pausing to think what
the words really mean. Try it again, carefully studying the thought you have
assimilated. Believe the idea, desire to express it effectively, and imagine an
audience before you. Look them earnestly in the face and repeat this truth. If
you follow directions, you will note that you have made many changes of pitch
after several readings.
It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put
more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the
revolution that destroys the machinery but the friction.—Henry Ward Beecher.
Change of Pitch Produces Emphasis
This is a highly important statement. Variety in pitch maintains the hearer's
interest, but one of the surest ways to compel attention—to secure unusual
emphasis—is to change the pitch of your voice suddenly and in a marked degree. A
great contrast always arouses attention. White shows whiter against black; a
cannon roars louder in the Sahara silence than in the Chicago hurly burly—these
are simple illustrations of the power of contrast.
"What is Congress going to do next?
-----------------------------------
(High pitch)
|
|
I do not know."
-----------------------------------
(Low pitch)
By such sudden change of pitch during a sermon Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis recently
achieved great emphasis and suggested the gravity of the question he had raised.
The foregoing order of pitch-change might be reversed with equally good effect,
though with a slight change in seriousness—either method produces emphasis when
used intelligently, that is, with a common-sense appreciation of the sort of
emphasis to be attained.
In attempting these contrasts of pitch it is important to avoid unpleasant
extremes. Most speakers pitch their voices too high. One of the secrets of Mr.
Bryan's eloquence is his low, bell-like voice. Shakespeare said that a soft,
gentle, low voice was "an excellent thing in woman;" it is no less so in man,
for a voice need not be blatant to be powerful,—and must not be, to be pleasing.
In closing, let us emphasize anew the importance of using variety of pitch. You
sing up and down the scale, first touching one note and then another above or
below it. Do likewise in speaking.
Thought and individual taste must generally be your guide as to where to use a
low, a moderate, or a high pitch.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Name two methods of destroying monotony and gaining force in speaking.
2. Why is a continual change of pitch necessary in speaking?
3. Notice your habitual tones in speaking. Are they too high to be pleasant?
4. Do we express the following thoughts and emotions in a low or a high pitch?
Which may be expressed in either high or low pitch? Excitement. Victory. Defeat.
Sorrow. Love. Earnestness. Fear.
5. How would you naturally vary the pitch in introducing an explanatory or
parenthetical expression like the following:
He started—that is, he made preparations to start—on September third.
6. Speak the following lines with as marked variations in pitch as your
interpretation of the sense may dictate. Try each line in two different ways.
Which, in each instance, is the more effective—and why?
What have I to gain from you? Nothing.
To engage our nation in such a compact would be an infamy.
Note: In the foregoing sentence, experiment as to where the change in pitch
would better be made.
Once the flowers distilled their fragrance here, but now see the devastations of
war.
He had reckoned without one prime factor—his conscience.
7. Make a diagram of a conversation you have heard, showing where high and low
pitches were used. Were these changes in pitch advisable? Why or why not?
8. Read the selections on pages 34, 35, 36, 37 and 38, paying careful attention
to the changes in pitch. Reread, substituting low pitch for high, and vice
versa.
Selections for Practise
Note: In the following selections, those passages that may best be delivered in
a moderate pitch are printed in ordinary (roman) type. Those which may be
rendered in a high pitch—do not make the mistake of raising the voice too
high—are printed in italics. Those which might well be spoken in a low pitch are
printed in CAPITALS.
These arrangements, however, are merely suggestive—we cannot make it strong
enough that you must use your own judgment in interpreting a selection. Before
doing so, however, it is well to practise these passages as they are marked.
Yes, all men labor. RUFUS CHOATE AND DANIEL WEBSTER labor, say the critics. But
every man who reads of the labor question knows that it means the movement of
the men that earn their living with their hands; THAT ARE EMPLOYED, AND PAID
WAGES: are gathered under roofs of factories, sent out on farms, sent out on
ships, gathered on the walls. In popular acceptation, the working class means
the men that work with their hands, for wages, so many hours a day, employed by
great capitalists; that work for everybody else. Why do we move for this class?
"Why," asks a critic, "don't you move FOR ALL WORKINGMEN?" BECAUSE, WHILE DANIEL
WEBSTER GETS FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR ARGUING THE MEXICAN CLAIMS, there is no
need of anybody's moving for him. BECAUSE, WHILE RUFUS CHOATE GETS FIVE THOUSAND
DOLLARS FOR MAKING ONE ARGUMENT TO A JURY, there is no need of moving for him,
or for the men that work with their brains,—that do highly disciplined and
skilled labor, invent, and write books. The reason why the Labor movement
confines itself to a single class is because that class of work DOES NOT GET
PAID, does not get protection. MENTAL LABOR is adequately paid, and MORE THAN
ADEQUATELY protected. IT CAN SHIFT ITS CHANNELS; it can vary according to the
supply and demand.
IF A MAN FAILS AS A MINISTER, why, he becomes a railway conductor. IF THAT
DOESN'T SUIT HIM, he goes West, and becomes governor of a territory. AND IF HE
FINDS HIMSELF INCAPABLE OF EITHER OF THESE POSITIONS, he comes home, and gets to
be a city editor. He varies his occupation as he pleases, and doesn't need
protection. BUT THE GREAT MASS, CHAINED TO A TRADE, DOOMED TO BE GROUND UP IN
THE MILL OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND, THAT WORK SO MANY HOURS A DAY, AND MUST RUN IN
THE GREAT RUTS OF BUSINESS,—they are the men whose inadequate protection, whose
unfair share of the general product, claims a movement in their behalf.
—Wendell Phillips.
KNOWING THE PRICE WE MUST PAY, THE SACRIFICE WE MUST MAKE, THE BURDENS WE MUST
CARRY, THE ASSAULTS WE MUST ENDURE—KNOWING FULL WELL THE COST—yet we enlist, and
we enlist for the war. FOR WE KNOW THE JUSTICE OF OUR CAUSE, and we know, too,
its certain triumph.
NOT RELUCTANTLY THEN, but eagerly, not with faint hearts BUT STRONG, do we now
advance upon the enemies of the people. FOR THE CALL THAT COMES TO US is the
call that came to our fathers. As they responded so shall we.
"HE HATH SOUNDED FORTH A TRUMPET that shall never call retreat. HE IS SIFTING
OUT THE HEARTS OF MEN before His judgment seat. OH, BE SWIFT OUR SOULS TO ANSWER
HIM, BE JUBILANT OUR FEET, Our God is marching on."
—Albert J. Beveridge.
Remember that two sentences, or two parts of the same sentence, which contain
changes of thought, cannot possibly be given effectively in the same key. Let us
repeat, every big change of thought requires a big change of pitch. What the
beginning student will think are big changes of pitch will be monotonously
alike. Learn to speak some thoughts in a very high tone—others in a very, very
low tone. DEVELOP RANGE. It is almost impossible to use too much of it.
HAPPY AM I THAT THIS MISSION HAS BROUGHT MY FEET AT LAST TO PRESS NEW
ENGLAND'S HISTORIC SOIL and my eyes to the knowledge of her beauty and her
thrift. Here within touch of Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill—WHERE WEBSTER
THUNDERED and Longfellow sang, Emerson thought AND CHANNING PREACHED—HERE IN THE
CRADLE OF AMERICAN LETTERS and almost of American liberty, I hasten to make the
obeisance that every American owes New England when first he stands uncovered in
her mighty presence. Strange apparition! This stern and unique figure—carved
from the ocean and the wilderness—its majesty kindling and growing amid the
storms of winter and of wars—until at last the gloom was broken, ITS BEAUTY
DISCLOSED IN THE SUNSHINE, and the heroic workers rested at its base—while
startled kings and emperors gazed and marveled that from the rude touch of this
handful cast on a bleak and unknown shore should have come the embodied genius
of human government AND THE PERFECTED MODEL OF HUMAN LIBERTY! God bless the
memory of those immortal workers, and prosper the fortunes of their living
sons—and perpetuate the inspiration of their handiwork....
Far to the South, Mr. President, separated from this section by a line—once
defined in irrepressible difference, once traced in fratricidal blood, AND NOW,
THANK GOD, BUT A VANISHING SHADOW—lies the fairest and richest domain of this
earth. It is the home of a brave and hospitable people. THERE IS CENTERED ALL
THAT CAN PLEASE OR PROSPER HUMANKIND. A PERFECT CLIMATE ABOVE a fertile soil
yields to the husbandman every product of the temperate zone.
There, by night the cotton whitens beneath the stars, and by day THE WHEAT LOCKS
THE SUNSHINE IN ITS BEARDED SHEAF. In the same field the clover steals the
fragrance of the wind, and tobacco catches the quick aroma of the rains. THERE
ARE MOUNTAINS STORED WITH EXHAUSTLESS TREASURES: forests—vast and primeval; and
rivers that, tumbling or loitering, run wanton to the sea. Of the three
essential items of all industries—cotton, iron and wood—that region has easy
control. IN COTTON, a fixed monopoly—IN IRON, proven supremacy—IN TIMBER, the
reserve supply of the Republic. From this assured and permanent advantage,
against which artificial conditions cannot much longer prevail, has grown an
amazing system of industries. Not maintained by human contrivance of tariff or
capital, afar off from the fullest and cheapest source of supply, but resting in
divine assurance, within touch of field and mine and forest—not set amid costly
farms from which competition has driven the farmer in despair, but amid cheap
and sunny lands, rich with agriculture, to which neither season nor soil has set
a limit—this system of industries is mounting to a splendor that shall dazzle
and illumine the world. THAT, SIR, is the picture and the promise of my home—A
LAND BETTER AND FAIRER THAN I HAVE TOLD YOU, and yet but fit setting in its
material excellence for the loyal and gentle quality of its citizenship.
This hour little needs the LOYALTY THAT IS LOYAL TO ONE SECTION and yet holds
the other in enduring suspicion and estrangement. Give us the broad and perfect
loyalty that loves and trusts GEORGIA alike with Massachusetts—that knows no
SOUTH, no North, no EAST, no West, but endears with equal and patriotic love
every foot of our soil, every State of our Union.
A MIGHTY DUTY, SIR, AND A MIGHTY INSPIRATION impels every one of us to-night to
lose in patriotic consecration WHATEVER ESTRANGES, WHATEVER DIVIDES.
WE, SIR, are Americans—AND WE STAND FOR HUMAN LIBERTY! The uplifting force of
the American idea is under every throne on earth. France, Brazil—THESE ARE OUR
VICTORIES. To redeem the earth from kingcraft and oppression—THIS IS OUR
MISSION! AND WE SHALL NOT FAIL. God has sown in our soil the seed of His
millennial harvest, and He will not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until
His full and perfect day has come. OUR HISTORY, SIR, has been a constant and
expanding miracle, FROM PLYMOUTH ROCK AND JAMESTOWN, all the way—aye, even from
the hour when from the voiceless and traceless ocean a new world rose to the
sight of the inspired sailor. As we approach the fourth centennial of that
stupendous day—when the old world will come to marvel and to learn amid our
gathered treasures—let us resolve to crown the miracles of our past with the
spectacle of a Republic, compact, united INDISSOLUBLE IN THE BONDS OF
LOVE—loving from the Lakes to the Gulf—the wounds of war healed in every heart
as on every hill, serene and resplendent AT THE SUMMIT OF HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT AND
EARTHLY GLORY, blazing out the path and making clear the way up which all the
nations of the earth, must come in God's appointed time!
—Henry W. Grady, The Race Problem.
... I WOULD CALL HIM NAPOLEON, but Napoleon made his way to empire over broken
oaths and through a sea of blood. This man never broke his word. "No
Retaliation" was his great motto and the rule of his life; AND THE LAST WORDS
UTTERED TO HIS SON IN FRANCE WERE THESE: "My boy, you will one day go back to
Santo Domingo; forget that France murdered your father." I WOULD CALL HIM
CROMWELL, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and the state he founded went down
with him into his grave. I WOULD CALL HIM WASHINGTON, but the great Virginian
held slaves. THIS MAN RISKED HIS EMPIRE rather than permit the slave-trade in
the humblest village of his dominions.
YOU THINK ME A FANATIC TO-NIGHT, for you read history, not with your eyes, BUT
WITH YOUR PREJUDICES. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse
of History will put PHOCION for the Greek, and BRUTUS for the Roman, HAMPDEN for
England, LAFAYETTE for France, choose WASHINGTON as the bright, consummate
flower of our EARLIER civilization, AND JOHN BROWN the ripe fruit of our
NOONDAY, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue,
above them all, the name of THE SOLDIER, THE STATESMAN, THE MARTYR, TOUSSAINT
L'OUVERTURE.
—Wendell Phillips, Toussaint l'Ouverture.
Drill on the following selections for change of pitch: Beecher's "Abraham
Lincoln," p. 76; Seward's "Irrepressible Conflict," p. 67; Everett's "History of
Liberty," p. 78; Grady's "The Race Problem," p. 36; and Beveridge's "Pass
Prosperity Around," p. 470.
CHAPTER V
EFFICIENCY THROUGH CHANGE OF PACE
Hear how he clears the points o' Faith
Wi' rattlin' an' thumpin'!
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
He's stampin' an' he's jumpin'.
—Robert Burns, Holy Fair.
The Latins have bequeathed to us a word that has no precise equivalent in our
tongue, therefore we have accepted it, body unchanged—it is the word tempo, and
means rate of movement, as measured by the time consumed in executing that
movement.
Thus far its use has been largely limited to the vocal and musical arts, but it
would not be surprising to hear tempo applied to more concrete matters, for it
perfectly illustrates the real meaning of the word to say that an ox-cart moves
in slow tempo, an express train in a fast tempo. Our guns that fire six hundred
times a minute, shoot at a fast tempo; the old muzzle loader that required three
minutes to load, shot at a slow tempo. Every musician understands this
principle: it requires longer to sing a half note than it does an eighth note.
Now tempo is a tremendously important element in good platform work, for when a
speaker delivers a whole address at very nearly the same rate of speed he is
depriving himself of one of his chief means of emphasis and power. The baseball
pitcher, the bowler in cricket, the tennis server, all know the value of change
of pace—change of tempo—in delivering their ball, and so must the public speaker
observe its power.
Change of Tempo Lends Naturalness to the Delivery
Naturalness, or at least seeming naturalness, as was explained in the chapter on
"Monotony," is greatly to be desired, and a continual change of tempo will go a
long way towards establishing it. Mr. Howard Lindsay, Stage Manager for Miss
Margaret Anglin, recently said to the present writer that change of pace was one
of the most effective tools of the actor. While it must be admitted that the
stilted mouthings of many actors indicate cloudy mirrors, still the public
speaker would do well to study the actor's use of tempo.
There is, however, a more fundamental and effective source at which to study
naturalness—a trait which, once lost, is shy of recapture: that source is the
common conversation of any well-bred circle. This is the standard we strive to
reach on both stage and platform—with certain differences, of course, which will
appear as we go on. If speaker and actor were to reproduce with absolute
fidelity every variation of utterance—every whisper, grunt, pause, silence, and
explosion—of conversation as we find it typically in everyday life, much of the
interest would leave the public utterance. Naturalness in public address is
something more than faithful reproduction of nature—it is the reproduction of
those typical parts of nature's work which are truly representative of the
whole.
The realistic story-writer understands this in writing dialogue, and we must
take it into account in seeking for naturalness through change of tempo.
Suppose you speak the first of the following sentences in a slow tempo, the
second quickly, observing how natural is the effect. Then speak both with the
same rapidity and note the difference.
I can't recall what I did with my knife. Oh, now I remember I gave it to Mary.
We see here that a change of tempo often occurs in the same sentence—for tempo
applies not only to single words, groups of words, and groups of sentences, but
to the major parts of a public speech as well.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. In the following, speak the words "long, long while" very slowly; the rest of
the sentence is spoken in moderately rapid tempo.
When you and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh but the long, long while the world shall last,
Which of our coming and departure heeds,
As the seven seas should heed a pebble cast.
Note: In the following selections the passages that should be given a fast
tempo are in italics; those that should be given in a slow tempo are in small
capitals. Practise these selections, and then try others, changing from fast to
slow tempo on different parts, carefully noting the effect.
2. No MIRABEAU, NAPOLEON, BURNS, CROMWELL, NO man ADEQUATE to DO ANYTHING but is
first of all in RIGHT EARNEST about it—what I call A SINCERE man. I should say
SINCERITY, a GREAT, DEEP, GENUINE SINCERITY, is the first CHARACTERISTIC of a
man in any way HEROIC. Not the sincerity that CALLS itself sincere. Ah no. That
is a very poor matter indeed—A SHALLOW, BRAGGART, CONSCIOUS sincerity, oftenest
SELF-CONCEIT mainly. The GREAT MAN'S SINCERITY is of a kind he CANNOT SPEAK OF.
Is NOT CONSCIOUS of.—THOMAS CARLYLE.
3. TRUE WORTH is in BEING—NOT SEEMING—in doing each day that goes by SOME LITTLE
GOOD, not in DREAMING of GREAT THINGS to do by and by. For whatever men say in
their BLINDNESS, and in spite of the FOLLIES of YOUTH, there is nothing so
KINGLY as KINDNESS, and nothing so ROYAL as TRUTH.—Anonymous.
4. To get a natural effect, where would you use slow and where fast tempo in the
following?
FOOL'S GOLD
See him there, cold and gray,
Watch him as he tries to play;
No, he doesn't know the way—
He began to learn too late.
She's a grim old hag, is Fate,
For she let him have his pile,
Smiling to herself the while,
Knowing what the cost would be,
When he'd found the Golden Key.
Multimillionaire is he,
Many times more rich than we;
But at that I wouldn't trade
With the bargain that he made.
Came here many years ago,
Not a person did he know;
Had the money-hunger bad—
Mad for money, piggish mad;
Didn't let a joy divert him,
Didn't let a sorrow hurt him,
Let his friends and kin desert him,
While he planned and plugged and hurried
On his quest for gold and power.
Every single wakeful hour
With a money thought he'd dower;
All the while as he grew older,
And grew bolder, he grew colder.
And he thought that some day
He would take the time to play;
But, say—he was wrong.
Life's a song;
In the spring
Youth can sing and can fling;
But joys wing
When we're older,
Like birds when it's colder.
The roses were red as he went rushing by,
And glorious tapestries hung in the sky,
And the clover was waving
'Neath honey-bees' slaving;
A bird over there
Roundelayed a soft air;
But the man couldn't spare
Time for gathering flowers,
Or resting in bowers,
Or gazing at skies
That gladdened the eyes.
So he kept on and swept on
Through mean, sordid years.
Now he's up to his ears
In the choicest of stocks.
He owns endless blocks
Of houses and shops,
And the stream never stops
Pouring into his banks.
I suppose that he ranks
Pretty near to the top.
What I have wouldn't sop
His ambition one tittle;
And yet with my little
I don't care to trade
With the bargain he made.
Just watch him to-day—
See him trying to play.
He's come back for blue skies.
But they're in a new guise—
Winter's here, all is gray,
The birds are away,
The meadows are brown,
The leaves lie aground,
And the gay brook that wound
With a swirling and whirling
Of waters, is furling
Its bosom in ice.
And he hasn't the price,
With all of his gold,
To buy what he sold.
He knows now the cost
Of the spring-time he lost,
Of the flowers he tossed
From his way,
And, say,
He'd pay
Any price if the day
Could be made not so gray.
He can't play.
—Herbert Kaufman. Used by permission of Everybody's Magazine.
Change of Tempo Prevents Monotony
The canary in the cage before the window is adding to the beauty and charm of
his singing by a continual change of tempo. If King Solomon had been an orator
he undoubtedly would have gathered wisdom from the song of the wild birds as
well as from the bees. Imagine a song written with but quarter notes. Imagine an
auto with only one speed.
EXERCISES
1. Note the change of tempo indicated in the following, and how it gives a
pleasing variety. Read it aloud. (Fast tempo is indicated by italics, slow by
small capitals.)
And he thought that some day he would take the time to play; but, say—HE WAS
WRONG. LIFE'S A SONG; in the SPRING YOUTH can SING and can FLING; BUT JOYS WING
WHEN WE'RE OLDER, LIKE THE BIRDS when it's COLDER. The roses were red as he went
rushing by, and glorious tapestries hung in the sky.
2. Turn to "Fools Gold," on Page 42, and deliver it in an unvaried tempo: note
how monotonous is the result. This poem requires a great many changes of tempo,
and is an excellent one for practise.
3. Use the changes of tempo indicated in the following, noting how they prevent
monotony. Where no change of tempo is indicated, use a moderate speed. Too much
of variety would really be a return to monotony.
THE MOB
"A MOB KILLS THE WRONG MAN" was flashed in a newspaper headline lately. The mob
is an IRRESPONSIBLE, UNTHINKING MASS. It always destroys BUT NEVER CONSTRUCTS.
It criticises BUT NEVER CREATES.
Utter a great truth AND THE MOB WILL HATE YOU. See how it condemned DANTE to
EXILE. Encounter the dangers of the unknown world for its benefit, AND THE MOB
WILL DECLARE YOU CRAZY. It ridiculed COLUMBUS, and for discovering a new world
GAVE HIM PRISON AND CHAINS.
Write a poem to thrill human hearts with pleasure, AND THE MOB WILL ALLOW YOU TO
GO HUNGRY: THE BLIND HOMER BEGGED BREAD THROUGH THE STREETS. Invent a machine to
save labor AND THE MOB WILL DECLARE YOU ITS ENEMY. Less than a hundred years ago
a furious rabble smashed Thimonier's invention, the sewing machine.
BUILD A STEAMSHIP TO CARRY MERCHANDISE AND ACCELERATE TRAVEL and the mob will
call you a fool. A MOB LINED THE SHORES OF THE HUDSON RIVER TO LAUGH AT THE
MAIDEN ATTEMPT OF "FULTON'S FOLLY," as they called his little steamboat.
Emerson says: "A mob is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of
reason and traversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily descended to the
nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is NIGHT. ITS ACTIONS ARE INSANE,
like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle—IT WOULD WHIP A RIGHT. It
would tar and feather justice by inflicting fire and outrage upon the house and
persons of those who have these."
The mob spirit stalks abroad in our land today. Every week gives a fresh victim
to its malignant cry for blood. There were 48 persons killed by mobs in the
United States in 1913; 64 in 1912, and 71 in 1911. Among the 48 last year were a
woman and a child. Two victims were proven innocent after their death.
IN 399 B.C. A DEMAGOG APPEALED TO THE POPULAR MOB TO HAVE SOCRATES PUT TO DEATH
and he was sentenced to the hemlock cup. FOURTEEN HUNDRED YEARS AFTERWARD AN
ENTHUSIAST APPEALED TO THE POPULAR MOB and all Europe plunged into the Holy Land
to kill and mangle the heathen. In the seventeenth century a demagog appealed to
the ignorance of men AND TWENTY PEOPLE WERE EXECUTED AT SALEM, MASS., WITHIN SIX
MONTHS FOR WITCHCRAFT. Two thousand years ago the mob yelled, "RELEASE UNTO US
BARABBAS"—AND BARABBAS WAS A MURDERER!
—From an Editorial by D.C. in "Leslie's Weekly," by permission.
Present-day business is as unlike OLD-TIME BUSINESS as the OLD-TIME OX-CART is
unlike the present-day locomotive. INVENTION has made the whole world over
again. The railroad, telegraph, telephone have bound the people of MODERN
NATIONS into FAMILIES. To do the business of these closely knit millions in
every modern country GREAT BUSINESS CONCERNS CAME INTO BEING. What we call big
business is the CHILD OF THE ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF MANKIND. So warfare to destroy
big business is FOOLISH BECAUSE IT CAN NOT SUCCEED and wicked BECAUSE IT OUGHT
NOT TO SUCCEED. Warfare to destroy big business does not hurt big business,
which always comes out on top, SO MUCH AS IT HURTS ALL OTHER BUSINESS WHICH, IN
SUCH A WARFARE, NEVER COME OUT ON TOP.—A.J. Beveridge.
Change of Tempo Produces Emphasis
Any big change of tempo is emphatic and will catch the attention. You may
scarcely be conscious that a passenger train is moving when it is flying over
the rails at ninety miles an hour, but if it slows down very suddenly to a
ten-mile gait your attention will be drawn to it very decidedly. You may forget
that you are listening to music as you dine, but let the orchestra either
increase or diminish its tempo in a very marked degree and your attention will
be arrested at once.
This same principle will procure emphasis in a speech. If you have a point that
you want to bring home to your audience forcefully, make a sudden and great
change of tempo, and they will be powerless to keep from paying attention to
that point. Recently the present writer saw a play in which these lines were
spoken:
"I don't want you to forget what I said. I want you to remember it the longest
day you—I don't care if you've got six guns." The part up to the dash was
delivered in a very slow tempo, the remainder was named out at lightning speed,
as the character who was spoken to drew a revolver. The effect was so emphatic
that the lines are remembered six months afterwards, while most of the play has
faded from memory. The student who has powers of observation will see this
principle applied by all our best actors in their efforts to get emphasis where
emphasis is due. But remember that the emotion in the matter must warrant the
intensity in the manner, or the effect will be ridiculous. Too many public
speakers are impressive over nothing.
Thought rather than rules must govern you while practising change of pace. It
is often a matter of no consequence which part of a sentence is spoken slowly
and which is given in fast tempo. The main thing to be desired is the change
itself. For example, in the selection, "The Mob," on page 46, note the last
paragraph. Reverse the instructions given, delivering everything that is marked
for slow tempo, quickly; and everything that is marked for quick tempo, slowly.
You will note that the force or meaning of the passage has not been destroyed.
However, many passages cannot be changed to a slow tempo without destroying
their force. Instances: The Patrick Henry speech on page 110, and the following
passage from Whittier's "Barefoot Boy."
O for boyhood's time of June, crowding years in one brief moon, when all things
I heard or saw, me, their master, waited for. I was rich in flowers and trees,
humming-birds and honey-bees; for my sport the squirrel played; plied the
snouted mole his spade; for my taste the blackberry cone purpled over hedge and
stone; laughed the brook for my delight through the day and through the night,
whispering at the garden wall, talked with me from fall to fall; mine the
sand-rimmed pickerel pond; mine the walnut slopes beyond; mine, an bending
orchard trees, apples of Hesperides! Still, as my horizon grew, larger grew my
riches, too; all the world I saw or knew seemed a complex Chinese toy, fashioned
for a barefoot boy!—J.G. Whittier.
Be careful in regulating your tempo not to get your movement too fast. This is a
common fault with amateur speakers. Mrs. Siddons rule was, "Take time." A
hundred years ago there was used in medical circles a preparation known as "the
shot gun remedy;" it was a mixture of about fifty different ingredients, and was
given to the patient in the hope that at least one of them would prove
efficacious! That seems a rather poor scheme for medical practice, but it is
good to use "shot gun" tempo for most speeches, as it gives a variety. Tempo,
like diet, is best when mixed.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Define tempo.
2. What words come from the same root?
3. What is meant by a change of tempo?
4. What effects are gained by it?
5. Name three methods of destroying monotony and gaining force in speaking.
6. Note the changes of tempo in a conversation or speech that you hear. Were
they well made? Why? Illustrate.
7. Read selections on pages 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38, paying careful attention to
change of tempo.
8. As a rule, excitement, joy, or intense anger take a fast tempo, while sorrow,
and sentiments of great dignity or solemnity tend to a slow tempo. Try to
deliver Lincoln's Gettysburg speech (page 50), in a fast tempo, or Patrick
Henry's speech (page 110), in a slow tempo, and note how ridiculous the effect
will be.
Practise the following selections, noting carefully where the tempo may be
changed to advantage. Experiment, making numerous changes. Which one do you like
best?
DEDICATION OF GETTYSBURG CEMETERY
Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a
new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
nation—or any nation so conceived and so dedicated—can long endure.
We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion
of it as the final resting-place of those who have given their lives that that
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot
hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it, far above our power to add or to detract. The world will very
little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what
they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work
they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated
to the great task remaining before us: that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure
of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from
the earth.
—Abraham Lincoln.
A PLEA FOR CUBA
[This deliberative oration was delivered by Senator Thurston in the United
States Senate on March 24, 1898. It is recorded in full in the Congressional
Record of that date. Mrs. Thurston died in Cuba. As a dying request she urged
her husband, who was investigating affairs in the island, to do his utmost to
induce the United States to intervene—hence this oration.]
Mr. President, I am here by command of silent lips to speak once and for all
upon the Cuban situation. I shall endeavor to be honest, conservative, and just.
I have no purpose to stir the public passion to any action not necessary and
imperative to meet the duties and necessities of American responsibility,
Christian humanity, and national honor. I would shirk this task if I could, but
I dare not. I cannot satisfy my conscience except by speaking, and speaking now.
I went to Cuba firmly believing that the condition of affairs there had been
greatly exaggerated by the press, and my own efforts were directed in the first
instance to the attempted exposure of these supposed exaggerations. There has
undoubtedly been much sensationalism in the journalism of the time, but as to
the condition of affairs in Cuba, there has been no exaggeration, because
exaggeration has been impossible.
Under the inhuman policy of Weyler not less than four hundred thousand
self-supporting, simple, peaceable, defenseless country people were driven from
their homes in the agricultural portions of the Spanish provinces to the cities,
and imprisoned upon the barren waste outside the residence portions of these
cities and within the lines of intrenchment established a little way beyond.
Their humble homes were burned, their fields laid waste, their implements of
husbandry destroyed, their live stock and food supplies for the most part
confiscated. Most of the people were old men, women, and children. They were
thus placed in hopeless imprisonment, without shelter or food. There was no work
for them in the cities to which they were driven. They were left with nothing to
depend upon except the scanty charity of the inhabitants of the cities and with
slow starvation their inevitable fate....
The pictures in the American newspapers of the starving reconcentrados are true.
They can all be duplicated by the thousands. I never before saw, and please God
I may never again see, so deplorable a sight as the reconcentrados in the
suburbs of Matanzas. I can never forget to my dying day the hopeless anguish in
their despairing eyes. Huddled about their little bark huts, they raised no
voice of appeal to us for alms as we went among them....
Men, women, and children stand silent, famishing with hunger. Their only appeal
comes from their sad eyes, through which one looks as through an open window
into their agonizing souls.
The government of Spain has not appropriated and will not appropriate one dollar
to save these people. They are now being attended and nursed and administered to
by the charity of the United States. Think of the spectacle! We are feeding
these citizens of Spain; we are nursing their sick; we are saving such as can be
saved, and yet there are those who still say it is right for us to send food,
but we must keep hands off. I say that the time has come when muskets ought to
go with the food.
We asked the governor if he knew of any relief for these people except through
the charity of the United States. He did not. We asked him, "When do you think
the time will come that these people can be placed in a position of
self-support?" He replied to us, with deep feeling, "Only the good God or the
great government of the United States will answer that question." I hope and
believe that the good God by the great government of the United States will
answer that question.
I shall refer to these horrible things no further. They are there. God pity me,
I have seen them; they will remain in my mind forever—and this is almost the
twentieth century. Christ died nineteen hundred years ago, and Spain is a
Christian nation. She has set up more crosses in more lands, beneath more skies,
and under them has butchered more people than all the other nations of the earth
combined. Europe may tolerate her existence as long as the people of the Old
World wish. God grant that before another Christmas morning the last vestige of
Spanish tyranny and oppression will have vanished from the Western
Hemisphere!...
The time for action has come. No greater reason for it can exist to-morrow than
exists to-day. Every hour's delay only adds another chapter to the awful story
of misery and death. Only one power can intervene—the United States of America.
Ours is the one great nation in the world, the mother of American republics. She
holds a position of trust and responsibility toward the peoples and affairs of
the whole Western Hemisphere. It was her glorious example which inspired the
patriots of Cuba to raise the flag of liberty in her eternal hills. We cannot
refuse to accept this responsibility which the God of the universe has placed
upon us as the one great power in the New World. We must act! What shall our
action be?
Against the intervention of the United States in this holy cause there is but
one voice of dissent; that voice is the voice of the money-changers. They fear
war! Not because of any Christian or ennobling sentiment against war and in
favor of peace, but because they fear that a declaration of war, or the
intervention which might result in war, would have a depressing effect upon the
stock market. Let them go. They do not represent American sentiment; they do not
represent American patriotism. Let them take their chances as they can. Their
weal or woe is of but little importance to the liberty-loving people of the
United States. They will not do the fighting; their blood will not flow; they
will keep on dealing in options on human life. Let the men whose loyalty is to
the dollar stand aside while the men whose loyalty is to the flag come to the
front.
Mr. President, there is only one action possible, if any is taken; that is,
intervention for the independence of the island. But we cannot intervene and
save Cuba without the exercise of force, and force means war; war means blood.
The lowly Nazarene on the shores of Galilee preached the divine doctrine of
love, "Peace on earth, good will toward men." Not peace on earth at the expense
of liberty and humanity. Not good will toward men who despoil, enslave, degrade,
and starve to death their fellow-men. I believe in the doctrine of Christ. I
believe in the doctrine of peace; but, Mr. President, men must have liberty
before there can come abiding peace.
Intervention means force. Force means war. War means blood. But it will be God's
force. When has a battle for humanity and liberty ever been won except by force?
What barricade of wrong, injustice, and oppression has ever been carried except
by force?
Force compelled the signature of unwilling royalty to the great Magna Charta;
force put life into the Declaration of Independence and made effective the
Emancipation Proclamation; force beat with naked hands upon the iron gateway of
the Bastile and made reprisal in one awful hour for centuries of kingly crime;
force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker Hill and marked the snows of
Valley Forge with blood-stained feet; force held the broken line of Shiloh,
climbed the flame-swept hill at Chattanooga, and stormed the clouds on Lookout
Heights; force marched with Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan in the valley
of the Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory at Appomattox; force saved the Union,
kept the stars in the flag, made "niggers" men. The time for God's force has
come again. Let the impassioned lips of American patriots once more take up the
song:—
"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea.
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.
While God is marching on."
Others may hesitate, others may procrastinate, others may plead for further
diplomatic negotiation, which means delay; but for me, I am ready to act now,
and for my action I am ready to answer to my conscience, my country, and my God.
—James Mellen Thurston.
CHAPTER VI
PAUSE AND POWER
The true business of the literary artist is to plait or weave his meaning,
involving it around itself; so that each sentence, by successive phrases, shall
first come into a kind of knot, and then, after a moment of suspended meaning,
solve and clear itself.
—George Saintsbury, on English Prose
Style, in Miscellaneous Essays.
... pause ... has a distinctive value, expressed in silence; in other words,
while the voice is waiting, the music of the movement is going on ... To manage
it, with its delicacies and compensations, requires that same fineness of ear on
which we must depend for all faultless prose rhythm. When there is no
compensation, when the pause is inadvertent ... there is a sense of jolting and
lack, as if some pin or fastening had fallen out.
—John Franklin Genung, The Working Principles of Rhetoric.
Pause, in public speech, is not mere silence—it is silence made designedly
eloquent.
When a man says: "I-uh-it is with profound-ah-pleasure that-er-I have been
permitted to speak to you tonight and-uh-uh-I should say-er"—that is not
pausing; that is stumbling. It is conceivable that a speaker may be effective in
spite of stumbling—but never because of it.
On the other hand, one of the most important means of developing power in public
speaking is to pause either before or after, or both before and after, an
important word or phrase. No one who would be a forceful speaker can afford to
neglect this principle—one of the most significant that has ever been inferred
from listening to great orators. Study this potential device until you have
absorbed and assimilated it.
It would seem that this principle of rhetorical pause ought to be easily grasped
and applied, but a long experience in training both college men and maturer
speakers has demonstrated that the device is no more readily understood by the
average man when it is first explained to him than if it were spoken in
Hindoostani. Perhaps this is because we do not eagerly devour the fruit of
experience when it is impressively set before us on the platter of authority; we
like to pluck fruit for ourselves—it not only tastes better, but we never forget
that tree! Fortunately, this is no difficult task, in this instance, for the
trees stand thick all about us.
One man is pleading the cause of another:
"This man, my friends, has made this wonderful sacrifice—for you and me."
Did not the pause surprisingly enhance the power of this statement? See how he
gathered up reserve force and impressiveness to deliver the words "for you and
me." Repeat this passage without making a pause. Did it lose in effectiveness?
Naturally enough, during a premeditated pause of this kind the mind of the
speaker is concentrated on the thought to which he is about to give expression.
He will not dare to allow his thoughts to wander for an instant—he will rather
supremely center his thought and his emotion upon the sacrifice whose service,
sweetness and divinity he is enforcing by his appeal.
Concentration, then, is the big word here—no pause without it can perfectly hit
the mark.
Efficient pausing accomplishes one or all of four results:
1. Pause Enables the Mind of the Speaker to Gather His Forces Before Delivering
the Final Volley
It is often dangerous to rush into battle without pausing for preparation or
waiting for recruits. Consider Custer's massacre as an instance.
You can light a match by holding it beneath a lens and concentrating the sun's
rays. You would not expect the match to flame if you jerked the lens back and
forth quickly. Pause, and the lens gathers the heat. Your thoughts will not set
fire to the minds of your hearers unless you pause to gather the force that
comes by a second or two of concentration. Maple trees and gas wells are rarely
tapped continually; when a stronger flow is wanted, a pause is made, nature has
time to gather her reserve forces, and when the tree or the well is reopened, a
stronger flow is the result.
Use the same common sense with your mind. If you would make a thought
particularly effective, pause just before its utterance, concentrate your
mind-energies, and then give it expression with renewed vigor. Carlyle was
right: "Speak not, I passionately entreat thee, till thy thought has silently
matured itself. Out of silence comes thy strength. Speech is silvern, Silence is
golden; Speech is human, Silence is divine."
Silence has been called the father of speech. It should be. Too many of our
public speeches have no fathers. They ramble along without pause or break. Like
Tennyson's brook, they run on forever. Listen to little children, the policeman
on the corner, the family conversation around the table, and see how many pauses
they naturally use, for they are unconscious of effects. When we get before an
audience, we throw most of our natural methods of expression to the wind, and
strive after artificial effects. Get back to the methods of nature—and pause.
2. Pause Prepares the Mind of the Auditor to Receive Your Message
Herbert Spencer said that all the universe is in motion. So it is—and all
perfect motion is rhythm. Part of rhythm is rest. Rest follows activity all
through nature. Instances: day and night; spring—summer—autumn—winter; a period
of rest between breaths; an instant of complete rest between heart beats. Pause,
and give the attention-powers of your audience a rest. What you say after such a
silence will then have a great deal more effect.
When your country cousins come to town, the noise of a passing car will awaken
them, though it seldom affects a seasoned city dweller. By the continual passing
of cars his attention-power has become deadened. In one who visits the city but
seldom, attention-value is insistent. To him the noise comes after a long pause;
hence its power. To you, dweller in the city, there is no pause; hence the low
attention-value. After riding on a train several hours you will become so
accustomed to its roar that it will lose its attention-value, unless the train
should stop for a while and start again. If you attempt to listen to a
clock-tick that is so far away that you can barely hear it, you will find that
at times you are unable to distinguish it, but in a few moments the sound
becomes distinct again. Your mind will pause for rest whether you desire it to
do so or not.
The attention of your audience will act in quite the same way. Recognize this
law and prepare for it—by pausing. Let it be repeated: the thought that follows
a pause is much more dynamic than if no pause had occurred. What is said to you
of a night will not have the same effect on your mind as if it had been uttered
in the morning when your attention had been lately refreshed by the pause of
sleep. We are told on the first page of the Bible that even the Creative Energy
of God rested on the "seventh day." You may be sure, then, that the frail finite
mind of your audience will likewise demand rest. Observe nature, study her laws,
and obey them in your speaking.
3. Pause Creates Effective Suspense
Suspense is responsible for a great share of our interest in life; it will be
the same with your speech. A play or a novel is often robbed of much of its
interest if you know the plot beforehand. We like to keep guessing as to the
outcome. The ability to create suspense is part of woman's power to hold the
other sex. The circus acrobat employs this principle when he fails purposely in
several attempts to perform a feat, and then achieves it. Even the deliberate
manner in which he arranges the preliminaries increases our expectation—we like
to be kept waiting. In the last act of the play, "Polly of the Circus," there is
a circus scene in which a little dog turns a backward somersault on the back of
a running pony. One night when he hesitated and had to be coaxed and worked with
a long time before he would perform his feat he got a great deal more applause
than when he did his trick at once. We not only like to wait but we appreciate
what we wait for. If fish bite too readily the sport soon ceases to be a sport.
It is this same principle of suspense that holds you in a Sherlock Holmes
story—you wait to see how the mystery is solved, and if it is solved too soon
you throw down the tale unfinished. Wilkie Collins' receipt for fiction writing
well applies to public speech: "Make 'em laugh; make 'em weep; make 'em wait."
Above all else make them wait; if they will not do that you may be sure they
will neither laugh nor weep.
Thus pause is a valuable instrument in the hands of a trained speaker to arouse
and maintain suspense. We once heard Mr. Bryan say in a speech: "It was my
privilege to hear"—and he paused, while the audience wondered for a second whom
it was his privilege to hear—"the great evangelist"—and he paused again; we knew
a little more about the man he had heard, but still wondered to which evangelist
he referred; and then he concluded: "Dwight L. Moody." Mr. Bryan paused slightly
again and continued: "I came to regard him"—here he paused again and held the
audience in a brief moment of suspense as to how he had regarded Mr. Moody, then
continued—"as the greatest preacher of his day." Let the dashes illustrate
pauses and we have the following:
"It was my privilege to hear—the great evangelist—Dwight L. Moody.—I came to
regard him—as the greatest preacher of his day."
The unskilled speaker would have rattled this off with neither pause nor
suspense, and the sentences would have fallen flat upon the audience. It is
precisely the application of these small things that makes much of the
difference between the successful and the unsuccessful speaker.
4. Pausing After An Important Idea Gives it Time to Penetrate
Any Missouri farmer will tell you that a rain that falls too fast will run off
into the creeks and do the crops but little good. A story is told of a country
deacon praying for rain in this manner: "Lord, don't send us any chunk floater.
Just give us a good old drizzle-drazzle." A speech, like a rain, will not do
anybody much good if it comes too fast to soak in. The farmer's wife follows
this same principle in doing her washing when she puts the clothes in water—and
pauses for several hours that the water may soak in. The physician puts cocaine
on your turbinates—and pauses to let it take hold before he removes them. Why do
we use this principle everywhere except in the communication of ideas? If you
have given the audience a big idea, pause for a second or two and let them turn
it over. See what effect it has. After the smoke clears away you may have to
fire another 14-inch shell on the same subject before you demolish the citadel
of error that you are trying to destroy. Take time. Don't let your speech
resemble those tourists who try "to do" New York in a day. They spend fifteen
minutes looking at the masterpieces in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, ten
minutes in the Museum of Natural History, take a peep into the Aquarium, hurry
across the Brooklyn Bridge, rush up to the Zoo, and back by Grant's Tomb—and
call that "Seeing New York." If you hasten by your important points without
pausing, your audience will have just about as adequate an idea of what you have
tried to convey.
Take time, you have just as much of it as our richest multimillionaire. Your
audience will wait for you. It is a sign of smallness to hurry. The great
redwood trees of California had burst through the soil five hundred years before
Socrates drank his cup of hemlock poison, and are only in their prime today.
Nature shames us with our petty haste. Silence is one of the most eloquent
things in the world. Master it, and use it through pause.
In the following selections dashes have been inserted where pauses may be used
effectively. Naturally, you may omit some of these and insert others without
going wrong—one speaker would interpret a passage in one way, one in another; it
is largely a matter of personal preference. A dozen great actors have played
Hamlet well, and yet each has played the part differently. Which comes the
nearest to perfection is a question of opinion. You will succeed best by daring
to follow your own course—if you are individual enough to blaze an original
trail.
A moment's halt—a momentary taste of being from the well amid the waste—and lo!
the phantom caravan has reached—the nothing it set out from—Oh make haste!
The worldly hope men set their hearts upon—turns ashes—or it prospers;—and anon
like snow upon the desert's dusty face—lighting a little hour or two—is gone.
The bird of time has but a little way to flutter,—and the bird is on the wing.
You will note that the punctuation marks have nothing to do with the pausing.
You may run by a period very quickly and make a long pause where there is no
kind of punctuation. Thought is greater than punctuation. It must guide you in
your pauses.
A book of verses underneath the bough,—a jug of wine, a loaf of bread—and thou
beside me singing in the wilderness—Oh—wilderness were paradise enow.
You must not confuse the pause for emphasis with the natural pauses that come
through taking breath and phrasing. For example, note the pauses indicated in
this selection from Byron:
But hush!—hark!—that deep sound breaks in once more,
And nearer!—clearer!—deadlier than before.
Arm, ARM!—it is—it is the cannon's opening roar!
It is not necessary to dwell at length upon these obvious distinctions. You
will observe that in natural conversation our words are gathered into clusters
or phrases, and we often pause to take breath between them. So in public speech,
breathe naturally and do not talk until you must gasp for breath; nor until the
audience is equally winded.
A serious word of caution must here be uttered: do not overwork the pause. To do
so will make your speech heavy and stilted. And do not think that pause can
transmute commonplace thoughts into great and dignified utterance. A grand
manner combined with insignificant ideas is like harnessing a Hambletonian with
an ass. You remember the farcical old school declamation, "A Midnight Murder,"
that proceeded in grandiose manner to a thrilling climax, and ended—"and
relentlessly murdered—a mosquito!"
The pause, dramatically handled, always drew a laugh from the tolerant hearers.
This is all very well in farce, but such anti-climax becomes painful when the
speaker falls from the sublime to the ridiculous quite unintentionally. The
pause, to be effective in some other manner than in that of the boomerang, must
precede or follow a thought that is really worth while, or at least an idea
whose bearing upon the rest of the speech is important.
William Pittenger relates in his volume, "Extempore Speech," an instance of the
unconsciously farcical use of the pause by a really great American statesman and
orator. "He had visited Niagara Falls and was to make an oration at Buffalo the
same day, but, unfortunately, he sat too long over the wine after dinner. When
he arose to speak, the oratorical instinct struggled with difficulties, as he
declared, 'Gentlemen, I have been to look upon your mag—mag—magnificent
cataract, one hundred—and forty—seven—feet high! Gentlemen, Greece and Rome in
their palmiest days never had a cataract one hundred—and forty—seven—feet
high!'"
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Name four methods for destroying monotony and gaining power in speaking.
2. What are the four special effects of pause?
3. Note the pauses in a conversation, play, or speech. Were they the best that
could have been used? Illustrate.
4. Read aloud selections on pages 50-54, paying special attention to pause.
5. Read the following without making any pauses. Reread correctly and note the
difference:
Soon the night will pass; and when, of the Sentinel on the ramparts of Liberty
the anxious ask: | "Watchman, what of the night?" his answer will be | "Lo, the
morn appeareth."
Knowing the price we must pay, | the sacrifice | we must make, | the burdens |
we must carry, | the assaults | we must endure, | knowing full well the cost, |
yet we enlist, and we enlist | for the war. | For we know the justice of our
cause, | and we know, too, its certain triumph. |
Not reluctantly, then, | but eagerly, | not with faint hearts, | but strong, do
we now advance upon the enemies of the people. | For the call that comes to us
is the call that came to our fathers. | As they responded, so shall we.
"He hath sounded forth a trumpet | that shall never call retreat,
He is sifting out the hearts of men | before His judgment seat.
Oh, be swift | our souls to answer Him, | be jubilant our feet,
Our God | is marching on."
—Albert J. Beveride, From his speech as temporary chairman of Progressive
National Convention, Chicago, 1912.
6. Bring out the contrasting ideas in the following by using the pause:
Contrast now the circumstances of your life and mine, gently and with temper,
Æschines; and then ask these people whose fortune they would each of them
prefer. You taught reading, I went to school: you performed initiations, I
received them: you danced in the chorus, I furnished it: you were
assembly-clerk, I was a speaker: you acted third parts, I heard you: you broke
down, and I hissed: you have worked as a statesman for the enemy, I for my
country. I pass by the rest; but this very day I am on my probation for a crown,
and am acknowledged to be innocent of all offence; while you are already judged
to be a pettifogger, and the question is, whether you shall continue that trade,
or at once be silenced by not getting a fifth part of the votes. A happy
fortune, do you see, you have enjoyed, that you should denounce mine as
miserable!
—Demosthenes.
7. After careful study and practice, mark the pauses in the following:
The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for
national life. We hear the sounds of preparation—the music of the boisterous
drums, the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and
hear the appeals of orators; we see the pale cheeks of women and the flushed
faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have
covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they
enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part from those they love. Some
are walking for the last time in quiet woody places with the maiden they adore.
We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly
part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babies that are asleep.
Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting from those who
hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing; and
some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words spoken in the old
tones to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the
wife standing in the door, with the babe in her arms—standing in the sunlight
sobbing; at the turn of the road a hand waves—she answers by holding high in her
loving hands the child. He is gone—and forever.
—Robert J. Ingersoll, to the Soldiers of Indianapolis.
8. Where would you pause in the following selections? Try pausing in different
places and note the effect it gives.
The moving finger writes; and having writ moves on: nor all your piety nor wit
shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of
it.
The history of womankind is a story of abuse. For ages men beat, sold, and
abused their wives and daughters like cattle. The Spartan mother that gave birth
to one of her own sex disgraced herself; the girl babies were often deserted in
the mountains to starve; China bound and deformed their feet; Turkey veiled
their faces; America denied them equal educational advantages with men. Most of
the world still refuses them the right to participate in the government and
everywhere women bear the brunt of an unequal standard of morality.
But the women are on the march. They are walking upward to the sunlit plains
where the thinking people rule. China has ceased binding their feet. In the
shadow of the Harem Turkey has opened a school for girls. America has given the
women equal educational advantages, and America, we believe, will enfranchise
them.
We can do little to help and not much to hinder this great movement. The
thinking people have put their O.K. upon it. It is moving forward to its goal
just as surely as this old earth is swinging from the grip of winter toward the
spring's blossoms and the summer's harvest.[1]
9. Read aloud the following address, paying careful attention to pause wherever
the emphasis may thereby be heightened.
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT
... At last, the Republican party has appeared. It avows, now, as the Republican
party of 1800 did, in one word, its faith and its works, "Equal and exact
justice to all men." Even when it first entered the field, only half organized,
it struck a blow which only just failed to secure complete and triumphant
victory. In this, its second campaign, it has already won advantages which
render that triumph now both easy and certain. The secret of its assured success
lies in that very characteristic which, in the mouth of scoffers, constitutes
its great and lasting imbecility and reproach. It lies in the fact that it is a
party of one idea; but that is a noble one—an idea that fills and expands all
generous souls; the idea of equality of all men before human tribunals and human
laws, as they all are equal before the Divine tribunal and Divine laws.
I know, and you know, that a revolution has begun. I know, and all the world
knows, that revolutions never go backward. Twenty senators and a hundred
representatives proclaim boldly in Congress to-day sentiments and opinions and
principles of freedom which hardly so many men, even in this free State, dared
to utter in their own homes twenty years ago. While the government of the United
States, under the conduct of the Democratic party, has been all that time
surrendering one plain and castle after another to slavery, the people of the
United States have been no less steadily and perseveringly gathering together
the forces with which to recover back again all the fields and all the castles
which have been lost, and to confound and overthrow, by one decisive blow, the
betrayers of the Constitution and freedom forever.—W.H. Seward.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] From an editorial by D.C. in Leslie's Weekly, June 4, 1914. Used by
permission.
CHAPTER VII
EFFICIENCY THROUGH INFLECTION
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet; now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory slept.
—William Cowper, The Task.
Herbert Spencer remarked that "Cadence"—by which he meant the modulation of the
tones of the voice in speaking—"is the running commentary of the emotions upon
the propositions of the intellect." How true this is will appear when we reflect
that the little upward and downward shadings of the voice tell more truly what
we mean than our words. The expressiveness of language is literally multiplied
by this subtle power to shade the vocal tones, and this voice-shading we call
inflection.
The change of pitch within a word is even more important, because more delicate,
than the change of pitch from phrase to phrase. Indeed, one cannot be practised
without the other. The bare words are only so many bricks—inflection will make
of them a pavement, a garage, or a cathedral. It is the power of inflection to
change the meaning of words that gave birth to the old saying: "It is not so
much what you say, as how you say it."
Mrs. Jameson, the Shakespearean commentator, has given us a penetrating example
of the effect of inflection; "In her impersonation of the part of Lady Macbeth,
Mrs. Siddons adopted successively three different intonations in giving the
words 'We fail.' At first a quick contemptuous interrogation—'We fail?'
Afterwards, with the note of admiration—'We fail,' an accent of indignant
astonishment laying the principal emphasis on the word 'we'—'we fail.' Lastly,
she fixed on what I am convinced is the true reading—We fail—with the simple
period, modulating the voice to a deep, low, resolute tone which settles the
issue at once as though she had said: 'If we fail, why then we fail, and all is
over.'"
This most expressive element of our speech is the last to be mastered in
attaining to naturalness in speaking a foreign language, and its correct use is
the main element in a natural, flexible utterance of our native tongue. Without
varied inflections speech becomes wooden and monotonous.
There are but two kinds of inflection, the rising and the falling, yet these two
may be so shaded or so combined that they are capable of producing as many
varieties of modulation as maybe illustrated by either one or two lines,
straight or curved, thus:
Sharp rising
Long rising
Level
Long falling
Sharp falling
Sharp rising and falling
Sharp falling and rising
Hesitating
These may be varied indefinitely, and serve merely to illustrate what wide
varieties of combination may be effected by these two simple inflections of the
voice.
It is impossible to tabulate the various inflections which serve to express
various shades of thought and feeling. A few suggestions are offered here,
together with abundant exercises for practise, but the only real way to master
inflection is to observe, experiment, and practise.
For example, take the common sentence, "Oh, he's all right." Note how a rising
inflection may be made to express faint praise, or polite doubt, or uncertainty
of opinion. Then note how the same words, spoken with a generally falling
inflection may denote certainty, or good-natured approval, or enthusiastic
praise, and so on.
In general, then, we find that a bending upward of the voice will suggest doubt
and uncertainty, while a decided falling inflection will suggest that you are
certain of your ground.
Students dislike to be told that their speeches are "not so bad," spoken with a
rising inflection. To enunciate these words with a long falling inflection would
indorse the speech rather heartily.
Say good-bye to an imaginary person whom you expect to see again tomorrow; then
to a dear friend you never expect to meet again. Note the difference in
inflection.
"I have had a delightful time," when spoken at the termination of a formal tea
by a frivolous woman takes altogether different inflection than the same words
spoken between lovers who have enjoyed themselves. Mimic the two characters in
repeating this and observe the difference.
Note how light and short the inflections are in the following brief quotation
from "Anthony the Absolute," by Samuel Mervin.
At Sea—March 28th.
This evening I told Sir Robert What's His Name he was a fool.
I was quite right in this. He is.
Every evening since the ship left Vancouver he has presided over the round table
in the middle of the smoking-room. There he sips his coffee and liqueur, and
holds forth on every subject known to the mind of man. Each subject is his
subject. He is an elderly person, with a bad face and a drooping left eyelid.
They tell me that he is in the British Service—a judge somewhere down in
Malaysia, where they drink more than is good for them.
Deliver the two following selections with great earnestness, and note how the
inflections differ from the foregoing. Then reread these selections in a light,
superficial manner, noting that the change of attitude is expressed through a
change of inflection.
When I read a sublime fact in Plutarch, or an unselfish deed in a line of
poetry, or thrill beneath some heroic legend, it is no longer fairyland—I have
seen it matched.—Wendell Phillips.
Thought is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought;
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.
—Cranch
It must be made perfectly clear that inflection deals mostly in subtle, delicate
shading within single words, and is not by any means accomplished by a general
rise or fall in the voice in speaking a sentence. Yet certain sentences may be
effectively delivered with just such inflection. Try this sentence in several
ways, making no modulation until you come to the last two syllables, as
indicated,
And yet I told him dis-
--------------------------
(high)
|
|
tinctly.
-------------------------
(low)
tinctly.
-------------------------
|
(high)
And yet I told him dis-
|
-------------------------
(low)
Now try this sentence by inflecting the important words so as to bring out
various shades of meaning. The first forms, illustrated above, show change of
pitch within a single word; the forms you will work out for yourself should show
a number of such inflections throughout the sentence.
One of the chief means of securing emphasis is to employ a long falling
inflection on the emphatic words—that is, to let the voice fall to a lower pitch
on an interior vowel sound in a word. Try it on the words "every,"
"eleemosynary," and "destroy."
Use long falling inflections on the italicized words in the following selection,
noting their emphatic power. Are there any other words here that long falling
inflections would help to make expressive?
ADDRESS IN THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE
This, sir, is my case. It is the case not merely of that humble institution; it
is the case of every college in our land. It is more; it is the case of every
eleemosynary institution throughout our country—of all those great charities
founded by the piety of our ancestors to alleviate human misery and scatter
blessings along the pathway of life. Sir, you may destroy this little
institution—it is weak, it is in your hands. I know it is one of the lesser
lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out. But if you do
you must carry through your work; you must extinguish, one after another, all
those great lights of science which, for more than a century, have thrown their
radiance over our land!
It is, sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet—there are those who love
it!
Sir, I know not how others may feel, but as for myself when I see my alma mater
surrounded, like Cæsar in the senate house, by those who are reiterating stab
after stab, I would not for this right hand have her turn to me and say, And
thou, too, my son!
—Daniel Webster.
Be careful not to over-inflect. Too much modulation produces an unpleasant
effect of artificiality, like a mature matron trying to be kittenish. It is a
short step between true expression and unintentional burlesque. Scrutinize your
own tones. Take a single expression like "Oh, no!" or "Oh, I see," or "Indeed,"
and by patient self-examination see how many shades of meaning may be expressed
by inflection. This sort of common-sense practise will do you more good than a
book of rules. But don't forget to listen to your own voice.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. In your own words define (a) cadence, (b) modulation, (c) inflection, (d)
emphasis.
2. Name five ways of destroying monotony and gaining effectiveness in speech.
3. What states of mind does falling inflection signify? Make as full a list
as you can.
4. Do the same for the rising inflection.
5. How does the voice bend in expressing (a) surprise? (b) shame? (c) hate? (d)
formality? (e) excitement?
6. Reread some sentence several times and by using different inflections change
the meaning with each reading.
7. Note the inflections employed in some speech or conversation. Were they the
best that could be used to bring out the meaning? Criticise and illustrate.
8. Render the following passages:
Has the gentleman done? Has he completely done?
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
9. Invent an indirect question and show how it would naturally be inflected.
10. Does a direct question always require a rising inflection? Illustrate.
11. Illustrate how the complete ending of an expression or of a speech is
indicated by inflection.
12. Do the same for incompleteness of idea.
13. Illustrate (a) trembling, (b) hesitation, and (c) doubt by means of
inflection.
14. Show how contrast may be expressed.
15. Try the effects of both rising and falling inflections on the italicized
words in the following sentences. State your preference.
Gentlemen, I am persuaded, nay, I am resolved to speak.
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
SELECTIONS FOR PRACTISE
In the following selections secure emphasis by means of long falling inflections
rather than loudness.
Repeat these selections, attempting to put into practise all the technical
principles that we have thus far had; emphasizing important words, subordinating
unimportant words, variety of pitch, changing tempo, pause, and inflection. If
these principles are applied you will have no trouble with monotony.
Constant practise will give great facility in the use of inflection and will
render the voice itself flexible.
CHARLES I
We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he
kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to the
merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and
the defence is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We
censure him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after
having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we
are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the
morning! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyke dress,
his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most
of his popularity with the present generation.
—T.B. Macaulay.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
We needed not that he should put on paper that he believed in slavery, who, with
treason, with murder, with cruelty infernal, hovered around that majestic man to
destroy his life. He was himself but the long sting with which slavery struck at
liberty; and he carried the poison that belonged to slavery. As long as this
nation lasts, it will never be forgotten that we have one martyred
President—never! Never, while time lasts, while heaven lasts, while hell rocks
and groans, will it be forgotten that slavery, by its minions, slew him, and in
slaying him made manifest its whole nature and tendency.
But another thing for us to remember is that this blow was aimed at the life of
the government and of the nation. Lincoln was slain; America was meant. The man
was cast down; the government was smitten at. It was the President who was
killed. It was national life, breathing freedom and meaning beneficence, that
was sought. He, the man of Illinois, the private man, divested of robes and the
insignia of authority, representing nothing but his personal self, might have
been hated; but that would not have called forth the murderer's blow. It was
because he stood in the place of government, representing government and a
government that represented right and liberty, that he was singled out.
This, then, is a crime against universal government. It is not a blow at the
foundations of our government, more than at the foundations of the English
government, of the French government, of every compact and well-organized
government. It was a crime against mankind. The whole world will repudiate and
stigmatize it as a deed without a shade of redeeming light....
The blow, however, has signally failed. The cause is not stricken; it is
strengthened. This nation has dissolved,—but in tears only. It stands,
four-square, more solid, to-day, than any pyramid in Egypt. This people are
neither wasted, nor daunted, nor disordered. Men hate slavery and love liberty
with stronger hate and love to-day than ever before. The Government is not
weakened, it is made stronger....
And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when alive. The
nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and states are his
pall-bearers, and the cannon beats the hours with solemn progression.
Dead—dead—dead—he yet speaketh! Is Washington dead? Is Hampden dead? Is David
dead? Is any man dead that ever was fit to live? Disenthralled of flesh, and
risen to the unobstructed sphere where passion never comes, he begins his
illimitable work. His life now is grafted upon the Infinite, and will be
fruitful as no earthly life can be. Pass on, thou that hast overcome! Your
sorrows O people, are his peace! Your bells, and bands, and muffled drums sound
triumph in his ear. Wail and weep here; God makes it echo joy and triumph there.
Pass on, victor!
Four years ago, O Illinois, we took from your midst an untried man, and from
among the people; we return him to you a mighty conqueror. Not thine any more,
but the nation's; not ours, but the world's. Give him place, ye prairies! In the
midst of this great Continent his dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads
who shall make pilgrimage to that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and
patriotism. Ye winds, that move over the mighty places of the West, chant his
requiem! Ye people, behold a martyr, whose blood, as so many inarticulate words,
pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty!—Henry Ward Beecher.
THE HISTORY OF LIBERTY
The event which we commemorate is all-important, not merely in our own annals,
but in those of the world. The sententious English poet has declared that "the
proper study of mankind is man," and of all inquiries of a temporal nature, the
history of our fellow-beings is unquestionably among the most interesting. But
not all the chapters of human history are alike important. The annals of our
race have been filled up with incidents which concern not, or at least ought not
to concern, the great company of mankind. History, as it has often been written,
is the genealogy of princes, the field-book of conquerors; and the fortunes of
our fellow-men have been treated only so far as they have been affected by the
influence of the great masters and destroyers of our race. Such history is, I
will not say a worthless study, for it is necessary for us to know the dark side
as well as the bright side of our condition. But it is a melancholy study which
fills the bosom of the philanthropist and the friend of liberty with sorrow.
But the history of liberty—the history of men struggling to be free—the history
of men who have acquired and are exercising their freedom—the history of those
great movements in the world, by which liberty has been established and
perpetuated, forms a subject which we cannot contemplate too closely. This is
the real history of man, of the human family, of rational immortal beings....
The trial of adversity was theirs; the trial of prosperity is ours. Let us meet
it as men who know their duty and prize their blessings. Our position is the
most enviable, the most responsible, which men can fill. If this generation does
its duty, the cause of constitutional freedom is safe. If we fail—if we fail—not
only do we defraud our children of the inheritance which we received from our
fathers, but we blast the hopes of the friends of liberty throughout our
continent, throughout Europe, throughout the world, to the end of time.
History is not without her examples of hard-fought fields, where the banner of
liberty has floated triumphantly on the wildest storm of battle. She is without
her examples of a people by whom the dear-bought treasure has been wisely
employed and safely handed down. The eyes of the world are turned for that
example to us....
Let us, then, as we assemble on the birthday of the nation, as we gather upon
the green turf, once wet with precious blood—let us devote ourselves to the
sacred cause of constitutional liberty! Let us abjure the interests and passions
which divide the great family of American freemen! Let the rage of party spirit
sleep to-day! Let us resolve that our children shall have cause to bless the
memory of their fathers, as we have cause to bless the memory of ours!—Edward
Everett.
CHAPTER VIII
CONCENTRATION IN DELIVERY
Attention is the microscope of the mental eye. Its power may be high or low; its
field of view narrow or broad. When high power is used attention is confined
within very circumscribed limits, but its action is exceedingly intense and
absorbing. It sees but few things, but these few are observed "through and
through" ... Mental energy and activity, whether of perception or of thought,
thus concentrated, act like the sun's rays concentrated by the burning glass.
The object is illumined, heated, set on fire. Impressions are so deep that they
can never be effaced. Attention of this sort is the prime condition of the most
productive mental labor.
—Daniel Putnam, Psychology.
Try to rub the top of your head forward and backward at the same time that you
are patting your chest. Unless your powers of coördination are well developed
you will find it confusing, if not impossible. The brain needs special training
before it can do two or more things efficiently at the same instant. It may seem
like splitting a hair between its north and northwest corner, but some
psychologists argue that no brain can think two distinct thoughts, absolutely
simultaneously—that what seems to be simultaneous is really very rapid rotation
from the first thought to the second and back again, just as in the above-cited
experiment the attention must shift from one hand to the other until one or the
other movement becomes partly or wholly automatic.
Whatever is the psychological truth of this contention it is undeniable that the
mind measurably loses grip on one idea the moment the attention is projected
decidedly ahead to a second or a third idea.
A fault in public speakers that is as pernicious as it is common is that they
try to think of the succeeding sentence while still uttering the former, and in
this way their concentration trails off; in consequence, they start their
sentences strongly and end them weakly. In a well-prepared written speech the
emphatic word usually comes at one end of the sentence. But an emphatic word
needs emphatic expression, and this is precisely what it does not get when
concentration flags by leaping too soon to that which is next to be uttered.
Concentrate all your mental energies on the present sentence. Remember that the
mind of your audience follows yours very closely, and if you withdraw your
attention from what you are saying to what you are going to say, your audience
will also withdraw theirs. They may not do so consciously and deliberately, but
they will surely cease to give importance to the things that you yourself
slight. It is fatal to either the actor or the speaker to cross his bridges too
soon.
Of course, all this is not to say that in the natural pauses of your speech you
are not to take swift forward surveys—they are as important as the forward look
in driving a motor car; the caution is of quite another sort: while speaking one
sentence do not think of the sentence to follow. Let it come from its proper
source—within yourself. You cannot deliver a broadside without concentrated
force—that is what produces the explosion. In preparation you store and
concentrate thought and feeling; in the pauses during delivery you swiftly look
ahead and gather yourself for effective attack; during the moments of actual
speech, SPEAK—DON'T ANTICIPATE. Divide your attention and you divide your power.
This matter of the effect of the inner man upon the outer needs a further word
here, particularly as touching concentration.
"What do you read, my lord?" Hamlet replied, "Words. Words. Words." That is a
world-old trouble. The mechanical calling of words is not expression, by a long
stretch. Did you ever notice how hollow a memorized speech usually sounds? You
have listened to the ranting, mechanical cadence of inefficient actors, lawyers
and preachers. Their trouble is a mental one—they are not concentratedly
thinking thoughts that cause words to issue with sincerity and conviction, but
are merely enunciating word-sounds mechanically. Painful experience alike to
audience and to speaker! A parrot is equally eloquent. Again let Shakespeare
instruct us, this tune in the insincere prayer of the King, Hamlet's uncle. He
laments thus pointedly:
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
The truth is, that as a speaker your words must be born again every time they
are spoken, then they will not suffer in their utterance, even though perforce
committed to memory and repeated, like Dr. Russell Conwell's lecture, "Acres of
Diamonds," five thousand times. Such speeches lose nothing by repetition for the
perfectly patent reason that they arise from concentrated thought and feeling
and not a mere necessity for saying something—which usually means anything, and
that, in turn, is tantamount to nothing. If the thought beneath your words is
warm, fresh, spontaneous, a part of your self, your utterance will have breath
and life. Words are only a result. Do not try to get the result without
stimulating the cause.
Do you ask how to concentrate? Think of the word itself, and of its philological
brother, concentric. Think of how a lens gathers and concenters the rays of
light within a given circle. It centers them by a process of withdrawal. It may
seem like a harsh saying, but the man who cannot concentrate is either weak of
will, a nervous wreck, or has never learned what will-power is good for.
You must concentrate by resolutely withdrawing your attention from everything
else. If you concentrate your thought on a pain which may be afflicting you,
that pain will grow more intense. "Count your blessings" and they will multiply.
Center your thought on your strokes and your tennis play will gradually improve.
To concentrate is simply to attend to one thing, and attend to nothing else. If
you find that you cannot do that, there is something wrong—attend to that first.
Remove the cause and the symptom will disappear. Read the chapter on "Will
Power." Cultivate your will by willing and then doing, at all costs.
Concentrate—and you will win.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Select from any source several sentences suitable for speaking aloud; deliver
them first in the manner condemned in this chapter, and second with due regard
for emphasis toward the close of each sentence.
2. Put into about one hundred words your impression of the effect produced.
3. Tell of any peculiar methods you may have observed or heard of by which
speakers have sought to aid their powers of concentration, such as looking
fixedly at a blank spot in the ceiling, or twisting a watch charm.
4. What effect do such habits have on the audience?
5. What relation does pause bear to concentration?
6. Tell why concentration naturally helps a speaker to change pitch, tempo, and
emphasis.
7. Read the following selection through to get its meaning and spirit clearly in
your mind. Then read it aloud, concentrating solely on the thought that you are
expressing—do not trouble about the sentence or thought that is coming. Half the
troubles of mankind arise from anticipating trials that never occur. Avoid this
in speaking. Make the end of your sentences just as strong as the beginning.
CONCENTRATE.
WAR!
The last of the savage instincts is war. The cave man's club made law and
procured food. Might decreed right. Warriors were saviours.
In Nazareth a carpenter laid down the saw and preached the brotherhood of man.
Twelve centuries afterwards his followers marched to the Holy Land to destroy
all who differed with them in the worship of the God of Love. Triumphantly they
wrote "In Solomon's Porch and in his temple our men rode in the blood of the
Saracens up to the knees of their horses."
History is an appalling tale of war. In the seventeenth century Germany, France,
Sweden, and Spain warred for thirty years. At Magdeburg 30,000 out of 36,000
were killed regardless of sex or age. In Germany schools were closed for a third
of a century, homes burned, women outraged, towns demolished, and the untilled
land became a wilderness.
Two-thirds of Germany's property was destroyed and 18,000,000 of her citizens
were killed, because men quarrelled about the way to glorify "The Prince of
Peace." Marching through rain and snow, sleeping on the ground, eating stale
food or starving, contracting diseases and facing guns that fire six hundred
times a minute, for fifty cents a day—this is the soldier's life.
At the window sits the widowed mother crying. Little children with tearful faces
pressed against the pane watch and wait. Their means of livelihood, their home,
their happiness is gone. Fatherless children, broken-hearted women, sick,
disabled and dead men—this is the wage of war.
We spend more money preparing men to kill each other than we do in teaching them
to live. We spend more money building one battleship than in the annual
maintenance of all our state universities. The financial loss resulting from
destroying one another's homes in the civil war would have built 15,000,000
houses, each costing $2,000. We pray for love but prepare for hate. We preach
peace but equip for war.
Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camp and court
Given to redeem this world from error,
There would be no need of arsenal and fort.
War only defers a question. No issue will ever really be settled until it is
settled rightly. Like rival "gun gangs" in a back alley, the nations of the
world, through the bloody ages, have fought over their differences. Denver
cannot fight Chicago and Iowa cannot fight Ohio. Why should Germany be permitted
to fight France, or Bulgaria fight Turkey?
When mankind rises above creeds, colors and countries, when we are citizens, not
of a nation, but of the world, the armies and navies of the earth will
constitute an international police force to preserve the peace and the dove will
take the eagle's place.
Our differences will be settled by an international court with the power to
enforce its mandates. In times of peace prepare for peace. The wages of war are
the wages of sin, and the "wages of sin is death."
—Editorial by D.C., Leslie's Weekly; used by permission.
CHAPTER IX
FORCE
However, 'tis expedient to be wary:
Indifference, certes, don't produce distress;
And rash enthusiasm in good society
Were nothing but a moral inebriety.
—Byron, Don Juan.
You have attended plays that seemed fair, yet they did not move you, grip you.
In theatrical parlance, they failed to "get over," which means that their
message did not get over the foot-lights to the audience. There was no punch, no
jab to them—they had no force.
Of course, all this spells disaster, in big letters, not only in a stage
production but in any platform effort. Every such presentation exists solely for
the audience, and if it fails to hit them—and the expression is a good one—it
has no excuse for living; nor will it live long.
What is Force?
Some of our most obvious words open up secret meanings under scrutiny, and this
is one of them.
To begin with, we must recognize the distinction between inner and outer force.
The one is cause, the other effect. The one is spiritual, the other physical. In
this important particular, animate force differs from inanimate force—the power
of man, coming from within and expressing itself outwardly, is of another sort
from the force of Shimose powder, which awaits some influence from without to
explode it. However susceptive to outside stimuli, the true source of power in
man lies within himself. This may seem like "mere psychology," but it has an
intensely practical bearing on public speaking, as will appear.
Not only must we discern the difference between human force and mere physical
force, but we must not confuse its real essence with some of the things that
may—and may not—accompany it. For example, loudness is not force, though force
at times may be attended by noise. Mere roaring never made a good speech, yet
there are moments—moments, mind you, not minutes—when big voice power may be
used with tremendous effect.
Nor is violent motion force—yet force may result in violent motion. Hamlet
counseled the players:
Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently; for in
the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you
must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. Oh, it offends
me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to
tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings[2]; who, for the
most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb show, and noise. I would
have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod. Pray
you avoid it.
Be not too tame, neither, but let your discretion be your tutor: suit the action
to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you
o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose
of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as
'twere, the mirror up to Nature, to show Virtue her own feature, Scorn her own
image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now, this
overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but
make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must, in your allowance,
o'erweigh a whole theater of others. Oh, there be players that I have seen
play—and heard others praise, and that highly—not to speak it profanely, that,
neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, or
man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's
journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so
abominably.[3]
Force is both a cause and an effect. Inner force, which must precede outer
force, is a combination of four elements, acting progressively. First of all,
force arises from conviction. You must be convinced of the truth, or the
importance, or the meaning, of what you are about to say before you can give it
forceful delivery. It must lay strong hold upon your convictions before it can
grip your audience. Conviction convinces.
The Saturday Evening Post in an article on "England's T.R."—Winston Spencer
Churchill—attributed much of Churchill's and Roosevelt's public platform success
to their forceful delivery. No matter what is in hand, these men make themselves
believe for the time being that that one thing is the most important on earth.
Hence they speak to their audiences in a Do-this-or-you-PERISH manner.
That kind of speaking wins, and it is that virile, strenuous, aggressive
attitude which both distinguishes and maintains the platform careers of our
greatest leaders.
But let us look a little closer at the origins of inner force. How does
conviction affect the man who feels it? We have answered the inquiry in the very
question itself—he feels it: Conviction produces emotional tension. Study the
pictures of Theodore Roosevelt and of Billy Sunday in action—action is the word.
Note the tension of their jaw muscles, the taut lines of sinews in their entire
bodies when reaching a climax of force. Moral and physical force are alike in
being both preceded and accompanied by in-tens-ity—tension—tightness of the
cords of power.
It is this tautness of the bow-string, this knotting of the muscles, this
contraction before the spring, that makes an audience feel—almost see—the
reserve power in a speaker. In some really wonderful way it is more what a
speaker does not say and do that reveals the dynamo within. Anything may come
from such stored-up force once it is let loose; and that keeps an audience
alert, hanging on the lips of a speaker for his next word. After all, it is all
a question of manhood, for a stuffed doll has neither convictions nor emotional
tension. If you are upholstered with sawdust, keep off the platform, for your
own speech will puncture you.
Growing out of this conviction-tension comes resolve to make the audience share
that conviction-tension. Purpose is the backbone of force; without it speech is
flabby—it may glitter, but it is the iridescence of the spineless jellyfish. You
must hold fast to your resolve if you would hold fast to your audience.
Finally, all this conviction-tension-purpose is lifeless and useless unless it
results in propulsion. You remember how Young in his wonderful "Night Thoughts"
delineates the man who
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve,
Resolves, and re-resolves, and dies the same.
Let not your force "die a-borning,"—bring it to full life in its conviction,
emotional tension, resolve, and propulsive power.
Can Force be Acquired?
Yes, if the acquirer has any such capacities as we have just outlined. How to
acquire this vital factor is suggested in its very analysis: Live with your
subject until you are convinced of its importance.
If your message does not of itself arouse you to tension, PULL yourself
together. When a man faces the necessity of leaping across a crevasse he does
not wait for inspiration, he wills his muscles into tensity for the spring—it is
not without purpose that our English language uses the same word to depict a
mighty though delicate steel contrivance and a quick leap through the air. Then
resolve—and let it all end in actual punch.
This truth is worth reiteration: The man within is the final factor. He must
supply the fuel. The audience, or even the man himself, may add the match—it
matters little which, only so that there be fire. However skillfully your engine
is constructed, however well it works, you will have no force if the fire has
gone out under the boiler. It matters little how well you have mastered poise,
pause, modulation, and tempo, if your speech lacks fire it is dead. Neither a
dead engine nor a dead speech will move anybody.
Four factors of force are measurably within your control, and in that far may be
acquired: ideas, feeling about the subject, wording, and delivery. Each of these
is more or less fully discussed in this volume, except wording, which really
requires a fuller rhetorical study than can here be ventured. It is, however, of
the utmost importance that you should be aware of precisely how wording bears
upon force in a sentence. Study "The Working Principles of Rhetoric," by John
Franklin Genung, or the rhetorical treatises of Adams Sherman Hill, of Charles
Sears Baldwin, or any others whose names may easily be learned from any teacher.
Here are a few suggestions on the use of words to attain force:
Choice of Words
PLAIN words are more forceful than words less commonly used—juggle
has more vigor than prestidigitate.
SHORT words are stronger than long words—end has more directness than
terminate.
SAXON words are usually more forceful than Latinistic words—for force,
use wars against rather than militate against.
SPECIFIC words are stronger than general words—pressman is more
definite than printer.
CONNOTATIVE words, those that suggest more than they say, have more
power than ordinary words—"She let herself be married" expresses more
than "She married."
EPITHETS, figuratively descriptive words, are more effective than direct
names—"Go tell that old fox," has more "punch" than "Go tell that
sly fellow." ONOMATOPOETIC words, words that convey the sense by the
sound, are more powerful than other words—crash is more effective
than cataclysm.
Arrangement of words
Cut out modifiers.
Cut out connectives.
Begin with words that demand attention.
"End with words that deserve distinction," says Prof. Barrett Wendell.
Set strong ideas over against weaker ones, so as to gain strength by the
contrast.
Avoid elaborate sentence structure—short sentences are stronger than
long ones.
Cut out every useless word, so as to give prominence to the really
important ones.
Let each sentence be a condensed battering ram, swinging to its final
blow on the attention.
A familiar, homely idiom, if not worn by much use, is more effective
than a highly formal, scholarly expression.
Consider well the relative value of different positions in the sentence
so that you may give the prominent place to ideas you wish to emphasize.
"But," says someone, "is it not more honest to depend the inherent interest
in a subject, its native truth, clearness and sincerity of presentation, and
beauty of utterance, to win your audience? Why not charm men instead of
capturing them by assault?"
Why Use Force?
There is much truth in such an appeal, but not all the truth. Clearness,
persuasion, beauty, simple statement of truth, are all essential—indeed, they
are all definite parts of a forceful presentment of a subject, without being the
only parts. Strong meat may not be as attractive as ices, but all depends on the
appetite and the stage of the meal.
You can not deliver an aggressive message with caressing little strokes. No! Jab
it in with hard, swift solar plexus punches. You cannot strike fire from flint
or from an audience with love taps. Say to a crowded theatre in a lackadaisical
manner: "It seems to me that the house is on fire," and your announcement may be
greeted with a laugh. If you flash out the words: "The house's on fire!" they
will crush one another in getting to the exits.
The spirit and the language of force are definite with conviction. No immortal
speech in literature contains such expressions as "it seems to me," "I should
judge," "in my opinion," "I suppose," "perhaps it is true." The speeches that
will live have been delivered by men ablaze with the courage of their
convictions, who uttered their words as eternal truth. Of Jesus it was said that
"the common people heard Him gladly." Why? "He taught them as one having
AUTHORITY." An audience will never be moved by what "seems" to you to be truth
or what in your "humble opinion" may be so. If you honestly can, assert
convictions as your conclusions. Be sure you are right before you speak your
speech, then utter your thoughts as though they were a Gibraltar of
unimpeachable truth. Deliver them with the iron hand and confidence of a
Cromwell. Assert them with the fire of authority. Pronounce them as an
ultimatum. If you cannot speak with conviction, be silent.
What force did that young minister have who, fearing to be too dogmatic, thus
exhorted his hearers: "My friends—as I assume that you are—it appears to be my
duty to tell you that if you do not repent, so to speak, forsake your sins, as
it were, and turn to righteousness, if I may so express it, you will be lost, in
a measure"?
Effective speech must reflect the era. This is not a rose water age, and a
tepid, half-hearted speech will not win. This is the century of trip hammers, of
overland expresses that dash under cities and through mountain tunnels, and you
must instill this spirit into your speech if you would move a popular audience.
From a front seat listen to a first-class company present a modern Broadway
drama—not a comedy, but a gripping, thrilling drama. Do not become absorbed in
the story; reserve all your attention for the technique and the force of the
acting. There is a kick and a crash as well as an infinitely subtle intensity in
the big, climax-speeches that suggest this lesson: the same well-calculated,
restrained, delicately shaded force would simply rivet your ideas in the minds
of your audience. An air-gun will rattle bird-shot against a window pane—it
takes a rifle to wing a bullet through plate glass and the oaken walls beyond.
When to Use Force
An audience is unlike the kingdom of heaven—the violent do not always take it by
force. There are times when beauty and serenity should be the only bells in your
chime. Force is only one of the great extremes of contrast—use neither it nor
quiet utterance to the exclusion of other tones: be various, and in variety find
even greater force than you could attain by attempting its constant use. If you
are reading an essay on the beauties of the dawn, talking about the dainty bloom
of a honey-suckle, or explaining the mechanism of a gas engine, a vigorous style
of delivery is entirely out of place. But when you are appealing to wills and
consciences for immediate action, forceful delivery wins. In such cases,
consider the minds of your audience as so many safes that have been locked and
the keys lost. Do not try to figure out the combinations. Pour a little nitro
glycerine into the cracks and light the fuse. As these lines are being written a
contractor down the street is clearing away the rocks with dynamite to lay the
foundations for a great building. When you want to get action, do not fear to
use dynamite.
The final argument for the effectiveness of force in public speech is the fact
that everything must be enlarged for the purposes of the platform—that is why so
few speeches read well in the reports on the morning after: statements appear
crude and exaggerated because they are unaccompanied by the forceful delivery of
a glowing speaker before an audience heated to attentive enthusiasm. So in
preparing your speech you must not err on the side of mild statement—your
audience will inevitably tone down your words in the cold grey of afterthought.
When Phidias was criticised for the rough, bold outlines of a figure he had
submitted in competition, he smiled and asked that his statue and the one
wrought by his rival should be set upon the column for which the sculpture was
destined. When this was done all the exaggerations and crudities, toned by
distances, melted into exquisite grace of line and form. Each speech must be a
special study in suitability and proportion.
Omit the thunder of delivery, if you will, but like Wendell Phillips put "silent
lightning" into your speech. Make your thoughts breathe and your words burn.
Birrell said: "Emerson writes like an electrical cat emitting sparks and shocks
in every sentence." Go thou and speak likewise. Get the "big stick" into your
delivery—be forceful.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Illustrate, by repeating a sentence from memory, what is meant by employing
force in speaking.
2. Which in your opinion is the most important of the technical principles of
speaking that you have studied so far? Why?
3. What is the effect of too much force in a speech? Too little?
4. Note some uninteresting conversation or ineffective speech, and tell why
it failed.
5. Suggest how it might be improved.
6. Why do speeches have to be spoken with more force than do conversations?
7. Read aloud the selection on page 84, using the technical principles outlined
in chapters III to VIII, but neglect to put any force behind the interpretation.
What is the result?
8. Reread several times, doing your best to achieve force.
9. Which parts of the selection on page 84 require the most force?
10. Write a five-minute speech not only discussing the errors of those who
exaggerate and those who minimize the use of force, but by imitation show their
weaknesses. Do not burlesque, but closely imitate.
11. Give a list of ten themes for public addresses, saying which seem most
likely to require the frequent use of force in delivery.
12. In your own opinion, do speakers usually err from the use of too much or too
little force?
13. Define (a) bombast; (b) bathos; (c) sentimentality; (d) squeamish.
14. Say how the foregoing words describe weaknesses in public speech.
15. Recast in twentieth-century English "Hamlet's Directions to the Players,"
page 88.
16. Memorize the following extracts from Wendell Phillips' speeches, and deliver
them with the of Wendell Phillips' "silent lightning" delivery.
We are for a revolution! We say in behalf of these hunted lyings, whom God
created, and who law-abiding Webster and Winthrop have sworn shall not find
shelter in Massachusetts,—we say that they may make their little motions, and
pass their little laws in Washington, but that Faneuil Hall repeals them in the
name of humanity and the old Bay State!
My advice to workingmen is this:
If you want power in this country; if you want to make yourselves felt; if you
do not want your children to wait long years before they have the bread on the
table they ought to have, the leisure in their lives they ought to have, the
opportunities in life they ought to have; if you don't want to wait
yourselves,—write on your banner, so that every political trimmer can read it,
so that every politician, no matter how short-sighted he may be, can read it,
"WE NEVER FORGET! If you launch the arrow of sarcasm at labor, WE NEVER FORGET!
If there is a division in Congress, and you throw your vote in the wrong scale,
WE NEVER FORGET! You may go down on your knees, and say, 'I am sorry I did the
act'—but we will say 'IT WILL AVAIL YOU IN HEAVEN TO BE SORRY, BUT ON THIS SIDE
OF THE GRAVE, NEVER!'" So that a man in taking up the labor question will know
he is dealing with a hair-trigger pistol, and will say, "I am to be true to
justice and to man; otherwise I am a dead duck."
In Russia there is no press, no debate, no explanation of what government does,
no remonstrance allowed, no agitation of public issues. Dead silence, like that
which reigns at the summit of Mont Blanc, freezes the whole empire, long ago
described as "a despotism tempered by assassination." Meanwhile, such despotism
has unsettled the brains of the ruling family, as unbridled power doubtless made
some of the twelve Cæsars insane; a madman, sporting with the lives and comfort
of a hundred millions of men. The young girl whispers in her mother's ear, under
a ceiled roof, her pity for a brother knouted and dragged half dead into exile
for his opinions. The next week she is stripped naked and flogged to death in
the public square. No inquiry, no explanation, no trial, no protest, one dead
uniform silence, the law of the tyrant. Where is there ground for any hope of
peaceful change? No, no! in such a land dynamite and the dagger are the
necessary and proper substitutes for Faneuil Hall. Anything that will make the
madman quake in his bedchamber, and rouse his victims into reckless and
desperate resistance. This is the only view an American, the child of 1620 and
1776, can take of Nihilism. Any other unsettles and perplexes the ethics of our
civilization.
Born within sight of Bunker Hill—son of Harvard, whose first pledge was "Truth,"
citizen of a republic based on the claim that no government is rightful unless
resting on the consent of the people, and which assumes to lead in asserting the
rights of humanity—I at least can say nothing else and nothing less—no not if
every tile on Cambridge roofs were a devil hooting my words!
For practise on forceful selections, use "The Irrepressible Conflict," page 67;
"Abraham Lincoln," page 76, "Pass Prosperity Around," page 470; "A Plea for
Cuba," page 50.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Those who sat in the pit or the parquet.
[3] Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2.
CHAPTER X
FEELING AND ENTHUSIASM
Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit that hovers over the production
of genius.
—Isaac Disraeli, Literary Character.
If you are addressing a body of scientists on such a subject as the veins in a
butterfly's wings, or on road structure, naturally your theme will not arouse
much feeling in either you or your audience. These are purely mental subjects.
But if you want men to vote for a measure that will abolish child labor, or if
you would inspire them to take up arms for freedom, you must strike straight at
their feelings. We lie on soft beds, sit near the radiator on a cold day, eat
cherry pie, and devote our attention to one of the opposite sex, not because we
have reasoned out that it is the right thing to do, but because it feels right.
No one but a dyspeptic chooses his diet from a chart. Our feelings dictate what
we shall eat and generally how we shall act. Man is a feeling animal, hence the
public speaker's ability to arouse men to action depends almost wholly on his
ability to touch their emotions.
Negro mothers on the auction-block seeing their children sold away from them
into slavery have flamed out some of America's most stirring speeches. True, the
mother did not have any knowledge of the technique of speaking, but she had
something greater than all technique, more effective than reason: feeling. The
great speeches of the world have not been delivered on tariff reductions or
post-office appropriations. The speeches that will live have been charged with
emotional force. Prosperity and peace are poor developers of eloquence. When
great wrongs are to be righted, when the public heart is flaming with passion,
that is the occasion for memorable speaking. Patrick Henry made an immortal
address, for in an epochal crisis he pleaded for liberty. He had roused himself
to the point where he could honestly and passionately exclaim, "Give me liberty
or give me death." His fame would have been different had he lived to-day and
argued for the recall of judges.
The Power of Enthusiasm
Political parties hire bands, and pay for applause—they argue that, for
vote-getting, to stir up enthusiasm is more effective than reasoning. How far
they are right depends on the hearers, but there can be no doubt about the
contagious nature of enthusiasm. A watch manufacturer in New York tried out two
series of watch advertisements; one argued the superior construction,
workmanship, durability, and guarantee offered with the watch; the other was
headed, "A Watch to be Proud of," and dwelt upon the pleasure and pride of
ownership. The latter series sold twice as many as the former. A salesman for a
locomotive works informed the writer that in selling railroad engines emotional
appeal was stronger than an argument based on mechanical excellence.
Illustrations without number might be cited to show that in all our actions we
are emotional beings. The speaker who would speak efficiently must develop the
power to arouse feeling.
Webster, great debater that he was, knew that the real secret of a speaker's
power was an emotional one. He eloquently says of eloquence:
"Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire
after it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreak
of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with
spontaneous, original, native force.
"The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances
of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their
wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then
words have lost their power, rhetoric is in vain, and all elaborate oratory
contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the
presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent, then self-devotion is
eloquent. The clear conception outrunning the deductions of logic, the high
purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming
from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right
onward to his subject—this, this is eloquence; or rather, it is something
greater and higher than all eloquence; it is action, noble, sublime, godlike
action."
When traveling through the Northwest some time ago, one of the present writers
strolled up a village street after dinner and noticed a crowd listening to a
"faker" speaking on a corner from a goods-box. Remembering Emerson's advice
about learning something from every man we meet, the observer stopped to listen
to this speaker's appeal. He was selling a hair tonic, which he claimed to have
discovered in Arizona. He removed his hat to show what this remedy had done for
him, washed his face in it to demonstrate that it was as harmless as water, and
enlarged on its merits in such an enthusiastic manner that the half-dollars
poured in on him in a silver flood. When he had supplied the audience with hair
tonic, he asked why a greater proportion of men than women were bald. No one
knew. He explained that it was because women wore thinner-soled shoes, and so
made a good electrical connection with mother earth, while men wore thick,
dry-soled shoes that did not transmit the earth's electricity to the body. Men's
hair, not having a proper amount of electrical food, died and fell out. Of
course he had a remedy—a little copper plate that should be nailed on the bottom
of the shoe. He pictured in enthusiastic and vivid terms the desirability of
escaping baldness—and paid tributes to his copper plates. Strange as it may seem
when the story is told in cold print, the speaker's enthusiasm had swept his
audience with him, and they crushed around his stand with outstretched
"quarters" in their anxiety to be the possessors of these magical plates!
Emerson's suggestion had been well taken—the observer had seen again the
wonderful, persuasive power of enthusiasm!
Enthusiasm sent millions crusading into the Holy Land to redeem it from the
Saracens. Enthusiasm plunged Europe into a thirty years' war over religion.
Enthusiasm sent three small ships plying the unknown sea to the shores of a new
world. When Napoleon's army were worn out and discouraged in their ascent of the
Alps, the Little Corporal stopped them and ordered the bands to play the
Marseillaise. Under its soul-stirring strains there were no Alps.
Listen! Emerson said: "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
Carlyle declared that "Every great movement in the annals of history has been
the triumph of enthusiasm." It is as contagious as measles. Eloquence is half
inspiration. Sweep your audience with you in a pulsation of enthusiasm. Let
yourself go. "A man," said Oliver Cromwell, "never rises so high as when he
knows not whither he is going."
How are We to Acquire and Develop Enthusiasm?
It is not to be slipped on like a smoking jacket. A book cannot furnish you with
it. It is a growth—an effect. But an effect of what? Let us see.
Emerson wrote: "A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some
sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of his form
merely,—but, by watching for a time his motion and plays, the painter enters his
nature, and then can draw him at will in every attitude. So Roos 'entered into
the inmost nature of his sheep.' I knew a draughtsman employed in a public
survey, who found that he could not sketch the rocks until their geological
structure was first explained to him."
When Sarah Bernhardt plays a difficult role she frequently will speak to no one
from four o'clock in the afternoon until after the performance. From the hour of
four she lives her character. Booth, it is reported, would not permit anyone to
speak to him between the acts of his Shakesperean rôles, for he was Macbeth
then—not Booth. Dante, exiled from his beloved Florence, condemned to death,
lived in caves, half starved; then Dante wrote out his heart in "The Divine
Comedy." Bunyan entered into the spirit of his "Pilgrim's Progress" so
thoroughly that he fell down on the floor of Bedford jail and wept for joy.
Turner, who lived in a garret, arose before daybreak and walked over the hills
nine miles to see the sun rise on the ocean, that he might catch the spirit of
its wonderful beauty. Wendell Phillips' sentences were full of "silent
lightning" because he bore in his heart the sorrow of five million slaves.
There is only one way to get feeling into your speaking—and whatever else you
forget, forget not this: You must actually ENTER INTO the character you
impersonate, the cause you advocate, the case you argue—enter into it so deeply
that it clothes you, enthralls you, possesses you wholly. Then you are, in the
true meaning of the word, in sympathy with your subject, for its feeling is your
feeling, you "feel with" it, and therefore your enthusiasm is both genuine and
contagious. The Carpenter who spoke as "never man spake" uttered words born out
of a passion of love for humanity—he had entered into humanity, and thus became
Man.
But we must not look upon the foregoing words as a facile prescription for
decocting a feeling which may then be ladled out to a complacent audience in
quantities to suit the need of the moment. Genuine feeling in a speech is bone
and blood of the speech itself and not something that may be added to it or
substracted at will. In the ideal address theme, speaker and audience become
one, fused by the emotion and thought of the hour.
The Need of Sympathy for Humanity
It is impossible to lay too much stress on the necessity for the speaker's
having a broad and deep tenderness for human nature. One of Victor Hugo's
biographers attributes his power as an orator and writer to his wide sympathies
and profound religious feelings. Recently we heard the editor of Collier's
Weekly speak on short-story writing, and he so often emphasized the necessity
for this broad love for humanity, this truly religious feeling, that he
apologized twice for delivering a sermon. Few if any of the immortal speeches
were ever delivered for a selfish or a narrow cause—they were born out of a
passionate desire to help humanity; instances, Paul's address to the Athenians
on Mars Hill, Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, The Sermon on the Mount, Henry's
address before the Virginia Convention of Delegates.
The seal and sign of greatness is a desire to serve others. Self-preservation is
the first law of life, but self-abnegation is the first law of greatness—and of
art. Selfishness is the fundamental cause of all sin, it is the thing that all
great religions, all worthy philosophies, have struck at. Out of a heart of real
sympathy and love come the speeches that move humanity.
Former United States Senator Albert J. Beveridge in an introduction to one of
the volumes of "Modern Eloquence," says: "The profoundest feeling among the
masses, the most influential element in their character, is the religious
element. It is as instinctive and elemental as the law of self-preservation. It
informs the whole intellect and personality of the people. And he who would
greatly influence the people by uttering their unformed thoughts must have this
great and unanalyzable bond of sympathy with them."
When the men of Ulster armed themselves to oppose the passage of the Home Rule
Act, one of the present writers assigned to a hundred men "Home Rule" as the
topic for an address to be prepared by each. Among this group were some
brilliant speakers, several of them experienced lawyers and political
campaigners. Some of their addresses showed a remarkable knowledge and grasp of
the subject; others were clothed in the most attractive phrases. But a clerk,
without a great deal of education and experience, arose and told how he spent
his boyhood days in Ulster, how his mother while holding him on her lap had
pictured to him Ulster's deeds of valor. He spoke of a picture in his uncle's
home that showed the men of Ulster conquering a tyrant and marching on to
victory. His voice quivered, and with a hand pointing upward he declared that if
the men of Ulster went to war they would not go alone—a great God would go with
them.
The speech thrilled and electrified the audience. It thrills yet as we recall
it. The high-sounding phrases, the historical knowledge, the philosophical
treatment, of the other speakers largely failed to arouse any deep interest,
while the genuine conviction and feeling of the modest clerk, speaking on a
subject that lay deep in his heart, not only electrified his audience but won
their personal sympathy for the cause he advocated.
As Webster said, it is of no use to try to pretend to sympathy or feelings. It
cannot be done successfully. "Nature is forever putting a premium on reality."
What is false is soon detected as such. The thoughts and feelings that create
and mould the speech in the study must be born again when the speech is
delivered from the platform. Do not let your words say one thing, and your voice
and attitude another. There is no room here for half-hearted, nonchalant methods
of delivery. Sincerity is the very soul of eloquence. Carlyle was right: "No
Mirabeau, Napoleon, Burns, Cromwell, no man adequate to do anything, but is
first of all in right earnest about it; what I call a sincere man. I should say
sincerity, a great, deep, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all
men in any way heroic. Not the sincerity that calls itself sincere; ah no, that
is a very poor matter indeed; a shallow braggart, conscious sincerity, oftenest
self-conceit mainly. The great man's sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak
of—is not conscious of."
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
It is one thing to convince the would-be speaker that he ought to put feeling
into his speeches; often it is quite another thing for him to do it. The average
speaker is afraid to let himself go, and continually suppresses his emotions.
When you put enough feeling into your speeches they will sound overdone to you,
unless you are an experienced speaker. They will sound too strong, if you are
not used to enlarging for platform or stage, for the delineation of the emotions
must be enlarged for public delivery.
1. Study the following speech, going back in your imagination to the time and
circumstances that brought it forth. Make it not a memorized historical
document, but feel the emotions that gave it birth. The speech is only an
effect; live over in your own heart the causes that produced it and try to
deliver it at white heat. It is not possible for you to put too much real
feeling into it, though of course it would be quite easy to rant and fill it
with false emotion. This speech, according to Thomas Jefferson, started the ball
of the Revolution rolling. Men were then willing to go out and die for liberty.
PATRICK HENRY'S SPEECH
BEFORE THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF DELEGATES
Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are
apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that
siren, till she transforms us to beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged
in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number
of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which
so nearly concern our temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of
spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and
to provide for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And
judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the
British Ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which
gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House? Is it that
insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not,
sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be "betrayed
with a kiss"! Ask yourselves, how this gracious reception of our petition
comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our
land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have
we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in
to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the
implements of war and subjugation, the last "arguments" to which kings resort.
I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to
force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it?
Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this
accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us;
they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and to rivet upon us
those chains which the British Ministry have been so long forging. And what have
we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for
the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We
have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been
all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms
shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you,
sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done,
to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned, we have
remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before the
throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of
the Ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances
have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been
disregarded, and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne.
In vain, after these things, may we indulge in the fond hope of peace and
reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if
we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have
been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in
which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to
abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must
fight; I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of
Hosts, is all that is left us!
They tell us, sir, that we are weak—"unable to cope with so formidable an
adversary"! But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next
year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be
stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?
Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our
backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies have bound us
hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means
which the God of Nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people,
armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we
possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.
Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just Power who
presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight
our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the
vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were
base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There
is no retreat, but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their
clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable; and let it
come! I repeat it, sir, let it come! It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the
matter. Gentlemen may cry "Peace, peace!" but there is no peace! The war is
actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears
the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand
we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so
dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Forbid it, Almighty Powers!—I know not what course others may take; but as for
me, give me liberty or give me death!
2. Live over in your imagination all the solemnity and sorrow that Lincoln felt
at the Gettysburg cemetery. The feeling in this speech is very deep, but it is
quieter and more subdued than the preceding one. The purpose of Henry's address
was to get action; Lincoln's speech was meant only to dedicate the last resting
place of those who had acted. Read it over and over (see page 50) until it burns
in your soul. Then commit it and repeat it for emotional expression.
3. Beecher's speech on Lincoln, page 76; Thurston's speech on "A Plea for Cuba,"
page 50; and the following selection, are recommended for practise in developing
feeling in delivery.
A living force that brings to itself all the resources of imagination, all the
inspirations of feeling, all that is influential in body, in voice, in eye, in
gesture, in posture, in the whole animated man, is in strict analogy with the
divine thought and the divine arrangement; and there is no misconstruction more
utterly untrue and fatal than this: that oratory is an artificial thing, which
deals with baubles and trifles, for the sake of making bubbles of pleasure for
transient effect on mercurial audiences. So far from that, it is the
consecration of the whole man to the noblest purposes to which one can address
himself—the education and inspiration of his fellow men by all that there is in
learning, by all that there is in thought, by all that there is in feeling, by
all that there is in all of them, sent home through the channels of taste and of
beauty.—Henry Ward Beecher.
4. What in your opinion are the relative values of thought and feeling in a
speech?
5. Could we dispense with either?
6. What kinds of selections or occasions require much feeling and enthusiasm?
Which require little?
7. Invent a list of ten subjects for speeches, saying which would give most room
for pure thought and which for feeling.
8. Prepare and deliver a ten-minute speech denouncing the (imaginary) unfeeling
plea of an attorney; he may be either the counsel for the defense or the
prosecuting attorney, and the accused may be assumed to be either guilty or
innocent, at your option.
9. Is feeling more important than the technical principles expounded in chapters
III to VII? Why?
10. Analyze the secret of some effective speech or speaker. To what is the
success due?
11. Give an example from your own observation of the effect of feeling and
enthusiasm on listeners.
12. Memorize Carlyle's and Emerson's remarks on enthusiasm.
13. Deliver Patrick Henry's address, page 110, and Thurston's speech, page 50,
without show of feeling or enthusiasm. What is the result?
14. Repeat, with all the feeling these selections demand. What is the result?
15. What steps do you intend to take to develop the power of enthusiasm and
feeling in speaking?
16. Write and deliver a five-minute speech ridiculing a speaker who uses
bombast, pomposity and over-enthusiasm. Imitate him.
CHAPTER XI
FLUENCY THROUGH PREPARATION
Animis opibusque parati—Ready in mind and resources.
—Motto of South Carolina.
In omnibus negotiis prius quam aggrediare, adhibenda est præparatio diligens—In
all matters before beginning a diligent preparation should be made.
—Cicero, De Officiis.
Take your dictionary and look up the words that contain the Latin stem flu—the
results will be suggestive.
At first blush it would seem that fluency consists in a ready, easy use of
words. Not so—the flowing quality of speech is much more, for it is a composite
effect, with each of its prior conditions deserving of careful notice.
The Sources of Fluency
Speaking broadly, fluency is almost entirely a matter of preparation. Certainly,
native gifts figure largely here, as in every art, but even natural facility is
dependent on the very same laws of preparation that hold good for the man of
supposedly small native endowment. Let this encourage you if, like Moses, you
are prone to complain that you are not a ready speaker.
Have you ever stopped to analyze that expression, "a ready speaker?" Readiness,
in its prime sense, is preparedness, and they are most ready who are best
prepared. Quick firing depends more on the alert finger than on the hair
trigger. Your fluency will be in direct ratio to two important conditions: your
knowledge of what you are going to say, and your being accustomed to telling
what you know to an audience. This gives us the second great element of
fluency—to preparation must be added the ease that arises from practise; of
which more presently.
Knowledge is Essential
Mr. Bryan is a most fluent speaker when he speaks on political problems,
tendencies of the time, and questions of morals. It is to be supposed, however,
that he would not be so fluent in speaking on the bird life of the Florida
Everglades. Mr. John Burroughs might be at his best on this last subject, yet
entirely lost in talking about international law. Do not expect to speak
fluently on a subject that you know little or nothing about. Ctesiphon boasted
that he could speak all day (a sin in itself) on any subject that an audience
would suggest. He was banished by the Spartans.
But preparation goes beyond the getting of the facts in the case you are to
present: it includes also the ability to think and arrange your thoughts, a full
and precise vocabulary, an easy manner of speech and breathing, absence of
self-consciousness, and the several other characteristics of efficient delivery
that have deserved special attention in other parts of this book rather than in
this chapter.
Preparation may be either general or specific; usually it should be both. A
life-time of reading, of companionship with stirring thoughts, of wrestling with
the problems of life—this constitutes a general preparation of inestimable
worth. Out of a well-stored mind, and—richer still—a broad experience, and—best
of all—a warmly sympathetic heart, the speaker will have to draw much material
that no immediate study could provide. General preparation consists of all that
a man has put into himself, all that heredity and environment have instilled
into him, and—that other rich source of preparedness for speech—the friendship
of wise companions. When Schiller returned home after a visit with Goethe a
friend remarked: "I am amazed by the progress Schiller can make within a single
fortnight." It was the progressive influence of a new friendship. Proper
friendships form one of the best means for the formation of ideas and ideals,
for they enable one to practise in giving expression to thought. The speaker who
would speak fluently before an audience should learn to speak fluently and
entertainingly with a friend. Clarify your ideas by putting them in words; the
talker gains as much from his conversation as the listener. You sometimes begin
to converse on a subject thinking you have very little to say, but one idea
gives birth to another, and you are surprised to learn that the more you give
the more you have to give. This give-and-take of friendly conversation develops
mentality, and fluency in expression. Longfellow said: "A single conversation
across the table with a wise man is better than ten years' study of books," and
Holmes whimsically yet none the less truthfully declared that half the time he
talked to find out what he thought. But that method must not be applied on the
platform!
After all this enrichment of life by storage, must come the special
preparation for the particular speech. This is of so definite a sort that it
warrants separate chapter-treatment later.
Practise
But preparation must also be of another sort than the gathering, organizing, and
shaping of materials—it must include practise, which, like mental preparation,
must be both general and special.
Do not feel surprised or discouraged if practise on the principles of delivery
herein laid down seems to retard your fluency. For a time, this will be
inevitable. While you are working for proper inflection, for instance,
inflection will be demanding your first thoughts, and the flow of your speech,
for the time being, will be secondary. This warning, however, is strictly for
the closet, for your practise at home. Do not carry any thoughts of inflection
with you to the platform. There you must think only of your subject. There is an
absolute telepathy between the audience and the speaker. If your thought goes to
your gesture, their thought will too. If your interest goes to the quality of
your voice, they will be regarding that instead of what your voice is uttering.
You have doubtless been adjured to "forget everything but your subject." This
advice says either too much or too little. The truth is that while on the
platform you must not forget a great many things that are not in your subject,
but you must not think of them. Your attention must consciously go only to your
message, but subconsciously you will be attending to the points of technique
which have become more or less habitual by practise.
A nice balance between these two kinds of attention is important.
You can no more escape this law than you can live without air: Your platform
gestures, your voice, your inflection, will all be just as good as your habit of
gesture, voice, and inflection makes them—no better. Even the thought of whether
you are speaking fluently or not will have the effect of marring your flow of
speech.
Return to the opening chapter, on self-confidence, and again lay its precepts to
heart. Learn by rules to speak without thinking of rules. It is not—or ought not
to be—necessary for you to stop to think how to say the alphabet correctly, as a
matter of fact it is slightly more difficult for you to repeat Z, Y, X than it
is to say X, Y, Z—habit has established the order. Just so you must master the
laws of efficiency in speaking until it is a second nature for you to speak
correctly rather than otherwise. A beginner at the piano has a great deal of
trouble with the mechanics of playing, but as time goes on his fingers become
trained and almost instinctively wander over the keys correctly. As an
inexperienced speaker you will find a great deal of difficulty at first in
putting principles into practise, for you will be scared, like the young
swimmer, and make some crude strokes, but if you persevere you will "win out."
Thus, to sum up, the vocabulary you have enlarged by study,[4] the ease in
speaking you have developed by practise, the economy of your well-studied
emphasis all will subconsciously come to your aid on the platform. Then the
habits you have formed will be earning you a splendid dividend. The fluency of
your speech will be at the speed of flow your practise has made habitual.
But this means work. What good habit does not? No philosopher's stone that will
act as a substitute for laborious practise has ever been found. If it were, it
would be thrown away, because it would kill our greatest joy—the delight of
acquisition. If public-speaking means to you a fuller life, you will know no
greater happiness than a well-spoken speech. The time you have spent in
gathering ideas and in private practise of speaking you will find amply
rewarded.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. What advantages has the fluent speaker over the hesitating talker?
2. What influences, within and without the man himself, work against fluency?
3. Select from the daily paper some topic for an address and make a three-minute
address on it. Do your words come freely and your sentences flow out
rhythmically? Practise on the same topic until they do.
4. Select some subject with which you are familiar and test your fluency by
speaking extemporaneously.
5. Take one of the sentiments given below and, following the advice given on
pages 118-119, construct a short speech beginning with the last word in the
sentence.
Machinery has created a new economic world.
The Socialist Party is a strenuous worker for peace.
He was a crushed and broken man when he left prison.
War must ultimately give way to world-wide arbitration.
The labor unions demand a more equal distribution of the wealth that labor
creates.
6. Put the sentiments of Mr. Bryan's "Prince of Peace," on page 448, into your
own words. Honestly criticise your own effort.
7. Take any of the following quotations and make a five-minute speech on it
without pausing to prepare. The first efforts may be very lame, but if you want
speed on a typewriter, a record for a hundred-yard dash, or facility in
speaking, you must practise, practise, PRACTISE.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
—Tennyson, In Memoriam.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
—Tennyson, Lady Clara Vere de Vere.
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
—Campbell, Pleasures of Hope.
His best companions, innocence and health,
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
—Goldsmith, The Deserted Village.
Beware of desperate steps! The darkest day,
Live till tomorrow, will have passed away.
—Cowper, Needless Alarm.
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
—Paine, Rights of Man.
Trade it may help, society extend,
But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend:
It raises armies in a nation's aid,
But bribes a senate, and the land's betray'd.
—Pope, Moral Essays.[5]
O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal
away their brains!
—Shakespeare, Othello.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
—Henley, Invictus.
The world is so full of a number of things,
I am sure we should all be happy as kings.
—Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses.
If your morals are dreary, depend upon it they are wrong.
—Stevenson, Essays.
Every advantage has its tax. I learn to be content.
—Emerson, Essays.
8. Make a two-minute speech on any of the following general subjects, but you
will find that your ideas will come more readily if you narrow your subject by
taking some specific phase of it. For instance, instead of trying to speak on
"Law" in general, take the proposition, "The Poor Man Cannot Afford to
Prosecute;" or instead of dwelling on "Leisure," show how modern speed is
creating more leisure. In this way you may expand this subject list
indefinitely.
GENERAL THEMES
Law.
Politics.
Woman's Suffrage.
Initiative and Referendum.
A Larger Navy.
War.
Peace.
Foreign Immigration.
The Liquor Traffic.
Labor Unions.
Strikes.
Socialism.
Single Tax.
Tariff.
Honesty.
Courage.
Hope.
Love.
Mercy.
Kindness.
Justice.
Progress.
Machinery.
Invention.
Wealth.
Poverty.
Agriculture.
Science.
Surgery.
Haste.
Leisure.
Happiness.
Health.
Business.
America.
The Far East.
Mobs.
Colleges.
Sports.
Matrimony.
Divorce.
Child Labor.
Education.
Books.
The Theater.
Literature.
Electricity.
Achievement.
Failure.
Public Speaking.
Ideals.
Conversation.
The Most Dramatic Moment of My Life.
My Happiest Days.
Things Worth While.
What I Hope to Achieve.
My Greatest Desire.
What I Would Do with a Million Dollars.
Is Mankind Progressing?
Our Greatest Need.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] See chapter on "Increasing the Vocabulary."
[5] Money.
CHAPTER XII
THE VOICE
Oh, there is something in that voice that reaches
The innermost recesses of my spirit!
—Longfellow, Christus.
The dramatic critic of The London Times once declared that acting is nine-tenths
voice work. Leaving the message aside, the same may justly be said of public
speaking. A rich, correctly-used voice is the greatest physical factor of
persuasiveness and power, often over-topping the effects of reason.
But a good voice, well handled, is not only an effective possession for the
professional speaker, it is a mark of personal culture as well, and even a
distinct commercial asset. Gladstone, himself the possessor of a deep, musical
voice, has said: "Ninety men in every hundred in the crowded professions will
probably never rise above mediocrity because the training of the voice is
entirely neglected and considered of no importance." These are words worth
pondering.
There are three fundamental requisites for a good voice:
1. Ease
Signor Bonci of the Metropolitan Opera Company says that the secret of good
voice is relaxation; and this is true, for relaxation is the basis of ease. The
air waves that produce voice result in a different kind of tone when striking
against relaxed muscles than when striking constricted muscles. Try this for
yourself. Contract the muscles of your face and throat as you do in hate, and
flame out "I hate you!" Now relax as you do when thinking gentle, tender
thoughts, and say, "I love you." How different the voice sounds.
In practising voice exercises, and in speaking, never force your tones. Ease
must be your watchword. The voice is a delicate instrument, and you must not
handle it with hammer and tongs. Don't make your voice go—let it go. Don't work.
Let the yoke of speech be easy and its burden light.
Your throat should be free from strain during speech, therefore it is necessary
to avoid muscular contraction. The throat must act as a sort of chimney or
funnel for the voice, hence any unnatural constriction will not only harm its
tones but injure its health.
Nervousness and mental strain are common sources of mouth and throat
constriction, so make the battle for poise and self-confidence for which we
pleaded in the opening chapter.
But how can I relax? you ask. By simply willing to relax. Hold your arm out
straight from your shoulder. Now—withdraw all power and let it fall. Practise
relaxation of the muscles of the throat by letting your neck and head fall
forward. Roll the upper part of your body around, with the waist line acting as
a pivot. Let your head fall and roll around as you shift the torso to different
positions. Do not force your head around—simply relax your neck and let gravity
pull it around as your body moves.
Again, let your head fall forward on your breast; raise your head, letting
your jaw hang. Relax until your jaw feels heavy, as though it were a weight hung
to your face. Remember, you must relax the jaw to obtain command of it. It must
be free and flexible for the moulding of tone, and to let the tone pass out
unobstructed.
The lips also must be made flexible, to aid in the moulding of clear and
beautiful tones. For flexibility of lips repeat the syllables, mo—me. In saying
mo, bring the lips up to resemble the shape of the letter O. In repeating me
draw them back as you do in a grin. Repeat this exercise rapidly, giving the
lips as much exercise as possible.
Try the following exercise in the same manner:
Mo—E—O—E—OO—Ah.
After this exercise has been mastered, the following will also be found
excellent for flexibility of lips:
Memorize these sounds indicated (not the expressions) so that you can repeat
them rapidly.
A
as in
May.
E
as in
Met.
U
as in
Use.
A
"
Ah.
I
"
Ice.
Oi
"
Oil.
A
"
At.
I
"
It.
u
"
Our.
O
"
No.
O
"
No.
O
"
Ooze.
A
"
All.
OO
"
Foot.
A
"
Ah.
E
"
Eat.
OO
"
Ooze.
E
"
Eat.
All the activity of breathing must be centered, not in the throat, but in the
middle of the body—you must breathe from the diaphragm. Note the way you breathe
when lying flat on the back, undressed in bed. You will observe that all the
activity then centers around the diaphragm. This is the natural and correct
method of breathing. By constant watchfulness make this your habitual manner,
for it will enable you to relax more perfectly the muscles of the throat.
The next fundamental requisite for good voice is
2. Openness
If the muscles of the throat are constricted, the tone passage partially closed,
and the mouth kept half-shut, how can you expect the tone to come out bright and
clear, or even to come out at all? Sound is a series of waves, and if you make a
prison of your mouth, holding the jaws and lips rigidly, it will be very
difficult for the tone to squeeze through, and even when it does escape it will
lack force and carrying power. Open your mouth wide, relax all the organs of
speech, and let the tone flow out easily.
Start to yawn, but instead of yawning, speak while your throat is open. Make
this open-feeling habitual when speaking—we say make because it is a matter of
resolution and of practise, if your vocal organs are healthy. Your tone passages
may be partly closed by enlarged tonsils, adenoids, or enlarged turbinate bones
of the nose. If so, a skilled physician should be consulted.
The nose is an important tone passage and should be kept open and free for
perfect tones. What we call "talking through the nose" is not talking through
the nose, as you can easily demonstrate by holding your nose as you talk. If you
are bothered with nasal tones caused by growths or swellings in the nasal
passages, a slight, painless operation will remove the obstruction. This is
quite important, aside from voice, for the general health will be much lowered
if the lungs are continually starved for air.
The final fundamental requisite for good voice is
3. Forwardness
A voice that is pitched back in the throat is dark, sombre, and unattractive.
The tone must be pitched forward, but do not force it forward. You will recall
that our first principle was ease. Think the tone forward and out. Believe it is
going forward, and allow it to flow easily. You can tell whether you are placing
your tone forward or not by inhaling a deep breath and singing ah with the mouth
wide open, trying to feel the little delicate sound waves strike the bony arch
of the mouth just above the front teeth. The sensation is so slight that you
will probably not be able to detect it at once, but persevere in your practise,
always thinking the tone forward, and you will be rewarded by feeling your voice
strike the roof of your mouth. A correct forward-placing of the tone will do
away with the dark, throaty tones that are so unpleasant, inefficient, and
harmful to the throat.
Close the lips, humming ng, im, or an. Think the tone forward. Do you feel it
strike the lips?
Hold the palm of your hand in front of your face and say vigorously crash, dash,
whirl, buzz. Can you feel the forward tones strike against your hand? Practise
until you can. Remember, the only way to get your voice forward is to put it
forward.
How to Develop the Carrying Power of the Voice
It is not necessary to speak loudly in order to be heard at a distance. It is
necessary only to speak correctly. Edith Wynne Matthison's voice will carry in a
whisper throughout a large theater. A paper rustling on the stage of a large
auditorium can be heard distinctly in the furthermost seat in the gallery. If
you will only use your voice correctly, you will not have much difficulty in
being heard. Of course it is always well to address your speech to your furthest
auditors; if they get it, those nearer will have no trouble, but aside from this
obvious suggestion, you must observe these laws of voice production:
Remember to apply the principles of ease, openness and forwardness—they are the
prime factors in enabling your voice to be heard at a distance.
Do not gaze at the floor as you talk. This habit not only gives the speaker an
amateurish appearance but if the head is hung forward the voice will be directed
towards the ground instead of floating out over the audience.
Voice is a series of air vibrations. To strengthen it two things are necessary:
more air or breath, and more vibration.
Breath is the very basis of voice. As a bullet with little powder behind it will
not have force and carrying power, so the voice that has little breath behind it
will be weak. Not only will deep breathing—breathing from the diaphragm—give the
voice a better support, but it will give it a stronger resonance by improving
the general health.
Usually, ill health means a weak voice, while abundant physical vitality is
shown through a strong, vibrant voice. Therefore anything that improves the
general vitality is an excellent voice strengthener, provided you use the voice
properly. Authorities differ on most of the rules of hygiene but on one point
they all agree: vitality and longevity are increased by deep breathing. Practise
this until it becomes second nature. Whenever you are speaking, take in deep
breaths, but in such a manner that the inhalations will be silent.
Do not try to speak too long without renewing your breath. Nature cares for this
pretty well unconsciously in conversation, and she will do the same for you in
platform speaking if you do not interfere with her premonitions.
A certain very successful speaker developed voice carrying power by running
across country, practising his speeches as he went. The vigorous exercise forced
him to take deep breaths, and developed lung power. A hard-fought basketball or
tennis game is an efficient way of practising deep breathing. When these methods
are not convenient, we recommend the following:
Place your hands at your sides, on the waist line.
By trying to encompass your waist with your fingers and thumbs, force all the
air out of the lungs.
Take a deep breath. Remember, all the activity is to be centered in the middle
of the body; do not raise the shoulders. As the breath is taken your hands will
be forced out.
Repeat the exercise, placing your hands on the small of the back and forcing
them out as you inhale.
Many methods for deep breathing have been given by various authorities. Get the
air into your lungs—that is the important thing.
The body acts as a sounding board for the voice just as the body of the violin
acts as a sounding board for its tones. You can increase its vibrations by
practise.
Place your finger on your lip and hum the musical scale, thinking and placing
the voice forward on the lips. Do you feel the lips vibrate? After a little
practise they will vibrate, giving a tickling sensation.
Repeat this exercise, throwing the humming sound into the nose. Hold the upper
part of the nose between the thumb and forefinger. Can you feel the nose
vibrate?
Placing the palm of your hand on top of your head, repeat this humming exercise.
Think the voice there as you hum in head tones. Can you feel the vibration
there?
Now place the palm of your hand on the back of your head, repeating the
foregoing process. Then try it on the chest. Always remember to think your tone
where you desire to feel the vibrations. The mere act of thinking about any
portion of your body will tend to make it vibrate.
Repeat the following, after a deep inhalation, endeavoring to feel all portions
of your body vibrate at the same time. When you have attained this you will find
that it is a pleasant sensation.
What ho, my jovial mates. Come on! We will frolic it like fairies, frisking in
the merry moonshine.
Purity of Voice
This quality is sometimes destroyed by wasting the breath. Carefully control the
breath, using only as much as is necessary for the production of tone. Utilize
all that you give out. Failure to do this results in a breathy tone. Take in
breath like a prodigal; in speaking, give it out like a miser.
Voice Suggestions
Never attempt to force your voice when hoarse.
Do not drink cold water when speaking. The sudden shock to the heated organs of
speech will injure the voice.
Avoid pitching your voice too high—it will make it raspy. This is a common
fault. When you find your voice in too high a range, lower it. Do not wait until
you get to the platform to try this. Practise it in your daily conversation.
Repeat the alphabet, beginning A on the lowest scale possible and going up a
note on each succeeding letter, for the development of range. A wide range will
give you facility in making numerous changes of pitch.
Do not form the habit of listening to your voice when speaking. You will need
your brain to think of what you are saying—reserve your observation for private
practise.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. What are the prime requisites for good voice?
2. Tell why each one is necessary for good voice production.
3. Give some exercises for development of these conditions.
4. Why is range of voice desirable?
5. Tell how range of voice may be cultivated.
6. How much daily practise do you consider necessary for the proper development
of your voice?
7. How can resonance and carrying power be developed?
8. What are your voice faults?
9. How are you trying to correct them?
CHAPTER XIII
VOICE CHARM
A cheerful temper joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge
delightful, and wit good-natured.
—Joseph Addison, The Tattler.
Poe said that "the tone of beauty is sadness," but he was evidently thinking
from cause to effect, not contrariwise, for sadness is rarely a producer of
beauty—that is peculiarly the province of joy.
The exquisite beauty of a sunset is not exhilarating but tends to a sort of
melancholy that is not far from delight The haunting beauty of deep, quiet music
holds more than a tinge of sadness. The lovely minor cadences of bird song at
twilight are almost depressing.
The reason we are affected to sadness by certain forms of placid beauty is
twofold: movement is stimulating and joy-producing, while quietude leads to
reflection, and reflection in turn often brings out the tone of regretful
longing for that which is past; secondly, quiet beauty produces a vague
aspiration for the relatively unattainable, yet does not stimulate to the
tremendous effort necessary to make the dimly desired state or object ours.
We must distinguish, for these reasons, between the sadness of beauty and the
joy of beauty. True, joy is a deep, inner thing and takes in much more than the
idea of bounding, sanguine spirits, for it includes a certain active
contentedness of heart. In this chapter, however the word will have its
optimistic, exuberant connotation—we are thinking now of vivid, bright-eyed,
laughing joy.
Musical, joyous tones constitute voice charm, a subtle magnetism that is
delightfully contagious. Now it might seem to the desultory reader that to take
the lancet and cut into this alluring voice quality would be to dissect a
butterfly wing and so destroy its charm. Yet how can we induce an effect if we
are not certain as to the cause?
Nasal Resonance Produces the Bell-tones of the Voice
The tone passages of the nose must be kept entirely free for the bright tones of
voice—and after our warning in the preceding chapter you will not confuse what
is popularly and erroneously called a "nasal" tone with the true nasal quality,
which is so well illustrated by the voice work of trained French singers and
speakers.
To develop nasal resonance sing the following, dwelling as long as possible on
the ng sounds. Pitch the voice in the nasal cavity. Practise both in high and
low registers, and develop range—with brightness.
Sing-song. Ding-dong. Hong-kong. Long-thong.
Practise in the falsetto voice develops a bright quality in the normal
speaking-voice. Try the following, and any other selections you choose, in a
falsetto voice. A man's falsetto voice is extremely high and womanish, so men
should not practise in falsetto after the exercise becomes tiresome.
She perfectly scorned the best of his clan, and declared the ninth of any man, a
perfectly vulgar fraction.
The actress Mary Anderson asked the poet Longfellow what she could do to
improve her voice. He replied, "Read aloud daily, joyous, lyric poetry."
The joyous tones are the bright tones. Develop them by exercise. Practise your
voice exercises in an attitude of joy. Under the influence of pleasure the body
expands, the tone passages open, the action of heart and lungs is accelerated,
and all the primary conditions for good tone are established.
More songs float out from the broken windows of the negro cabins in the South
than from the palatial homes on Fifth Avenue. Henry Ward Beecher said the
happiest days of his life were not when he had become an international
character, but when he was an unknown minister out in Lawrenceville, Ohio,
sweeping his own church, and working as a carpenter to help pay the grocer.
Happiness is largely an attitude of mind, of viewing life from the right angle.
The optimistic attitude can be cultivated, and it will express itself in voice
charm. A telephone company recently placarded this motto in their booths: "The
Voice with the Smile Wins." It does. Try it.
Reading joyous prose, or lyric poetry, will help put smile and joy of soul into
your voice. The following selections are excellent for practise.
REMEMBER that when you first practise these classics you are to give sole
attention to two things: a joyous attitude of heart and body, and bright tones
of voice. After these ends have been attained to your satisfaction, carefully
review the principles of public speaking laid down in the preceding chapters and
put them into practise as you read these passages again and again. It would be
better to commit each selection to memory.
SELECTIONS FOR PRACTISE
FROM MILTON'S "L'ALLEGRO"
Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles,
Nods and Becks, and wreathèd Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek,—
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as ye go
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty:
And, if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprovèd pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing, startle the dull Night
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled Dawn doth rise;
Then to come in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow
Through the sweetbrier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before;
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering Morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill;
Sometime walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great Sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight,
While the plowman near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
And the milkmaid singing blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale,
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
THE SEA
The sea, the sea, the open sea,
The blue, the fresh, the fever free;
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies,
Or like a cradled creature lies.
I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea,
I am where I would ever be,
With the blue above and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go.
If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
I love, oh! how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
Where every mad wave drowns the moon,
And whistles aloft its tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the southwest wind doth blow!
I never was on the dull, tame shore
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh her mother's nest,—
And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born on the open sea.
The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
The whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild,
As welcomed to life the ocean child.
I have lived, since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a rover's life,
With wealth to spend, and a power to range,
But never have sought or sighed for change:
And death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wide, unbounded sea!
—Barry Cornwall.
The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's
joy. The lonely pine upon the mountain-top waves its sombre boughs, and cries,
"Thou art my sun." And the little meadow violet lifts its cup of blue, and
whispers with its perfumed breath, "Thou art my sun." And the grain in a
thousand fields rustles in the wind, and makes answer, "Thou art my sun." And so
God sits effulgent in Heaven, not for a favored few, but for the universe of
life; and there is no creature so poor or so low that he may not look up with
child-like confidence and say, "My Father! Thou art mine."—Henry Ward Beecher.
THE LARK
Bird of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place:
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
Wild is thy lay, and loud,
Far in the downy cloud,—
Love gives it energy; love gave it birth.
Where, on thy dewy wing
Where art thou journeying?
Thy lay is in heaven; thy love is on earth.
O'er fell and fountain sheen,
O'er moor and mountain green,
O'er the red streamer that heralds the day;
Over the cloudlet dim,
Over the rainbow's rim,
Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!
Then, when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms,
Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place.
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
—James Hogg.
In joyous conversation there is an elastic touch, a delicate stroke, upon the
central ideas, generally following a pause. This elastic touch adds vivacity to
the voice. If you try repeatedly, it can be sensed by feeling the tongue strike
the teeth. The entire absence of elastic touch in the voice can be observed in
the thick tongue of the intoxicated man. Try to talk with the tongue lying still
in the bottom of the mouth, and you will obtain largely the same effect.
Vivacity of utterance is gained by using the tongue to strike off the emphatic
idea with a decisive, elastic touch.
Deliver the following with decisive strokes on the emphatic ideas. Deliver it in
a vivacious manner, noting the elastic touch-action of the tongue. A flexible,
responsive tongue is absolutely essential to good voice work.
FROM NAPOLEON'S ADDRESS TO THE DIRECTORY ON HIS RETURN FROM EGYPT
What have you done with that brilliant France which I left you? I left you at
peace, and I find you at war. I left you victorious and I find you defeated. I
left you the millions of Italy, and I find only spoliation and poverty. What
have you done with the hundred thousand Frenchmen, my companions in glory? They
are dead!... This state of affairs cannot last long; in less than three years it
would plunge us into despotism.
Practise the following selection, for the development of elastic touch; say it
in a joyous spirit, using the exercise to develop voice charm in all the ways
suggested in this chapter.
THE BROOK
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges;
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret,
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel,
With many a silvery water-break
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers,
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows,
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses,
I linger by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
—Alfred Tennyson.
The children at play on the street, glad from sheer physical vitality, display a
resonance and charm in their voices quite different from the voices that float
through the silent halls of the hospitals. A skilled physician can tell much
about his patient's condition from the mere sound of the voice. Failing health,
or even physical weariness, tells through the voice. It is always well to rest
and be entirely refreshed before attempting to deliver a public address. As to
health, neither scope nor space permits us to discuss here the laws of hygiene.
There are many excellent books on this subject. In the reign of the Roman
emperor Tiberius, one senator wrote to another: "To the wise, a word is
sufficient."
"The apparel oft proclaims the man;" the voice always does—it is one of the
greatest revealers of character. The superficial woman, the brutish man, the
reprobate, the person of culture, often discloses inner nature in the voice, for
even the cleverest dissembler cannot entirely prevent its tones and qualities
being affected by the slightest change of thought or emotion. In anger it
becomes high, harsh, and unpleasant; in love low, soft, and melodious—the
variations are as limitless as they are fascinating to observe. Visit a
theatrical hotel in a large city, and listen to the buzz-saw voices of the
chorus girls from some burlesque "attraction." The explanation is
simple—buzz-saw lives. Emerson said: "When a man lives with God his voice shall
be as sweet as the murmur of the brook or the rustle of the corn." It is
impossible to think selfish thoughts and have either an attractive personality,
a lovely character, or a charming voice. If you want to possess voice charm,
cultivate a deep, sincere sympathy for mankind. Love will shine out through your
eyes and proclaim itself in your tones. One secret of the sweetness of the
canary's song may be his freedom from tainted thoughts. Your character
beautifies or mars your voice. As a man thinketh in his heart so is his voice.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Define (a) charm; (b) joy; (c) beauty.
2. Make a list of all the words related to joy.
3. Write a three-minute eulogy of "The Joyful Man."
4. Deliver it without the use of notes. Have you carefully considered all the
qualities that go to make up voice-charm in its delivery?
5. Tell briefly in your own words what means may be employed to develop a
charming voice.
6. Discuss the effect of voice on character.
7. Discuss the effect of character on voice.
8. Analyze the voice charm of any speaker or singer you choose.
9. Analyze the defects of any given voice.
10. Make a short humorous speech imitating certain voice defects, pointing out
reasons.
11. Commit the following stanza and interpret each phase of delight suggested
or expressed by the poet.
An infant when it gazes on a light,
A child the moment when it drains the breast,
A devotee when soars the Host in sight,
An Arab with a stranger for a guest,
A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,
A miser filling his most hoarded chest,
Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping
As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping.
—Byron, Don Juan.
CHAPTER XIV
DISTINCTNESS AND PRECISION OF UTTERANCE
In man speaks God.
—Hesiod, Words and Days.
And endless are the modes of speech, and far
Extends from side to side the field of words.
—Homer, Iliad.
In popular usage the terms "pronunciation," "enunciation," and "articulation"
are synonymous, but real pronunciation includes three distinct processes, and
may therefore be defined as, the utterance of a syllable or a group of syllables
with regard to articulation, accentuation, and enunciation.
Distinct and precise utterance is one of the most important considerations of
public speech. How preposterous it is to hear a speaker making sounds of
"inarticulate earnestness" under the contented delusion that he is telling
something to his audience! Telling? Telling means communicating, and how can he
actually communicate without making every word distinct?
Slovenly pronunciation results from either physical deformity or habit. A
surgeon or a surgeon dentist may correct a deformity, but your own will, working
by self-observation and resolution in drill, will break a habit. All depends
upon whether you think it worth while.
Defective speech is so widespread that freedom from it is the exception. It is
painfully common to hear public speakers mutilate the king's English. If they do
not actually murder it, as Curran once said, they often knock an i out.
A Canadian clergyman, writing in the Homiletic Review, relates that in his
student days "a classmate who was an Englishman supplied a country church for a
Sunday. On the following Monday he conducted a missionary meeting. In the course
of his address he said some farmers thought they were doing their duty toward
missions when they gave their 'hodds and hends' to the work, but the Lord
required more. At the close of the meeting a young woman seriously said to a
friend: 'I am sure the farmers do well if they give their hogs and hens to
missions. It is more than most people can afford.'"
It is insufferable effrontery for any man to appear before an audience who
persists in driving the h out of happiness, home and heaven, and, to paraphrase
Waldo Messaros, will not let it rest in hell. He who does not show enough
self-knowledge to see in himself such glaring faults, nor enough self-mastery to
correct them, has no business to instruct others. If he can do no better, he
should be silent. If he will do no better, he should also be silent.
Barring incurable physical defects—and few are incurable nowadays—the whole
matter is one of will. The catalogue of those who have done the impossible by
faithful work is as inspiring as a roll-call of warriors. "The less there is of
you," says Nathan Sheppard, "the more need for you to make the most of what
there is of you."
Articulation
Articulation is the forming and joining of the elementary sounds of speech. It
seems an appalling task to utter articulately the third-of-a million words that
go to make up our English vocabulary, but the way to make a beginning is really
simple: learn to utter correctly, and with easy change from one to the other,
each of the forty-four elementary sounds in our language.
The reasons why articulation is so painfully slurred by a great many public
speakers are four: ignorance of the elemental sounds; failure to discriminate
between sounds nearly alike; a slovenly, lazy use of the vocal organs; and a
torpid will. Anyone who is still master of himself will know how to handle each
of these defects.
The vowel sounds are the most vexing source of errors, especially where
diphthongs are found. Who has not heard such errors as are hit off in this
inimitable verse by Oliver Wendell Holmes:
Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope
The careless lips that speak of sŏap for sōap;
Her edict exiles from her fair abode
The clownish voice that utters rŏad for rōad;
Less stern to him who calls his cōat, a cŏat
And steers his bōat believing it a bŏat.
She pardoned one, our classic city's boast.
Who said at Cambridge, mŏst instead of mōst,
But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot
To hear a Teacher call a rōōt a rŏŏt.
The foregoing examples are all monosyllables, but bad articulation is
frequently the result of joining sounds that do not belong together. For
example, no one finds it difficult to say beauty, but many persist in
pronouncing duty as though it were spelled either dooty or juty. It is not only
from untaught speakers that we hear such slovenly articulations as colyum for
column, and pritty for pretty, but even great orators occasionally offend quite
as unblushingly as less noted mortals.
Nearly all such are errors of carelessness, not of pure ignorance—of
carelessness because the ear never tries to hear what the lips articulate. It
must be exasperating to a foreigner to find that the elemental sound ou gives
him no hint for the pronunciation of bough, cough, rough, thorough, and through,
and we can well forgive even a man of culture who occasionally loses his way
amidst the intricacies of English articulation, but there can be no excuse for
the slovenly utterance of the simple vowel sounds which form at once the life
and the beauty of our language. He who is too lazy to speak distinctly should
hold his tongue.
The consonant sounds occasion serious trouble only for those who do not look
with care at the spelling of words about to be pronounced. Nothing but
carelessness can account for saying Jacop, Babtist, sevem, alwus, or sadisfy.
"He that hath yaws to yaw, let him yaw," is the rendering which an Anglophobiac
clergyman gave of the familiar scripture, "He that hath ears to hear, let him
hear." After hearing the name of Sir Humphry Davy pronounced, a Frenchman who
wished to write to the eminent Englishman thus addressed the letter: "Serum
Fridavi."
Accentuation
Accentuation is the stressing of the proper syllables in words. This it is that
is popularly called pronunciation. For instance, we properly say that a word is
mispronounced when it is accented in'-viteinstead of in-vite', though it is
really an offense against only one form of pronunciation—accentuation.
It is the work of a lifetime to learn the accents of a large vocabulary and to
keep pace with changing usage; but an alert ear, the study of word-origins, and
the dictionary habit, will prove to be mighty helpers in a task that can never
be finally completed.
Enunciation
Correct enunciation is the complete utterance of all the sounds of a syllable or
a word. Wrong articulation gives the wrong sound to the vowel or vowels of a
word or a syllable, as doo for dew; or unites two sounds improperly, as hully
for wholly. Wrong enunciation is the incomplete utterance of a syllable or a
word, the sound omitted or added being usually consonantal. To say needcessity
instead of necessity is a wrong articulation; to say doin for doing is improper
enunciation. The one articulates—that is, joints—two sounds that should not be
joined, and thus gives the word a positively wrong sound; the other fails to
touch all the sounds in the word, and in that particular way also sounds the
word incorrectly.
"My tex' may be foun' in the fif' and six' verses of the secon' chapter of
Titus; and the subjec' of my discourse is 'The Gover'ment of ar Homes.'"[6]
What did this preacher do with his final consonants? This slovenly dropping of
essential sounds is as offensive as the common habit of running words together
so that they lose their individuality and distinctness. Lighten dark, uppen
down, doncher know, partic'lar, zamination, are all too common to need comment.
Imperfect enunciation is due to lack of attention and to lazy lips. It can be
corrected by resolutely attending to the formation of syllables as they are
uttered. Flexible lips will enunciate difficult combinations of sounds without
slighting any of them, but such flexibility cannot be attained except by
habitually uttering words with distinctness and accuracy. A daily exercise in
enunciating a series of sounds will in a short time give flexibility to the lips
and alertness to the mind, so that no word will be uttered without receiving its
due complement of sound.
Returning to our definition, we see that when the sounds of a word are properly
articulated, the right syllables accented, and full value given to each sound in
its enunciation, we have correct pronunciation. Perhaps one word of caution is
needed here, lest any one, anxious to bring out clearly every sound, should
overdo the matter and neglect the unity and smoothness of pronunciation. Be
careful not to bring syllables into so much prominence as to make words seem
long and angular. The joints must be kept decently dressed.
Before delivery, do not fail to go over your manuscript and note every sound
that may possibly be mispronounced. Consult the dictionary and make assurance
doubly sure. If the arrangement of words is unfavorable to clear enunciation,
change either words or order and do not rest until you can follow Hamlet's
directions to the players.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Practise repeating the following rapidly, paying particular attention to the
consonants.
"Foolish Flavius, flushing feverishly, fiercely found fault with Flora's
frivolity.[7]"
Mary's matchless mimicry makes much mischief.
Seated on shining shale she sells sea shells.
You youngsters yielded your youthful yule-tide yearnings yesterday.
2. Sound the l in each of the following words, repeated in sequence:
Blue black blinkers blocked Black Blondin's eyes.
3. Do you say a bloo sky or a blue sky?
4. Compare the u sound in few and in new. Say each aloud, and decide which is
correct, Noo York, New Yawk, or New York?
5. Pay careful heed to the directions of this chapter in reading the following,
from Hamlet. After the interview with the ghost of his father, Hamlet tells his
friends Horatio and Marcellus that he intends to act a part:
Horatio. O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
Hamlet. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
But come;
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd so'er I bear myself,—
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on,—
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As "Well, well, we know," or "We could, an if we would,"
Or "If we list to speak," or "There be, an if there might,"
Or such ambiguous giving-out, to note
That you know aught of me: this not to do,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
Swear.
—Act I. Scene V.
6. Make a list of common errors of pronunciation, saying which are due to faulty
articulation, wrong accentuation, and incomplete enunciation. In each case make
the correction.
7. Criticise any speech you may have heard which displayed these faults.
8. Explain how the false shame of seeming to be too precise may hinder us from
cultivating perfect verbal utterance.
9. Over-precision is likewise a fault. To bring out any syllable unduly is to
caricature the word. Be moderate in reading the following:
THE LAST SPEECH OF MAXIMILIAN DE ROBESPIERRE
The enemies of the Republic call me tyrant! Were I such they would grovel at my
feet. I should gorge them with gold, I should grant them immunity for their
crimes, and they would be grateful. Were I such, the kings we have vanquished,
far from denouncing Robespierre, would lend me their guilty support; there would
be a covenant between them and me. Tyranny must have tools. But the enemies of
tyranny,—whither does their path tend? To the tomb, and to immortality! What
tyrant is my protector? To what faction do I belong? Yourselves! What faction,
since the beginning of the Revolution, has crushed and annihilated so many
detected traitors? You, the people,—our principles—are that faction—a faction to
which I am devoted, and against which all the scoundrelism of the day is banded!
The confirmation of the Republic has been my object; and I know that the
Republic can be established only on the eternal basis of morality. Against me,
and against those who hold kindred principles, the league is formed. My life?
Oh! my life I abandon without a regret! I have seen the past; and I foresee the
future. What friend of this country would wish to survive the moment when he
could no longer serve it,—when he could no longer defend innocence against
oppression? Wherefore should I continue in an order of things, where intrigue
eternally triumphs over truth; where justice is mocked; where passions the most
abject, or fears the most absurd, over-ride the sacred interests of humanity? In
witnessing the multitude of vices which the torrent of the Revolution has rolled
in turbid communion with its civic virtues, I confess that I have sometimes
feared that I should be sullied, in the eyes of posterity, by the impure
neighborhood of unprincipled men, who had thrust themselves into association
with the sincere friends of humanity; and I rejoice that these conspirators
against my country have now, by their reckless rage, traced deep the line of
demarcation between themselves and all true men.
Question history, and learn how all the defenders of liberty, in all times, have
been overwhelmed by calumny. But their traducers died also. The good and the bad
disappear alike from the earth; but in very different conditions. O Frenchmen! O
my countrymen! Let not your enemies, with their desolating doctrines, degrade
your souls, and enervate your virtues! No, Chaumette, no! Death is not "an
eternal sleep!" Citizens! efface from the tomb that motto, graven by
sacrilegious hands, which spreads over all nature a funereal crape, takes from
oppressed innocence its support, and affronts the beneficent dispensation of
death! Inscribe rather thereon these words: "Death is the commencement of
immortality!" I leave to the oppressors of the People a terrible testament,
which I proclaim with the independence befitting one whose career is so nearly
ended; it is the awful truth—"Thou shalt die!"
FOOTNOTES:
[6] School and College Speaker, Mitchell.
[7] School and College Speaker, Mitchell.
CHAPTER XV
THE TRUTH ABOUT GESTURE
When Whitefield acted an old blind man advancing by slow steps toward the edge
of the precipice, Lord Chesterfield started up and cried: "Good God, he is
gone!"—Nathan Sheppard, Before an Audience.
Gesture is really a simple matter that requires observation and common sense
rather than a book of rules. Gesture is an outward expression of an inward
condition. It is merely an effect—the effect of a mental or an emotional impulse
struggling for expression through physical avenues.
You must not, however, begin at the wrong end: if you are troubled by your
gestures, or a lack of gestures, attend to the cause, not the effect. It will
not in the least help matters to tack on to your delivery a few mechanical
movements. If the tree in your front yard is not growing to suit you, fertilize
and water the soil and let the tree have sunshine. Obviously it will not help
your tree to nail on a few branches. If your cistern is dry, wait until it
rains; or bore a well. Why plunge a pump into a dry hole?
The speaker whose thoughts and emotions are welling within him like a mountain
spring will not have much trouble to make gestures; it will be merely a question
of properly directing them. If his enthusiasm for his subject is not such as to
give him a natural impulse for dramatic action, it will avail nothing to furnish
him with a long list of rules. He may tack on some movements, but they will look
like the wilted branches nailed to a tree to simulate life. Gestures must be
born, not built. A wooden horse may amuse the children, but it takes a live one
to go somewhere.
It is not only impossible to lay down definite rules on this subject, but it
would be silly to try, for everything depends on the speech, the occasion, the
personality and feelings of the speaker, and the attitude of the audience. It is
easy enough to forecast the result of multiplying seven by six, but it is
impossible to tell any man what kind of gestures he will be impelled to use when
he wishes to show his earnestness. We may tell him that many speakers close the
hand, with the exception of the forefinger, and pointing that finger straight at
the audience pour out their thoughts like a volley; or that others stamp one
foot for emphasis; or that Mr. Bryan often slaps his hands together for great
force, holding one palm upward in an easy manner; or that Gladstone would
sometimes make a rush at the clerk's table in Parliament and smite it with his
hand so forcefully that D'israeli once brought down the house by grimly
congratulating himself that such a barrier stood between himself and "the
honorable gentleman."
All these things, and a bookful more, may we tell the speaker, but we cannot
know whether he can use these gestures or not, any more than we can decide
whether he could wear Mr. Bryan's clothes. The best that can be done on this
subject is to offer a few practical suggestions, and let personal good taste
decide as to where effective dramatic action ends and extravagant motion begins.
Any Gesture That Merely Calls Attention to Itself Is Bad
The purpose of a gesture is to carry your thought and feeling into the minds and
hearts of your hearers; this it does by emphasizing your message, by
interpreting it, by expressing it in action, by striking its tone in either a
physically descriptive, a suggestive, or a typical gesture—and let it be
remembered all the time that gesture includes all physical movement, from facial
expression and the tossing of the head to the expressive movements of hand and
foot. A shifting of the pose may be a most effective gesture.
What is true of gesture is true of all life. If the people on the street turn
around and watch your walk, your walk is more important than you are—change it.
If the attention of your audience is called to your gestures, they are not
convincing, because they appear to be—what they have a doubtful right to be in
reality—studied. Have you ever seen a speaker use such grotesque gesticulations
that you were fascinated by their frenzy of oddity, but could not follow his
thought? Do not smother ideas with gymnastics. Savonarola would rush down from
the high pulpit among the congregation in the duomo at Florence and carry the
fire of conviction to his hearers; Billy Sunday slides to base on the platform
carpet in dramatizing one of his baseball illustrations. Yet in both instances
the message has somehow stood out bigger than the gesture—it is chiefly in calm
afterthought that men have remembered the form of dramatic expression. When Sir
Henry Irving made his famous exit as "Shylock" the last thing the audience saw
was his pallid, avaricious hand extended skinny and claw-like against the
background. At the time, every one was overwhelmed by the tremendous typical
quality of this gesture; now, we have time to think of its art, and discuss its
realistic power.
Only when gesture is subordinated to the absorbing importance of the idea—a
spontaneous, living expression of living truth—is it justifiable at all; and
when it is remembered for itself—as a piece of unusual physical energy or as a
poem of grace—it is a dead failure as dramatic expression. There is a place for
a unique style of walking—it is the circus or the cake-walk; there is a place
for surprisingly rhythmical evolutions of arms and legs—it is on the dance floor
or the stage. Don't let your agility and grace put your thoughts out of
business.
One of the present writers took his first lessons in gesture from a certain
college president who knew far more about what had happened at the Diet of Worms
than he did about how to express himself in action. His instructions were to
start the movement on a certain word, continue it on a precise curve, and unfold
the fingers at the conclusion, ending with the forefinger—just so. Plenty, and
more than plenty, has been published on this subject, giving just such silly
directions. Gesture is a thing of mentality and feeling—not a matter of
geometry. Remember, whenever a pair of shoes, a method of pronunciation, or a
gesture calls attention to itself, it is bad. When you have made really good
gestures in a good speech your hearers will not go away saying, "What beautiful
gestures he made!" but they will say, "I'll vote for that measure." "He is
right—I believe in that."
Gestures Should Be Born of the Moment
The best actors and public speakers rarely know in advance what gestures they
are going to make. They make one gesture on certain words tonight, and none at
all tomorrow night at the same point—their various moods and interpretations
govern their gestures. It is all a matter of impulse and intelligent feeling
with them—don't overlook that word intelligent. Nature does not always provide
the same kind of sunsets or snow flakes, and the movements of a good speaker
vary almost as much as the creations of nature.
Now all this is not to say that you must not take some thought for your
gestures. If that were meant, why this chapter? When the sergeant despairingly
besought the recruit in the awkward squad to step out and look at himself, he
gave splendid advice—and worthy of personal application. Particularly while you
are in the learning days of public speaking you must learn to criticise your own
gestures. Recall them—see where they were useless, crude, awkward, what not, and
do better next time. There is a vast deal of difference between being conscious
of self and being self-conscious.
It will require your nice discrimination in order to cultivate spontaneous
gestures and yet give due attention to practise. While you depend upon the
moment it is vital to remember that only a dramatic genius can effectively
accomplish such feats as we have related of Whitefield, Savonarola, and others:
and doubtless the first time they were used they came in a burst of spontaneous
feeling, yet Whitefield declared that not until he had delivered a sermon forty
times was its delivery perfected. What spontaneity initiates let practise
complete. Every effective speaker and every vivid actor has observed, considered
and practised gesture until his dramatic actions are a sub-conscious possession,
just like his ability to pronounce correctly without especially concentrating
his thought. Every able platform man has possessed himself of a dozen ways in
which he might depict in gesture any given emotion; in fact, the means for such
expression are endless—and this is precisely why it is both useless and harmful
to make a chart of gestures and enforce them as the ideals of what may be used
to express this or that feeling. Practise descriptive, suggestive, and typical
movements until they come as naturally as a good articulation; and rarely
forecast the gestures you will use at a given moment: leave something to that
moment.
Avoid Monotony in Gesture
Roast beef is an excellent dish, but it would be terrible as an exclusive diet.
No matter how effective one gesture is, do not overwork it. Put variety in your
actions. Monotony will destroy all beauty and power. The pump handle makes one
effective gesture, and on hot days that one is very eloquent, but it has its
limitations.
Any Movement that is not Significant, Weakens
Do not forget that. Restlessness is not expression. A great many useless
movements will only take the attention of the audience from what you are saying.
A widely-noted man introduced the speaker of the evening one Sunday lately to a
New York audience. The only thing remembered about that introductory speech is
that the speaker played nervously with the covering of the table as he talked.
We naturally watch moving objects. A janitor putting down a window can take the
attention of the hearers from Mr. Roosevelt. By making a few movements at one
side of the stage a chorus girl may draw the interest of the spectators from a
big scene between the "leads." When our forefathers lived in caves they had to
watch moving objects, for movements meant danger. We have not yet overcome the
habit. Advertisers have taken advantage of it—witness the moving electric light
signs in any city. A shrewd speaker will respect this law and conserve the
attention of his audience by eliminating all unnecessary movements.
Gesture Should either be Simultaneous with or Precede the Words—not Follow Them
Lady Macbeth says: "Bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue." Reverse
this order and you get comedy. Say, "There he goes," pointing at him after you
have finished your words, and see if the result is not comical.
Do Not Make Short, Jerky Movements
Some speakers seem to be imitating a waiter who has failed to get a tip. Let
your movements be easy, and from the shoulder, as a rule, rather than from the
elbow. But do not go to the other extreme and make too many flowing motions—that
savors of the lackadaisical.
Put a little "punch" and life into your gestures. You can not, however, do this
mechanically. The audience will detect it if you do. They may not know just what
is wrong, but the gesture will have a false appearance to them.
Facial Expression is Important
Have you ever stopped in front of a Broadway theater and looked at the
photographs of the cast? Notice the row of chorus girls who are supposed to be
expressing fear. Their attitudes are so mechanical that the attempt is
ridiculous. Notice the picture of the "star" expressing the same emotion: his
muscles are drawn, his eyebrows lifted, he shrinks, and fear shines through his
eyes. That actor felt fear when the photograph was taken. The chorus girls felt
that it was time for a rarebit, and more nearly expressed that emotion than they
did fear. Incidentally, that is one reason why they stay in the chorus.
The movements of the facial muscles may mean a great deal more than the
movements of the hand. The man who sits in a dejected heap with a look of
despair on his face is expressing his thoughts and feelings just as effectively
as the man who is waving his arms and shouting from the back of a dray wagon.
The eye has been called the window of the soul. Through it shines the light of
our thoughts and feelings.
Do Not Use Too Much Gesture
As a matter of fact, in the big crises of life we do not go through many
actions. When your closest friend dies you do not throw up your hands and talk
about your grief. You are more likely to sit and brood in dry-eyed silence. The
Hudson River does not make much noise on its way to the sea—it is not half so
loud as the little creek up in Bronx Park that a bullfrog could leap across. The
barking dog never tears your trousers—at least they say he doesn't. Do not fear
the man who waves his arms and shouts his anger, but the man who comes up
quietly with eyes flaming and face burning may knock you down. Fuss is not
force. Observe these principles in nature and practise them in your delivery.
The writer of this chapter once observed an instructor drilling a class in
gesture. They had come to the passage from Henry VIII in which the humbled
Cardinal says: "Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness." It is one of the
pathetic passages of literature. A man uttering such a sentiment would be
crushed, and the last thing on earth he would do would be to make flamboyant
movements. Yet this class had an elocutionary manual before them that gave an
appropriate gesture for every occasion, from paying the gas bill to death-bed
farewells. So they were instructed to throw their arms out at full length on
each side and say: "Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness." Such a
gesture might possibly be used in an after-dinner speech at the convention of a
telephone company whose lines extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but to
think of Wolsey's using that movement would suggest that his fate was just.
Posture
The physical attitude to be taken before the audience really is included in
gesture. Just what that attitude should be depends, not on rules, but on the
spirit of the speech and the occasion. Senator La Follette stood for three hours
with his weight thrown on his forward foot as he leaned out over the footlights,
ran his fingers through his hair, and flamed out a denunciation of the trusts.
It was very effective. But imagine a speaker taking that kind of position to
discourse on the development of road-making machinery. If you have a fiery,
aggressive message, and will let yourself go, nature will naturally pull your
weight to your forward foot. A man in a hot political argument or a street brawl
never has to stop to think upon which foot he should throw his weight. You may
sometimes place your weight on your back foot if you have a restful and calm
message—but don't worry about it: just stand like a man who genuinely feels what
he is saying. Do not stand with your heels close together, like a soldier or a
butler. No more should you stand with them wide apart like a traffic policeman.
Use simple good manners and common sense.
Here a word of caution is needed. We have advised you to allow your gestures and
postures to be spontaneous and not woodenly prepared beforehand, but do not go
to the extreme of ignoring the importance of acquiring mastery of your physical
movements. A muscular hand made flexible by free movement, is far more likely to
be an effective instrument in gesture than a stiff, pudgy bunch of fingers. If
your shoulders are lithe and carried well, while your chest does not retreat
from association with your chin, the chances of using good extemporaneous
gestures are so much the better. Learn to keep the back of your neck touching
your collar, hold your chest high, and keep down your waist measure.
So attention to strength, poise, flexibility, and grace of body are the
foundations of good gesture, for they are expressions of vitality, and without
vitality no speaker can enter the kingdom of power. When an awkward giant like
Abraham Lincoln rose to the sublimest heights of oratory he did so because of
the greatness of his soul—his very ruggedness of spirit and artless honesty were
properly expressed in his gnarly body. The fire of character, of earnestness,
and of message swept his hearers before him when the tepid words of an insincere
Apollo would have left no effect. But be sure you are a second Lincoln before
you despise the handicap of physical awkwardness.
"Ty" Cobb has confided to the public that when he is in a batting slump he even
stands before a mirror, bat in hand, to observe the "swing" and "follow through"
of his batting form. If you would learn to stand well before an audience, look
at yourself in a mirror—but not too often. Practise walking and standing before
the mirror so as to conquer awkwardness—not to cultivate a pose. Stand on the
platform in the same easy manner that you would use before guests in a
drawing-room. If your position is not graceful, make it so by dancing, gymnasium
work, and by getting grace and poise in your mind.
Do not continually hold the same position. Any big change of thought
necessitates a change of position. Be at home. There are no rules—it is all a
matter of taste. While on the platform forget that you have any hands until you
desire to use them—then remember them effectively. Gravity will take care of
them. Of course, if you want to put them behind you, or fold them once in
awhile, it is not going to ruin your speech. Thought and feeling are the big
things in speaking—not the position of a foot or a hand. Simply put your limbs
where you want them to be—you have a will, so do not neglect to use it.
Let us reiterate, do not despise practise. Your gestures and movements may be
spontaneous and still be wrong. No matter how natural they are, it is possible
to improve them.
It is impossible for anyone—even yourself—to criticise your gestures until after
they are made. You can't prune a peach tree until it comes up; therefore speak
much, and observe your own speech. While you are examining yourself, do not
forget to study statuary and paintings to see how the great portrayers of nature
have made their subjects express ideas through action. Notice the gestures of
the best speakers and actors. Observe the physical expression of life
everywhere. The leaves on the tree respond to the slightest breeze. The muscles
of your face, the light of your eyes, should respond to the slightest change of
feeling. Emerson says: "Every man that I meet is my superior in some way. In
that I learn of him." Illiterate Italians make gestures so wonderful and
beautiful that Booth or Barrett might have sat at their feet and been
instructed. Open your eyes. Emerson says again: "We are immersed in beauty, but
our eyes have no clear vision." Toss this book to one side; go out and watch one
child plead with another for a bite of apple; see a street brawl; observe life
in action. Do you want to know how to express victory? Watch the victors' hands
go high on election night. Do you want to plead a cause? Make a composite
photograph of all the pleaders in daily life you constantly see. Beg, borrow,
and steal the best you can get, BUT DON'T GIVE IT OUT AS THEFT. Assimilate it
until it becomes a part of you—then let the expression come out.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. From what source do you intend to study gesture?
2. What is the first requisite of good gestures? Why?
3. Why is it impossible to lay down steel-clad rules for gesturing?
4. Describe (a) a graceful gesture that you have observed; (b) a forceful one;
(c) an extravagant one; (d) an inappropriate one.
5. What gestures do you use for emphasis? Why?
6. How can grace of movement be acquired?
7. When in doubt about a gesture what would you do?
8. What, according to your observations before a mirror, are your faults in
gesturing?
9. How do you intend to correct them?
10. What are some of the gestures, if any, that you might use in delivering
Thurston's speech, page 50; Grady's speech, page 36? Be specific.
11. Describe some particularly appropriate gesture that you have observed. Why
was it appropriate?
12. Cite at least three movements in nature that might well be imitated in
gesture.
13. What would you gather from the expressions: descriptive gesture, suggestive
gesture, and typical gesture?
14. Select any elemental emotion, such as fear, and try, by picturing in your
mind at least five different situations that might call forth this emotion, to
express its several phases by gesture—including posture, movement, and facial
expression.
15. Do the same thing for such other emotions as you may select.
16. Select three passages from any source, only being sure that they are
suitable for public delivery, memorize each, and then devise gestures suitable
for each. Say why.
17. Criticise the gestures in any speech you have heard recently.
18. Practise flexible movement of the hand. What exercises did you find useful?
19. Carefully observe some animal; then devise several typical gestures.
20. Write a brief dialogue between any two animals; read it aloud and invent
expressive gestures.
21. Deliver, with appropriate gestures, the quotation that heads this
chapter.
22. Read aloud the following incident, using dramatic gestures:
When Voltaire was preparing a young actress to appear in one of his tragedies,
he tied her hands to her sides with pack thread in order to check her tendency
toward exuberant gesticulation. Under this condition of compulsory immobility
she commenced to rehearse, and for some time she bore herself calmly enough; but
at last, completely carried away by her feelings, she burst her bonds and flung
up her arms. Alarmed at her supposed neglect of his instructions, she began to
apologize to the poet; he smilingly reassured her, however; the gesture was then
admirable, because it was irrepressible.—Redway, The Actor's Art.
23. Render the following with suitable gestures:
One day, while preaching, Whitefield "suddenly assumed a nautical air and manner
that were irresistible with him," and broke forth in these words: "Well, my
boys, we have a clear sky, and are making fine headway over a smooth sea before
a light breeze, and we shall soon lose sight of land. But what means this sudden
lowering of the heavens, and that dark cloud arising from beneath the western
horizon? Hark! Don't you hear distant thunder? Don't you see those flashes of
lightning? There is a storm gathering! Every man to his duty! The air is
dark!—the tempest rages!—our masts are gone!—the ship is on her beam ends! What
next?" At this a number of sailors in the congregation, utterly swept away by
the dramatic description, leaped to their feet and cried: "The longboat!—take to
the longboat!"
—Nathan Sheppard, Before an Audience.
CHAPTER XVI
METHODS OF DELIVERY
The crown, the consummation, of the discourse is its delivery. Toward it all
preparation looks, for it the audience waits, by it the speaker is judged....
All the forces of the orator's life converge in his oratory. The logical
acuteness with which he marshals the facts around his theme, the rhetorical
facility with which he orders his language, the control to which he has attained
in the use of his body as a single organ of expression, whatever richness of
acquisition and experience are his—these all are now incidents; the fact is the
sending of his message home to his hearers.... The hour of delivery is the
"supreme, inevitable hour" for the orator. It is this fact that makes lack of
adequate preparation such an impertinence. And it is this that sends such
thrills of indescribable joy through the orator's whole being when he has
achieved a success—it is like the mother forgetting her pangs for the joy of
bringing a son into the world.
—J.B.E., How to Attract and Hold an Audience.
There are four fundamental methods of delivering an address; all others are
modifications of one or more of these: reading from manuscript, committing the
written speech and speaking from memory, speaking from notes, and extemporaneous
speech. It is impossible to say which form of delivery is best for all speakers
in all circumstances—in deciding for yourself you should consider the occasion,
the nature of the audience, the character of your subject, and your own
limitations of time and ability. However, it is worth while warning you not to
be lenient in self-exaction. Say to yourself courageously: What others can do, I
can attempt. A bold spirit conquers where others flinch, and a trying task
challenges pluck.
Reading from Manuscript
This method really deserves short shrift in a book on public speaking, for,
delude yourself as you may, public reading is not public speaking. Yet there are
so many who grasp this broken reed for support that we must here discuss the
"read speech"—apologetic misnomer as it is.
Certainly there are occasions—among them, the opening of Congress, the
presentation of a sore question before a deliberative body, or a historical
commemoration—when it may seem not alone to the "orator" but to all those
interested that the chief thing is to express certain thoughts in precise
language—in language that must not be either misunderstood or misquoted. At such
times oratory is unhappily elbowed to a back bench, the manuscript is solemnly
withdrawn from the capacious inner pocket of the new frock coat, and everyone
settles himself resignedly, with only a feeble flicker of hope that the
so-called speech may not be as long as it is thick. The words may be golden, but
the hearers' (?) eyes are prone to be leaden, and in about one instance out of a
hundred does the perpetrator really deliver an impressive address. His excuse is
his apology—he is not to be blamed, as a rule, for some one decreed that it
would be dangerous to cut loose from manuscript moorings and take his audience
with him on a really delightful sail.
One great trouble on such "great occasions" is that the essayist—for such he
is—has been chosen not because of his speaking ability but because his
grandfather fought in a certain battle, or his constituents sent him to
Congress, or his gifts in some line of endeavor other than speaking have
distinguished him.
As well choose a surgeon from his ability to play golf. To be sure, it always
interests an audience to see a great man; because of his eminence they are
likely to listen to his words with respect, perhaps with interest, even when
droned from a manuscript. But how much more effective such a deliverance would
be if the papers were cast aside!
Nowhere is the read-address so common as in the pulpit—the pulpit, that in these
days least of all can afford to invite a handicap. Doubtless many clergymen
prefer finish to fervor—let them choose: they are rarely men who sway the masses
to acceptance of their message. What they gain in precision and elegance of
language they lose in force.
There are just four motives that can move a man to read his address or sermon:
1. Laziness is the commonest. Enough said. Even Heaven cannot make a lazy man
efficient.
2. A memory so defective that he really cannot speak without reading. Alas, he
is not speaking when he is reading, so his dilemma is painful—and not to himself
alone. But no man has a right to assume that his memory is utterly bad until he
has buckled down to memory culture—and failed. A weak memory is oftener an
excuse than a reason.
3. A genuine lack of time to do more than write the speech. There are such
instances—but they do not occur every week! The disposition of your time allows
more flexibility than you realize. Motive 3 too often harnesses up with Motive
1.
4. A conviction that the speech is too important to risk forsaking the
manuscript. But, if it is vital that every word should be so precise, the style
so polished, and the thoughts so logical, that the preacher must write the
sermon entire, is not the message important enough to warrant extra effort in
perfecting its delivery? It is an insult to a congregation and disrespectful to
Almighty God to put the phrasing of a message above the message itself. To reach
the hearts of the hearers the sermon must be delivered—it is only half delivered
when the speaker cannot utter it with original fire and force, when he merely
repeats words that were conceived hours or weeks before and hence are like
champagne that has lost its fizz. The reading preacher's eyes are tied down to
his manuscript; he cannot give the audience the benefit of his expression. How
long would a play fill a theater if the actors held their cue-books in hand and
read their parts? Imagine Patrick Henry reading his famous speech;
Peter-the-Hermit, manuscript in hand, exhorting the crusaders; Napoleon,
constantly looking at his papers, addressing the army at the Pyramids; or Jesus
reading the Sermon on the Mount! These speakers were so full of their subjects,
their general preparation had been so richly adequate, that there was no
necessity for a manuscript, either to refer to or to serve as "an outward and
visible sign" of their preparedness. No event was ever so dignified that it
required an artificial attempt at speech making. Call an essay by its right
name, but never call it a speech. Perhaps the most dignified of events is a
supplication to the Creator. If you ever listened to the reading of an original
prayer you must have felt its superficiality.
Regardless of what the theories may be about manuscript delivery, the fact
remains that it does not work out with efficiency. Avoid it whenever at all
possible.
Committing the Written Speech and Speaking from Memory
This method has certain points in its favor. If you have time and leisure, it is
possible to polish and rewrite your ideas until they are expressed in clear,
concise terms. Pope sometimes spent a whole day in perfecting one couplet.
Gibbon consumed twenty years gathering material for and rewriting the "Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire." Although you cannot devote such painstaking
preparation to a speech, you should take time to eliminate useless words, crowd
whole paragraphs into a sentence and choose proper illustrations. Good speeches,
like plays, are not written; they are rewritten. The National Cash Register
Company follows this plan with their most efficient selling organization: they
require their salesmen to memorize verbatim a selling talk. They maintain that
there is one best way of putting their selling arguments, and they insist that
each salesman use this ideal way rather than employ any haphazard phrases that
may come into his mind at the moment.
The method of writing and committing has been adopted by many noted speakers;
Julius Cæsar, Robert Ingersoll, and, on some occasions, Wendell Phillips, were
distinguished examples. The wonderful effects achieved by famous actors were, of
course, accomplished through the delivery of memorized lines.
The inexperienced speaker must be warned before attempting this method of
delivery that it is difficult and trying. It requires much skill to make it
efficient. The memorized lines of the young speaker will usually sound like
memorized words, and repel.
If you want to hear an example, listen to a department store demonstrator repeat
her memorized lingo about the newest furniture polish or breakfast food. It
requires training to make a memorized speech sound fresh and spontaneous, and,
unless you have a fine native memory, in each instance the finished product
necessitates much labor. Should you forget a part of your speech or miss a few
words, you are liable to be so confused that, like Mark Twain's guide in Rome,
you will be compelled to repeat your lines from the beginning.
On the other hand, you may be so taken up with trying to recall your written
words that you will not abandon yourself to the spirit of your address, and so
fail to deliver it with that spontaneity which is so vital to forceful delivery.
But do not let these difficulties frighten you. If committing seems best to you,
give it a faithful trial. Do not be deterred by its pitfalls, but by resolute
practise avoid them.
One of the best ways to rise superior to these difficulties is to do as Dr.
Wallace Radcliffe often does: commit without writing the speech, making
practically all the preparation mentally, without putting pen to paper—a
laborious but effective way of cultivating both mind and memory.
You will find it excellent practise, both for memory and delivery, to commit the
specimen speeches found in this volume and declaim them, with all attention to
the principles we have put before you. William Ellery Channing, himself a
distinguished speaker, years ago had this to say of practise in declamation:
"Is there not an amusement, having an affinity with the drama, which might be
usefully introduced among us? I mean, Recitation. A work of genius, recited by a
man of fine taste, enthusiasm, and powers of elocution, is a very pure and high
gratification. Were this art cultivated and encouraged, great numbers, now
insensible to the most beautiful compositions, might be waked up to their
excellence and power."
Speaking from Notes
The third, and the most popular method of delivery, is probably also the best
one for the beginner. Speaking from notes is not ideal delivery, but we learn to
swim in shallow water before going out beyond the ropes.
Make a definite plan for your discourse (for a fuller discussion see Chapter
XVIII) and set down the points somewhat in the fashion of a lawyer's brief, or a
preacher's outline. Here is a sample of very simple notes:
ATTENTION
I. Introduction.
Attention indispensable to the performance of any
great work. Anecdote.
II. Defined And Illustrated.
1. From common observation.
2. From the lives of great men {Carlyle, Robert E. Lee.}
III. Its Relation To Other Mental Powers.
1. Reason.
2. Imagination.
3. Memory.
4. Will. Anecdote.
IV. Attention May Be Cultivated.
1. Involuntary attention.
2. Voluntary attention. Examples.
V. Conclusion.
The consequences of inattention and of attention.
Few briefs would be so precise as this one, for with experience a speaker
learns to use little tricks to attract his eye—he may underscore a catch-word
heavily, draw a red circle around a pivotal idea, enclose the key-word of an
anecdote in a wavy-lined box, and so on indefinitely. These points are worth
remembering, for nothing so eludes the swift-glancing eye of the speaker as the
sameness of typewriting, or even a regular pen-script. So unintentional a thing
as a blot on the page may help you to remember a big "point" in your
brief—perhaps by association of ideas.
An inexperienced speaker would probably require fuller notes than the specimen
given. Yet that way lies danger, for the complete manuscript is but a short
remove from the copious outline. Use as few notes as possible.
They may be necessary for the time being, but do not fail to look upon them as a
necessary evil; and even when you lay them before you, refer to them only when
compelled to do so. Make your notes as full as you please in preparation, but by
all means condense them for platform use.
Extemporaneous Speech
Surely this is the ideal method of delivery. It is far and away the most popular
with the audience, and the favorite method of the most efficient speakers.
"Extemporaneous speech" has sometimes been made to mean unprepared speech, and
indeed it is too often precisely that; but in no such sense do we recommend it
strongly to speakers old and young. On the contrary, to speak well without notes
requires all the preparation which we discussed so fully in the chapter on
"Fluency," while yet relying upon the "inspiration of the hour" for some of your
thoughts and much of your language. You had better remember, however, that the
most effective inspiration of the hour is the inspiration you yourself bring to
it, bottled up in your spirit and ready to infuse itself into the audience.
If you extemporize you can get much closer to your audience. In a sense, they
appreciate the task you have before you and send out their sympathy.
Extemporize, and you will not have to stop and fumble around amidst your
notes—you can keep your eye afire with your message and hold your audience with
your very glance. You yourself will feel their response as you read the effects
of your warm, spontaneous words, written on their countenances.
Sentences written out in the study are liable to be dead and cold when
resurrected before the audience. When you create as you speak you conserve all
the native fire of your thought. You can enlarge on one point or omit another,
just as the occasion or the mood of the audience may demand. It is not possible
for every speaker to use this, the most difficult of all methods of delivery,
and least of all can it be used successfully without much practise, but it is
the ideal towards which all should strive.
One danger in this method is that you may be led aside from your subject into
by-paths. To avoid this peril, firmly stick to your mental outline. Practise
speaking from a memorized brief until you gain control. Join a debating
society—talk, talk, TALK, and always extemporize. You may "make a fool of
yourself" once or twice, but is that too great a price to pay for success?
Notes, like crutches, are only a sign of weakness. Remember that the power of
your speech depends to some extent upon the view your audience holds of you.
General Grant's words as president were more powerful than his words as a
Missouri farmer. If you would appear in the light of an authority, be one. Make
notes on your brain instead of on paper.
Joint Methods of Delivery
A modification of the second method has been adopted by many great speakers,
particularly lecturers who are compelled to speak on a wide variety of subjects
day after day; such speakers often commit their addresses to memory but keep
their manuscripts in flexible book form before them, turning several pages at a
time. They feel safer for having a sheet-anchor to windward—but it is an anchor,
nevertheless, and hinders rapid, free sailing, though it drag never so lightly.
Other speakers throw out a still lighter anchor by keeping before them a rather
full outline of their written and committed speech.
Others again write and commit a few important parts of the address—the
introduction, the conclusion, some vital argument, some pat illustration—and
depend on the hour for the language of the rest. This method is well adapted to
speaking either with or without notes.
Some speakers read from manuscript the most important parts of their speeches
and utter the rest extemporaneously.
Thus, what we have called "joint methods of delivery" are open to much personal
variation. You must decide for yourself which is best for you, for the occasion,
for your subject, for your audience—for these four factors all have their
individual claims.
Whatever form you choose, do not be so weakly indifferent as to prefer the easy
way—choose the best way, whatever it cost you in time and effort. And of this be
assured: only the practised speaker can hope to gain both conciseness of
argument and conviction in manner, polish of language and power in delivery,
finish of style and fire in utterance.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Which in your judgment is the most suitable of delivery for you? Why?
2. What objections can you offer to, (a) memorizing the entire speech; (b)
reading from manuscript; (c) using notes; (d) speaking from memorized outline or
notes; (ee) any of the "joint methods"?
3. What is there to commend in delivering a speech in any of the foregoing
methods?
4. Can you suggest any combination of methods that you have found efficacious?
5. What methods, according to your observation, do most successful speakers use?
6. Select some topic from the list on page 123, narrow the theme so as to make
it specific (see page 122), and deliver a short address, utilizing the four
methods mentioned, in four different deliveries of the speech.
7. Select one of the joint methods and apply it to the delivery of the same
address.
8. Which method do you prefer, and why?
9. From the list of subjects in the Appendix select a theme and deliver a
five-minute address without notes, but make careful preparation without putting
your thoughts on paper.
NOTE: It is earnestly hoped that instructors will not pass this stage of the
work without requiring of their students much practise in the delivery of
original speeches, in the manner that seems, after some experiment, to be best
suited to the student's gifts. Students who are studying alone should be equally
exacting in demand upon themselves. One point is most important: It is easy to
learn to read a speech, therefore it is much more urgent that the pupil should
have much practise in speaking from notes and speaking without notes. At this
stage, pay more attention to manner than to matter—the succeeding chapters take
up the composition of the address. Be particularly insistent upon frequent and
thorough review of the principles of delivery discussed in the preceding
chapters.
CHAPTER XVII
THOUGHT AND RESERVE POWER
Providence is always on the side of the last reserve.
—Napoleon Bonaparte.
So mightiest powers by deepest calms are fed,
And sleep, how oft, in things that gentlest be!
—Barry Cornwall, The Sea in Calm.
What would happen if you should overdraw your bank account? As a rule the check
would be protested; but if you were on friendly terms with the bank, your check
might be honored, and you would be called upon to make good the overdraft.
Nature has no such favorites, therefore extends no credits. She is as relentless
as a gasoline tank—when the "gas" is all used the machine stops. It is as
reckless for a speaker to risk going before an audience without having something
in reserve as it is for the motorist to essay a long journey in the wilds
without enough gasoline in sight.
But in what does a speaker's reserve power consist? In a well-founded reliance
on his general and particular grasp of his subject; in the quality of being
alert and resourceful in thought—particularly in the ability to think while on
his feet; and in that self-possession which makes one the captain of all his own
forces, bodily and mental.
The first of these elements, adequate preparation, and the last, self-reliance,
were discussed fully in the chapters on "Self-Confidence" and "Fluency," so they
will be touched only incidentally here; besides, the next chapter will take up
specific methods of preparation for public speaking. Therefore the central theme
of this chapter is the second of the elements of reserve power—Thought.
The Mental Storehouse
An empty mind, like an empty larder, may be a serious matter or not—all will
depend on the available resources. If there is no food in the cupboard the
housewife does not nervously rattle the empty dishes; she telephones the grocer.
If you have no ideas, do not rattle your empty ers and ahs, but get some ideas,
and don't speak until you do get them.
This, however, is not being what the old New England housekeeper used to call
"forehanded." The real solution of the problem of what to do with an empty head
is never to let it become empty. In the artesian wells of Dakota the water
rushes to the surface and leaps a score of feet above the ground. The secret of
this exuberant flow is of course the great supply below, crowding to get out.
What is the use of stopping to prime a mental pump when you can fill your life
with the resources for an artesian well? It is not enough to have merely enough;
you must have more than enough. Then the pressure of your mass of thought and
feeling will maintain your flow of speech and give you the confidence and poise
that denote reserve power. To be away from home with only the exact return fare
leaves a great deal to circumstances!
Reserve power is magnetic. It does not consist in giving the idea that you are
holding something in reserve, but rather in the suggestion that the audience is
getting the cream of your observation, reading, experience, feeling, thought. To
have reserve power, therefore, you must have enough milk of material on hand to
supply sufficient cream.
But how shall we get the milk? There are two ways: the one is first-hand—from
the cow; the other is second-hand—from the milkman.
The Seeing Eye
Some sage has said: "For a thousand men who can speak, there is only one who can
think; for a thousand men who can think, there is only one who can see." To see
and to think is to get your milk from your own cow.
When the one man in a million who can see comes along, we call him Master. Old
Mr. Holbrook, of "Cranford," asked his guest what color ash-buds were in March;
she confessed she did not know, to which the old gentleman answered: "I knew you
didn't. No more did I—an old fool that I am!—till this young man comes and tells
me. 'Black as ash-buds in March.' And I've lived all my life in the country.
More shame for me not to know. Black; they are jet-black, madam."
"This young man" referred to by Mr. Holbrook was Tennyson.
Henry Ward Beecher said: "I do not believe that I have ever met a man on the
street that I did not get from him some element for a sermon. I never see
anything in nature which does not work towards that for which I give the
strength of my life. The material for my sermons is all the time following me
and swarming up around me."
Instead of saying only one man in a million can see, it would strike nearer the
truth to say that none of us sees with perfect understanding more than a
fraction of what passes before our eyes, yet this faculty of acute and accurate
observation is so important that no man ambitious to lead can neglect it. The
next time you are in a car, look at those who sit opposite you and see what you
can discover of their habits, occupations, ideals, nationalities, environments,
education, and so on. You may not see a great deal the first time, but practise
will reveal astonishing results. Transmute every incident of your day into a
subject for a speech or an illustration. Translate all that you see into terms
of speech. When you can describe all that you have seen in definite words, you
are seeing clearly. You are becoming the millionth man.
De Maupassant's description of an author should also fit the public-speaker:
"His eye is like a suction pump, absorbing everything; like a pickpocket's hand,
always at work. Nothing escapes him. He is constantly collecting material,
gathering-up glances, gestures, intentions, everything that goes on in his
presence—the slightest look, the least act, the merest trifle." De Maupassant
was himself a millionth man, a Master.
"Ruskin took a common rock-crystal and saw hidden within its stolid heart
lessons which have not yet ceased to move men's lives. Beecher stood for hours
before the window of a jewelry store thinking out analogies between jewels and
the souls of men. Gough saw in a single drop of water enough truth wherewith to
quench the thirst of five thousand souls. Thoreau sat so still in the shadowy
woods that birds and insects came and opened up their secret lives to his eye.
Emerson observed the soul of a man so long that at length he could say, 'I
cannot hear what you say, for seeing what you are.' Preyer for three years
studied the life of his babe and so became an authority upon the child mind.
Observation! Most men are blind. There are a thousand times as many hidden
truths and undiscovered facts about us to-day as have made discoverers
famous—facts waiting for some one to 'pluck out the heart of their mystery.' But
so long as men go about the search with eyes that see not, so long will these
hidden pearls lie in their shells. Not an orator but who could more effectively
point and feather his shafts were he to search nature rather than libraries. Too
few can see 'sermons in stones' and 'books in the running brooks,' because they
are so used to seeing merely sermons in books and only stones in running brooks.
Sir Philip Sidney had a saying, 'Look in thy heart and write;' Massillon
explained his astute knowledge of the human heart by saying, 'I learned it by
studying myself;' Byron says of John Locke that 'all his knowledge of the human
understanding was derived from studying his own mind.' Since multiform nature is
all about us, originality ought not to be so rare."[8]
The Thinking Mind
Thinking is doing mental arithmetic with facts. Add this fact to that and you
reach a certain conclusion. Subtract this truth from another and you have a
definite result. Multiply this fact by another and have a precise product. See
how many times this occurrence happens in that space of time and you have
reached a calculable dividend. In thought-processes you perform every known
problem of arithmetic and algebra. That is why mathematics are such excellent
mental gymnastics. But by the same token, thinking is work. Thinking takes
energy. Thinking requires time, and patience, and broad information, and
clearheadedness. Beyond a miserable little surface-scratching, few people really
think at all—only one in a thousand, according to the pundit already quoted. So
long as the present system of education prevails and children are taught through
the ear rather than through the eye, so long as they are expected to remember
thoughts of others rather than think for themselves, this proportion will
continue—one man in a million will be able to see, and one in a thousand to
think.
But, however thought-less a mind has been, there is promise of better things so
soon as the mind detects its own lack of thought-power. The first step is to
stop regarding thought as "the magic of the mind," to use Byron's expression,
and see it as thought truly is—a weighing of ideas and a placing of them in
relationships to each other. Ponder this definition and see if you have learned
to think efficiently.
Habitual thinking is just that—a habit. Habit comes of doing a thing
repeatedly. The lower habits are acquired easily, the higher ones require deeper
grooves if they are to persist. So we find that the thought-habit comes only
with resolute practise; yet no effort will yield richer dividends. Persist in
practise, and whereas you have been able to think only an inch-deep into a
subject, you will soon find that you can penetrate it a foot.
Perhaps this homely metaphor will suggest how to begin the practise of
consecutive thinking, by which we mean welding a number of separate
thought-links into a chain that will hold. Take one link at a time, see that
each naturally belongs with the ones you link to it, and remember that a single
missing link means no chain.
Thinking is the most fascinating and exhilarating of all mental exercises. Once
realize that your opinion on a subject does not represent the choice you have
made between what Dr. Cerebrum has written and Professor Cerebellum has said,
but is the result of your own earnestly-applied brain-energy, and you will gain
a confidence in your ability to speak on that subject that nothing will be able
to shake. Your thought will have given you both power and reserve power.
Someone has condensed the relation of thought to knowledge in these pungent,
homely lines:
"Don't give me the man who thinks he thinks,
Don't give me the man who thinks he knows,
But give me the man who knows he thinks,
And I have the man who knows he knows!"
Reading As a Stimulus to Thought
No matter how dry the cow, however, nor how poor our ability to milk, there is
still the milkman—we can read what others have seen and felt and thought. Often,
indeed, such records will kindle within us that pre-essential and vital spark,
the desire to be a thinker.
The following selection is taken from one of Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis's
lectures, as given in "A Man's Value to Society." Dr. Hillis is a most fluent
speaker—he never refers to notes. He has reserve power. His mind is a veritable
treasure-house of facts and ideas. See how he draws from a knowledge of fifteen
different general or special subjects: geology, plant life, Palestine,
chemistry, Eskimos, mythology, literature, The Nile, history, law, wit,
evolution, religion, biography, and electricity. Surely, it needs no sage to
discover that the secret of this man's reserve power is the old secret of our
artesian well whose abundance surges from unseen depths.
THE USES OF BOOKS AND READING[9]
Each Kingsley approaches a stone as a jeweler approaches a casket to unlock the
hidden gems. Geikie causes the bit of hard coal to unroll the juicy bud, the
thick odorous leaves, the pungent boughs, until the bit of carbon enlarges into
the beauty of a tropic forest. That little book of Grant Allen's called "How
Plants Grow" exhibits trees and shrubs as eating, drinking and marrying. We see
certain date groves in Palestine, and other date groves in the desert a hundred
miles away, and the pollen of the one carried upon the trade winds to the
branches of the other. We see the tree with its strange system of water-works,
pumping the sap up through pipes and mains; we see the chemical laboratory in
the branches mixing flavor for the orange in one bough, mixing the juices of the
pineapple in another; we behold the tree as a mother making each infant acorn
ready against the long winter, rolling it in swaths soft and warm as wool
blankets, wrapping it around with garments impervious to the rain, and finally
slipping the infant acorn into a sleeping bag, like those the Eskimos gave Dr.
Kane.
At length we come to feel that the Greeks were not far wrong in thinking each
tree had a dryad in it, animating it, protecting it against destruction, dying
when the tree withered. Some Faraday shows us that each drop of water is a
sheath for electric forces sufficient to charge 800,000 Leyden jars, or drive an
engine from Liverpool to London. Some Sir William Thomson tells us how hydrogen
gas will chew up a large iron spike as a child's molars will chew off the end of
a stick of candy. Thus each new book opens up some new and hitherto unexplored
realm of nature. Thus books fulfill for us the legend of the wondrous glass that
showed its owner all things distant and all things hidden. Through books our
world becomes as "a bud from the bower of God's beauty; the sun as a spark from
the light of His wisdom; the sky as a bubble on the sea of His Power." Therefore
Mrs. Browning's words, "No child can be called fatherless who has God and his
mother; no youth can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of
good books."
Books also advantage us in that they exhibit the unity of progress, the
solidarity of the race, and the continuity of history. Authors lead us back
along the pathway of law, of liberty or religion, and set us down in front of
the great man in whose brain the principle had its rise. As the discoverer leads
us from the mouth of the Nile back to the headwaters of Nyanza, so books exhibit
great ideas and institutions, as they move forward, ever widening and deepening,
like some Nile feeding many civilizations. For all the reforms of to-day go back
to some reform of yesterday. Man's art goes back to Athens and Thebes. Man's
laws go back to Blackstone and Justinian. Man's reapers and plows go back to the
savage scratching the ground with his forked stick, drawn by the wild bullock.
The heroes of liberty march forward in a solid column. Lincoln grasps the hand
of Washington. Washington received his weapons at the hands of Hampden and
Cromwell. The great Puritans lock hands with Luther and Savonarola.
The unbroken procession brings us at length to Him whose Sermon on the Mount was
the very charter of liberty. It puts us under a divine spell to perceive that we
are all coworkers with the great men, and yet single threads in the warp and
woof of civilization. And when books have related us to our own age, and related
all the epochs to God, whose providence is the gulf stream of history, these
teachers go on to stimulate us to new and greater achievements. Alone, man is an
unlighted candle. The mind needs some book to kindle its faculties. Before Byron
began to write he used to give half an hour to reading some favorite passage.
The thought of some great writer never failed to kindle Byron into a creative
glow, even as a match lights the kindlings upon the grate. In these burning,
luminous moods Byron's mind did its best work. The true book stimulates the mind
as no wine can ever quicken the blood. It is reading that brings us to our best,
and rouses each faculty to its most vigorous life.
We recognize this as pure cream, and if it seems at first to have its secondary
source in the friendly milkman, let us not forget that the theme is "The Uses of
Books and Reading." Dr. Hillis both sees and thinks.
It is fashionable just now to decry the value of reading. We read, we are told,
to avoid the necessity of thinking for ourselves. Books are for the mentally
lazy.
Though this is only a half-truth, the element of truth it contains is large
enough to make us pause. Put yourself through a good old Presbyterian
soul-searching self-examination, and if reading-from-thought-laziness is one of
your sins, confess it. No one can shrive you of it—but yourself. Do penance for
it by using your own brains, for it is a transgression that dwarfs the growth of
thought and destroys mental freedom. At first the penance will be trying—but at
the last you will be glad in it.
Reading should entertain, give information, or stimulate thought. Here, however,
we are chiefly concerned with information, and stimulation of thought.
What shall I read for information?
The ample page of knowledge, as Grey tells us, is "rich with the spoils of
time," and these are ours for the price of a theatre ticket. You may command
Socrates and Marcus Aurelius to sit beside you and discourse of their choicest,
hear Lincoln at Gettysburg and Pericles at Athens, storm the Bastile with Hugo,
and wander through Paradise with Dante. You may explore darkest Africa with
Stanley, penetrate the human heart with Shakespeare, chat with Carlyle about
heroes, and delve with the Apostle Paul into the mysteries of faith. The general
knowledge and the inspiring ideas that men have collected through ages of toil
and experiment are yours for the asking. The Sage of Chelsea was right: "The
true university of these days is a collection of books."
To master a worth-while book is to master much else besides; few of us, however,
make perfect conquest of a volume without first owning it physically. To read a
borrowed book may be a joy, but to assign your own book a place of its own on
your own shelves—be they few or many—to love the book and feel of its worn
cover, to thumb it over slowly, page by page, to pencil its margins in agreement
or in protest, to smile or thrill with its remembered pungencies—no mere book
borrower could ever sense all that delight.
The reader who possesses books in this double sense finds also that his books
possess him, and the volumes which most firmly grip his life are likely to be
those it has cost him some sacrifice to own. These lightly-come-by titles, which
Mr. Fatpurse selects, perhaps by proxy, can scarcely play the guide, philosopher
and friend in crucial moments as do the books—long coveted, joyously
attained—that are welcomed into the lives, and not merely the libraries, of us
others who are at once poorer and richer.
So it is scarcely too much to say that of all the many ways in which an owned—a
mastered—book is like to a human friend, the truest ways are these: A friend is
worth making sacrifices for, both to gain and to keep; and our loves go out most
dearly to those into whose inmost lives we have sincerely entered.
When you have not the advantage of the test of time by which to judge books,
investigate as thoroughly as possible the authority of the books you read. Much
that is printed and passes current is counterfeit. "I read it in a book" is to
many a sufficient warranty of truth, but not to the thinker. "What book?" asks
the careful mind. "Who wrote it? What does he know about the subject and what
right has he to speak on it? Who recognizes him as authority? With what other
recognized authorities does he agree or disagree?" Being caught trying to pass
counterfeit money, even unintentionally, is an unpleasant situation. Beware lest
you circulate spurious coin.
Above all, seek reading that makes you use your own brains. Such reading must
be alive with fresh points of view, packed with special knowledge, and deal with
subjects of vital interest. Do not confine your reading to what you already know
you will agree with. Opposition wakes one up. The other road may be the better,
but you will never know it unless you "give it the once over." Do not do all
your thinking and investigating in front of given "Q.E.D.'s;" merely assembling
reasons to fill in between your theorem and what you want to prove will get you
nowhere. Approach each subject with an open mind and—once sure that you have
thought it out thoroughly and honestly—have the courage to abide by the decision
of your own thought. But don't brag about it afterward.
No book on public speaking will enable you to discourse on the tariff if you
know nothing about the tariff. Knowing more about it than the other man will be
your only hope for making the other man listen to you.
Take a group of men discussing a governmental policy of which some one says: "It
is socialistic." That will commend the policy to Mr. A., who believes in
socialism, but condemn it to Mr. B., who does not. It may be that neither had
considered the policy beyond noticing that its surface-color was socialistic.
The chances are, furthermore, that neither Mr. A. nor Mr. B. has a definite idea
of what socialism really is, for as Robert Louis Stevenson says, "Man lives not
by bread alone but chiefly by catch words." If you are of this group of men, and
have observed this proposed government policy, and investigated it, and thought
about it, what you have to say cannot fail to command their respect and
approval, for you will have shown them that you possess a grasp of your subject
and—to adopt an exceedingly expressive bit of slang—then some.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Robert Houdin trained his son to give one swift glance at a shop window in
passing and be able to report accurately a surprising number of its contents.
Try this several times on different windows and report the result.
2. What effect does reserve power have on an audience?
3. What are the best methods for acquiring reserve power?
4. What is the danger of too much reading?
5. Analyze some speech that you have read or heard and notice how much real
information there is in it. Compare it with Dr. Hillis's speech on "Brave Little
Belgium," page 394.
6. Write out a three-minute speech on any subject you choose. How much
information, and what new ideas, does it contain? Compare your speech with the
extract on page 191 from Dr. Hillis's "The Uses of Books and Reading."
7. Have you ever read a book on the practise of thinking? If so, give your
impressions of its value.
NOTE: There are a number of excellent books on the subject of thought and the
management of thought. The following are recommended as being especially
helpful: "Thinking and Learning to Think," Nathan C. Schaeffer; "Talks to
Students on the Art of Study," Cramer; "As a Man Thinketh," Allen.
8. Define (a) logic; (b) mental philosophy (or mental science); (c) psychology;
(d) abstract.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] How to Attract and Hold an Audience, J. Berg Esenwein.
[9] Used by permission.
CHAPTER XVIII
SUBJECT AND PREPARATION
Suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.
—Byron, Hints from Horace.
Look to this day, for it is life—the very life of life. In its brief course lie
all the verities and realities of your existence: the bliss of growth, the glory
of action, the splendor of beauty. For yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow
is only a vision; but today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of
happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this
day. Such is the salutation of the dawn.
—From the Sanskrit.
In the chapter preceding we have seen the influence of "Thought and Reserve
Power" on general preparedness for public speech. But preparation consists in
something more definite than the cultivation of thought-power, whether from
original or from borrowed sources—it involves a specifically acquisitive
attitude of the whole life. If you would become a full soul you must constantly
take in and assimilate, for in that way only may you hope to give out that which
is worth the hearing; but do not confuse the acquisition of general information
with the mastery of specific knowledge. Information consists of a fact or a
group of facts; knowledge is organized information—knowledge knows a fact in
relation to other facts.
Now the important thing here is that you should set all your faculties to
take in the things about you with the particular object of correlating them and
storing them for use in public speech. You must hear with the speaker's ear, see
with the speaker's eye, and choose books and companions and sights and sounds
with the speaker's purpose in view. At the same time, be ready to receive
unplanned-for knowledge. One of the fascinating elements in your life as a
public speaker will be the conscious growth in power that casual daily
experiences bring. If your eyes are alert you will be constantly discovering
facts, illustrations, and ideas without having set out in search of them. These
all may be turned to account on the platform; even the leaden events of hum-drum
daily life may be melted into bullets for future battles.
Conservation of Time in Preparation
But, you say, I have so little time for preparation—my mind must be absorbed by
other matters. Daniel Webster never let an opportunity pass to gather material
for his speeches. When he was a boy working in a sawmill he read out of a book
in one hand and busied himself at some mechanical task with the other. In youth
Patrick Henry roamed the fields and woods in solitude for days at a time
unconsciously gathering material and impressions for his later service as a
speaker. Dr. Russell H. Conwell, the man who, the late Charles A. Dana said, had
addressed more hearers than any living man, used to memorize long passages from
Milton while tending the boiling syrup-pans in the silent New England woods at
night. The modern employer would discharge a Webster of today for inattention to
duty, and doubtless he would be justified, and Patrick Henry seemed only an idle
chap even in those easy-going days; but the truth remains: those who take in
power and have the purpose to use it efficiently will some day win to the place
in which that stored-up power will revolve great wheels of influence.
Napoleon said that quarter hours decide the destinies of nations. How many
quarter hours do we let drift by aimlessly! Robert Louis Stevenson conserved all
his time; every experience became capital for his work—for capital may be
defined as "the results of labor stored up to assist future production." He
continually tried to put into suitable language the scenes and actions that were
in evidence about him. Emerson says: "Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes
itself whilst we are preparing to live."
Why wait for a more convenient season for this broad, general preparation? The
fifteen minutes that we spend on the car could be profitably turned into
speech-capital.
Procure a cheap edition of modern speeches, and by cutting out a few pages each
day, and reading them during the idle minute here and there, note how soon you
can make yourself familiar with the world's best speeches. If you do not wish to
mutilate your book, take it with you—most of the epoch-making books are now
printed in small volumes. The daily waste of natural gas in the Oklahoma fields
is equal to ten thousand tons of coal. Only about three per cent of the power of
the coal that enters the furnace ever diffuses itself from your electric bulb as
light—the other ninety-seven per cent is wasted. Yet these wastes are no larger,
nor more to be lamented than the tremendous waste of time which, if conserved
would increase the speaker's powers to their nth degree. Scientists are making
three ears of corn grow where one grew before; efficiency engineers are
eliminating useless motions and products from our factories: catch the spirit of
the age and apply efficiency to the use of the most valuable asset you
possess—time. What do you do mentally with the time you spend in dressing or in
shaving? Take some subject and concentrate your energies on it for a week by
utilizing just the spare moments that would otherwise be wasted. You will be
amazed at the result. One passage a day from the Book of Books, one golden ingot
from some master mind, one fully-possessed thought of your own might thus be
added to the treasury of your life. Do not waste your time in ways that profit
you nothing. Fill "the unforgiving minute" with "sixty seconds' worth of
distance run" and on the platform you will be immeasurably the gainer.
Let no word of this, however, seem to decry the value of recreation. Nothing is
more vital to a worker than rest—yet nothing is so vitiating to the shirker. Be
sure that your recreation re-creates. A pause in the midst of labors gathers
strength for new effort. The mistake is to pause too long, or to fill your
pauses with ideas that make life flabby.
Choosing a Subject
Subject and materials tremendously influence each other.
"This arises from the fact that there are two distinct ways in which a
subject may be chosen: by arbitrary choice, or by development from thought and
reading.
"Arbitrary choice ... of one subject from among a number involves so many
important considerations that no speaker ever fails to appreciate the tone of
satisfaction in him who triumphantly announces: 'I have a subject!'
"'Do give me a subject!' How often the weary school teacher hears that cry. Then
a list of themes is suggested, gone over, considered, and, in most instances,
rejected, because the teacher can know but imperfectly what is in the pupil's
mind. To suggest a subject in this way is like trying to discover the street on
which a lost child lives, by naming over a number of streets until one strikes
the little one's ear as sounding familiar.
"Choice by development is a very different process. It does not ask, What shall
I say? It turns the mind in upon itself and asks, What do I think? Thus, the
subject may be said to choose itself, for in the process of thought or of
reading one theme rises into prominence and becomes a living germ, soon to grow
into the discourse. He who has not learned to reflect is not really acquainted
with his own thoughts; hence, his thoughts are not productive. Habits of reading
and reflection will supply the speaker's mind with an abundance of subjects of
which he already knows something from the very reading and reflection which gave
birth to his theme. This is not a paradox, but sober truth.
"It must be already apparent that the choice of a subject by development savors
more of collection than of conscious selection. The subject 'pops into the
mind.' ... In the intellect of the trained thinker it concentrates—by a process
which we have seen to be induction—the facts and truths of which he has been
reading and thinking. This is most often a gradual process. The scattered ideas
may be but vaguely connected at first, but more and more they concentrate and
take on a single form until at length one strong idea seems to grasp the soul
with irresistible force, and to cry aloud, 'Arise, I am your theme! Henceforth,
until you transmute me by the alchemy of your inward fire into vital speech, you
shall know no rest!' Happy, then, is that speaker, for he has found a subject
that grips him.
"Of course, experienced speakers use both methods of selection. Even a reading
and reflective man is sometimes compelled to hunt for a theme from Dan to
Beersheba, and then the task of gathering materials becomes a serious one. But
even in such a case there is a sense in which the selection comes by
development, because no careful speaker settles upon a theme which does not
represent at least some matured thought."[10]
Deciding on the Subject Matter
Even when your theme has been chosen for you by someone else, there remains to
you a considerable field for choice of subject matter. The same considerations,
in fact, that would govern you in choosing a theme must guide in the selection
of the material. Ask yourself—or someone else—such questions as these:
What is the precise nature of the occasion? How large an audience may be
expected? From what walks of life do they come? What is their probable attitude
toward the theme? Who else will speak? Do I speak first, last, or where, on the
program? What are the other speakers going to talk about? What is the nature of
the auditorium? Is there a desk? Could the subject be more effectively handled
if somewhat modified? Precisely how much time am I to fill?
It is evident that many speech-misfits of subject, speaker, occasion and place
are due to failure to ask just such pertinent questions. What should be said, by
whom, and in what circumstances, constitute ninety per cent of efficiency in
public address. No matter who asks you, refuse to be a square peg in a round
hole.
Questions of Proportion
Proportion in a speech is attained by a nice adjustment of time. How fully you
may treat your subject it is not always for you to say. Let ten minutes mean
neither nine nor eleven—though better nine than eleven, at all events. You
wouldn't steal a man's watch; no more should you steal the time of the
succeeding speaker, or that of the audience. There is no need to overstep
time-limits if you make your preparation adequate and divide your subject so as
to give each thought its due proportion of attention—and no more. Blessed is the
man that maketh short speeches, for he shall be invited to speak again.
Another matter of prime importance is, what part of your address demands the
most emphasis. This once decided, you will know where to place that pivotal
section so as to give it the greatest strategic value, and what degree of
preparation must be given to that central thought so that the vital part may not
be submerged by non-essentials. Many a speaker has awakened to find that he has
burnt up eight minutes of a ten-minute speech in merely getting up steam. That
is like spending eighty percent of your building-money on the vestibule of the
house.
The same sense of proportion must tell you to stop precisely when you are
through—and it is to be hoped that you will discover the arrival of that period
before your audience does.
Tapping Original Sources
The surest way to give life to speech-material is to gather your facts at first
hand. Your words come with the weight of authority when you can say, "I have
examined the employment rolls of every mill in this district and find that
thirty-two per cent of the children employed are under the legal age." No
citation of authorities can equal that. You must adopt the methods of the
reporter and find out the facts underlying your argument or appeal. To do so may
prove laborious, but it should not be irksome, for the great world of fact teems
with interest, and over and above all is the sense of power that will come to
you from original investigation. To see and feel the facts you are discussing
will react upon you much more powerfully than if you were to secure the facts at
second hand.
Live an active life among people who are doing worth-while things, keep eyes
and ears and mind and heart open to absorb truth, and then tell of the things
you know, as if you know them. The world will listen, for the world loves
nothing so much as real life.
How to Use a Library
Unsuspected treasures lie in the smallest library. Even when the owner has read
every last page of his books it is only in rare instances that he has full
indexes to all of them, either in his mind or on paper, so as to make available
the vast number of varied subjects touched upon or treated in volumes whose
titles would never suggest such topics.
For this reason it is a good thing to take an odd hour now and then to browse.
Take down one volume after another and look over its table of contents and its
index. (It is a reproach to any author of a serious book not to have provided a
full index, with cross references.) Then glance over the pages, making notes,
mental or physical, of material that looks interesting and usable. Most
libraries contain volumes that the owner is "going to read some day." A
familiarity with even the contents of such books on your own shelves will enable
you to refer to them when you want help. Writings read long ago should be
treated in the same way—in every chapter some surprise lurks to delight you.
In looking up a subject do not be discouraged if you do not find it indexed or
outlined in the table of contents—you are pretty sure to discover some material
under a related title.
Suppose you set to work somewhat in this way to gather references on
"Thinking:" First you look over your book titles, and there is Schaeffer's
"Thinking and Learning to Think." Near it is Kramer's "Talks to Students on the
Art of Study"—that seems likely to provide some material, and it does. Naturally
you think next of your book on psychology, and there is help there. If you have
a volume on the human intellect you will have already turned to it. Suddenly you
remember your encyclopedia and your dictionary of quotations—and now material
fairly rains upon you; the problem is what not to use. In the encyclopedia you
turn to every reference that includes or touches or even suggests "thinking;"
and in the dictionary of quotations you do the same. The latter volume you find
peculiarly helpful because it suggests several volumes to you that are on your
own shelves—you never would have thought to look in them for references on this
subject. Even fiction will supply help, but especially books of essays and
biography. Be aware of your own resources.
To make a general index to your library does away with the necessity for
indexing individual volumes that are not already indexed.
To begin with, keep a note-book by you; or small cards and paper cuttings in
your pocket and on your desk will serve as well. The same note-book that records
the impressions of your own experiences and thoughts will be enriched by the
ideas of others.
To be sure, this note-book habit means labor, but remember that more speeches
have been spoiled by half-hearted preparation than by lack of talent. Laziness
is an own-brother to Over-confidence, and both are your inveterate enemies,
though they pretend to be soothing friends.
Conserve your material by indexing every good idea on cards, thus:
Socialism
Progress of S., Env. 16
S. a fallacy, 96/210
General article on S., Howells', Dec. 1913
"Socialism and the Franchise," Forbes
"Socialism in Ancient Life," Original Ms.,
Env. 102
On the card illustrated above, clippings are indexed by giving the number of the
envelope in which they are filed. The envelopes may be of any size desired and
kept in any convenient receptacle. On the foregoing example, "Progress of S.,
Envelope 16," will represent a clipping, filed in Envelope 16, which is, of
course, numbered arbitrarily.
The fractions refer to books in your library—the numerator being the
book-number, the denominator referring to the page. Thus, "S. a fallacy,
96/210," refers to page 210 of volume 96 in your library. By some arbitrary
sign—say red ink—you may even index a reference in a public library book.
If you preserve your magazines, important articles may be indexed by month and
year. An entire volume on a subject may be indicated like the imaginary book by
"Forbes." If you clip the articles, it is better to index them according to the
envelope system.
Your own writings and notes may be filed in envelopes with the clippings or in a
separate series.
Another good indexing system combines the library index with the "scrap," or
clipping, system by making the outside of the envelope serve the same purpose as
the card for the indexing of books, magazines, clippings and manuscripts, the
latter two classes of material being enclosed in the envelopes that index them,
and all filed alphabetically.
When your cards accumulate so as to make ready reference difficult under a
single alphabet, you may subdivide each letter by subordinate guide cards marked
by the vowels, A, E, I, O, U. Thus, "Antiquities" would be filed under i in A,
because A begins the word, and the second letter, n, comes after the vowel i in
the alphabet, but before o. In the same manner, "Beecher" would be filed under e
in B; and "Hydrogen" would come under u in H.
Outlining the Address
No one can advise you how to prepare the notes for an address. Some speakers get
the best results while walking out and ruminating, jotting down notes as they
pause in their walk. Others never put pen to paper until the whole speech has
been thought out. The great majority, however, will take notes, classify their
notes, write a hasty first draft, and then revise the speech. Try each of these
methods and choose the one that is best—for you. Do not allow any man to force
you to work in his way; but do not neglect to consider his way, for it may be
better than your own.
For those who make notes and with their aid write out the speech, these
suggestions may prove helpful:
After having read and thought enough, classify your notes by setting down the
big, central thoughts of your material on separate cards or slips of paper.
These will stand in the same relation to your subject as chapters do to a book.
Then arrange these main ideas or heads in such an order that they will lead
effectively to the result you have in mind, so that the speech may rise in
argument, in interest, in power, by piling one fact or appeal upon another until
the climax—the highest point of influence on your audience—has been reached.
Next group all your ideas, facts, anecdotes, and illustrations under the
foregoing main heads, each where it naturally belongs.
You now have a skeleton or outline of your address that in its polished form
might serve either as the brief, or manuscript notes, for the speech or as the
guide-outline which you will expand into the written address, if written it is
to be.
Imagine each of the main ideas in the brief on page 213 as being separate; then
picture your mind as sorting them out and placing them in order; finally,
conceive of how you would fill in the facts and examples under each head, giving
special prominence to those you wish to emphasize and subduing those of less
moment. In the end, you have the outline complete. The simplest form of
outline—not very suitable for use on the platform, however—is the following:
WHY PROSPERITY IS COMING
What prosperity means.—The real tests of prosperity.—Its basis in the
soil.—American agricultural progress.—New interest in farming.—Enormous value of
our agricultural products.—Reciprocal effect on trade.—Foreign countries
affected.—Effects of our new internal economy—the regulation of banking and "big
business"—on prosperity.—Effects of our revised attitude toward foreign markets,
including our merchant marine.—Summary.
Obviously, this very simple outline is capable of considerable expansion under
each head by the addition of facts, arguments, inferences and examples.
Here is an outline arranged with more regard for argument:
FOREIGN IMMIGRATION SHOULD BE RESTRICTED[11]
I. Fact As Cause: Many immigrants are practically paupers. (Proofs involving
statistics or statements of authorities.)
II. Fact As Effect: They sooner or later fill our alms-houses and become public
charges. (Proofs involving statistics or statements of authorities.)
III. Fact As Cause: Some of them are criminals. (Examples of recent cases.)
IV. Fact As Effect: They reënforce the criminal classes. (Effects on our civic
life.)
V. Fact As Cause: Many of them know nothing of the duties of free citizenship.
(Examples.)
VI.Fact As Effect: Such immigrants recruit the worst element in our politics.
(Proofs.)
A more highly ordered grouping of topics and subtopics is shown in the
following:
OURS A CHRISTIAN NATION
I. Introduction: Why the subject is timely. Influences operative against this
contention today.
II. CHRISTIANITY PRESIDED OVER THE EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA.
1. First practical discovery by a Christian explorer. Columbus worshiped God on
the new soil.
2. The Cavaliers.
3. The French Catholic settlers.
4. The Huguenots.
5. The Puritans.
III. The Birth Of Our Nation Was Under Christian Auspices.
1. Christian character of Washington.
2. Other Christian patriots.
3. The Church in our Revolutionary struggle. Muhlenberg.
IV. OUR LATER HISTORY HAS ONLY EMPHASIZED OUR NATIONAL ATTITUDE. Examples of
dealings with foreign nations show Christian magnanimity. Returning the Chinese
Indemnity; fostering the Red Cross; attitude toward Belgium.
V. OUR GOVERNMENTAL FORMS AND MANY OF OUR LAWS ARE OF A CHRISTIAN TEMPER.
1. The use of the Bible in public ways, oaths, etc.
2. The Bible in our schools.
3. Christian chaplains minister to our law-making bodies, to our army, and to
our navy.
4. The Christian Sabbath is officially and generally recognized.
5. The Christian family and the Christian system of morality are at the basis of
our laws.
VI. THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE TESTIFIES OF THE POWER OF CHRISTIANITY. Charities,
education, etc., have Christian tone.
VII. Other Nations Regard Us As a Christian People.
VIII. Conclusion: The attitude which may reasonably be expected of all good
citizens toward questions touching the preservation of our standing as a
Christian nation.
Writing and Revision
After the outline has been perfected comes the time to write the speech, if
write it you must. Then, whatever you do, write it at white heat, with not too
much thought of anything but the strong, appealing expression of your ideas.
The final stage is the paring down, the re-vision—the seeing again, as the
word implies—when all the parts of the speech must be impartially scrutinized
for clearness, precision, force, effectiveness, suitability, proportion, logical
climax; and in all this you must imagine yourself to be before your audience,
for a speech is not an essay and what will convince and arouse in the one will
not prevail in the other.
The Title
Often last of all will come that which in a sense is first of all—the title, the
name by which the speech is known. Sometimes it will be the simple theme of the
address, as "The New Americanism," by Henry Watterson; or it may be a bit of
symbolism typifying the spirit of the address, as "Acres of Diamonds," by
Russell H. Conwell; or it may be a fine phrase taken from the body of the
address, as "Pass Prosperity Around," by Albert J. Beveridge. All in all, from
whatever motive it be chosen, let the title be fresh, short, suited to the
subject, and likely to excite interest.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Define (a) introduction; (b) climax; (c) peroration.
2. If a thirty-minute speech would require three hours for specific preparation,
would you expect to be able to do equal justice to a speech one-third as long in
one-third the time for preparation? Give reasons.
3. Relate briefly any personal experience you may have had in conserving time
for reading and thought.
4. In the manner of a reporter or investigator, go out and get first-hand
information on some subject of interest to the public. Arrange the results of
your research in the form of an outline, or brief.
5. From a private or a public library gather enough authoritative material on
one of the following questions to build an outline for a twenty-minute address.
Take one definite side of the question, (a) "The Housing of the Poor;" (b) "The
Commission Form of Government for Cities as a Remedy for Political Graft;" (c)
"The Test of Woman's Suffrage in the West;" (d) "Present Trends of Public Taste
in Reading;" (e) "Municipal Art;" (f) "Is the Theatre Becoming more Elevated in
Tone?" (g) "The Effects of the Magazine on Literature;" (h) "Does Modern Life
Destroy Ideals?" (i) "Is Competition 'the Life of Trade?'" (j) "Baseball is too
Absorbing to be a Wholesome National Game;" (k) "Summer Baseball and Amateur
Standing;" (l) "Does College Training Unfit a Woman for Domestic Life?" (m)
"Does Woman's Competition with Man in Business Dull the Spirit of Chivalry?" (n)
"Are Elective Studies Suited to High School Courses?" (o) "Does the Modern
College Prepare Men for Preeminent Leadership?" (p) "The Y.M.C.A. in Its
Relation to the Labor Problem;" (q) "Public Speaking as Training in
Citizenship."
6. Construct the outline, examining it carefully for interest, convincing
character, proportion, and climax of arrangement.
NOTE:—This exercise should be repeated until the student shows facility in
synthetic arrangement.
7. Deliver the address, if possible before an audience.
8. Make a three-hundred word report on the results, as best you are able to
estimate them.
9. Tell something of the benefits of using a periodical (or cumulative) index.
10. Give a number of quotations, suitable for a speaker's use, that you have
memorized in off moments.
11. In the manner of the outline on page 213, analyze the address on pages
78-79, "The History of Liberty."
12. Give an outline analysis, from notes or memory, of an address or sermon to
which you have listened for this purpose.
13. Criticise the address from a structural point of view.
14. Invent titles for any five of the themes in Exercise 5.
15. Criticise the titles of any five chapters of this book, suggesting better
ones.
16. Criticise the title of any lecture or address of which you know.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] How to Attract and Hold an Audience, J. Berg Esenwein.
[11] Adapted from Competition-Rhetoric, Scott and Denny, p. 241.
CHAPTER XIX
INFLUENCING BY EXPOSITION
Speak not at all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak; care not for the
reward of your speaking, but simply and with undivided mind for the truth of
your speaking.
—Thomas Carlyle, Essay on Biography.
A complete discussion of the rhetorical structure of public speeches requires a
fuller treatise than can be undertaken in a work of this nature, yet in this
chapter, and in the succeeding ones on "Description," "Narration," "Argument,"
and "Pleading," the underlying principles are given and explained as fully as
need be for a working knowledge, and adequate book references are given for
those who would perfect themselves in rhetorical art.
The Nature of Exposition
In the word "expose"—to lay bare, to uncover, to show the true inwardness of—we
see the foundation-idea of "Exposition." It is the clear and precise setting
forth of what the subject really is—it is explanation.
Exposition does not draw a picture, for that would be description. To tell in
exact terms what the automobile is, to name its characteristic parts and explain
their workings, would be exposition; so would an explanation of the nature of
"fear." But to create a mental image of a particular automobile, with its
glistening body, graceful lines, and great speed, would be description; and so
would a picturing of fear acting on the emotions of a child at night. Exposition
and description often intermingle and overlap, but fundamentally they are
distinct. Their differences will be touched upon again in the chapter on
"Description."
Exposition furthermore does not include an account of how events happened—that
is narration. When Peary lectured on his polar discoveries he explained the
instruments used for determining latitude and longitude—that was exposition. In
picturing his equipment he used description. In telling of his adventures day by
day he employed narration. In supporting some of his contentions he used
argument. Yet he mingled all these forms throughout the lecture.
Neither does exposition deal with reasons and inferences—that is the field of
argument. A series of connected statements intended to convince a prospective
buyer that one automobile is better than another, or proofs that the appeal to
fear is a wrong method of discipline, would not be exposition. The plain facts
as set forth in expository speaking or writing are nearly always the basis of
argument, yet the processes are not one. True, the statement of a single
significant fact without the addition of one other word may be convincing, but a
moment's thought will show that the inference, which completes a chain of
reasoning, is made in the mind of the hearer and presupposes other facts held in
consideration.[12]
In like manner, it is obvious that the field of persuasion is not open to
exposition, for exposition is entirely an intellectual process, with no
emotional element.
The Importance of Exposition
The importance of exposition in public speech is precisely the importance of
setting forth a matter so plainly that it cannot be misunderstood.
"To master the process of exposition is to become a clear thinker. 'I know, when
you do not ask me,'[13] replied a gentleman upon being requested to define a
highly complex idea. Now some large concepts defy explicit definition; but no
mind should take refuge behind such exceptions, for where definition fails,
other forms succeed. Sometimes we feel confident that we have perfect mastery of
an idea, but when the time comes to express it, the clearness becomes a haze.
Exposition, then, is the test of clear understanding. To speak effectively you
must be able to see your subject clearly and comprehensively, and to make your
audience see it as you do."[14]
There are pitfalls on both sides of this path. To explain too little will leave
your audience in doubt as to what you mean. It is useless to argue a question if
it is not perfectly clear just what is meant by the question. Have you never
come to a blind lane in conversation by finding that you were talking of one
aspect of a matter while your friend was thinking of another? If two do not
agree in their definitions of a Musician, it is useless to dispute over a
certain man's right to claim the title.
On the other side of the path lies the abyss of tediously explaining too much.
That offends because it impresses the hearers that you either do not respect
their intelligence or are trying to blow a breeze into a tornado. Carefully
estimate the probable knowledge of your audience, both in general and of the
particular point you are explaining. In trying to simplify, it is fatal to
"sillify." To explain more than is needed for the purposes of your argument or
appeal is to waste energy all around. In your efforts to be explicit do not
press exposition to the extent of dulness—the confines are not far distant and
you may arrive before you know it.
Some Purposes of Exposition
From what has been said it ought to be clear that, primarily, exposition weaves
a cord of understanding between you and your audience. It lays, furthermore, a
foundation of fact on which to build later statements, arguments, and appeals.
In scientific and purely "information" speeches exposition may exist by itself
and for itself, as in a lecture on biology, or on psychology; but in the vast
majority of cases it is used to accompany and prepare the way for the other
forms of discourse.
Clearness, precision, accuracy, unity, truth, and necessity—these must be the
constant standards by which you test the efficiency of your expositions, and,
indeed, that of every explanatory statement. This dictum should be written on
your brain in letters most plain. And let this apply not alone to the purposes
of exposition but in equal measure to your use of the
Methods of Exposition
The various ways along which a speaker may proceed in exposition are likely to
touch each other now and then, and even when they do not meet and actually
overlap they run so nearly parallel that the roads are sometimes distinct rather
in theory than in any more practical respect.
Definition, the primary expository method, is a statement of precise limits.[15]
Obviously, here the greatest care must be exercised that the terms of definition
should not themselves demand too much definition; that the language should be
concise and clear; and that the definition should neither exclude nor include
too much. The following is a simple example:
To expound is to set forth the nature, the significance, the characteristics,
and the bearing of an idea or a group of ideas.
—Arlo Bates, Talks on Writing English.
Contrast and Antithesis are often used effectively to amplify definition, as in
this sentence, which immediately follows the above-cited definition:
Exposition therefore differs from Description in that it deals directly with the
meaning or intent of its subject instead of with its appearance.
This antithesis forms an expansion of the definition, and as such it might have
been still further extended. In fact, this is a frequent practise in public
speech, where the minds of the hearers often ask for reiteration and expanded
statement to help them grasp a subject in its several aspects. This is the very
heart of exposition—to amplify and clarify all the terms by which a matter is
defined.
Example is another method of amplifying a definition or of expounding an idea
more fully. The following sentences immediately succeed Mr. Bates's definition
and contrast just quoted:
A good deal which we are accustomed inexactly to call description is really
exposition. Suppose that your small boy wishes to know how an engine works, and
should say: "Please describe the steam-engine to me." If you insist on taking
his words literally—and are willing to run the risk of his indignation at being
wilfully misunderstood—you will to the best of your ability picture to him this
familiarly wonderful machine. If you explain it to him, you are not describing
but expounding it.
The chief value of example is that it makes clear the unknown by referring the
mind to the known. Readiness of mind to make illuminating, apt comparisons for
the sake of clearness is one of the speaker's chief resources on the platform—it
is the greatest of all teaching gifts. It is a gift, moreover, that responds to
cultivation. Read the three extracts from Arlo Bates as their author delivered
them, as one passage, and see how they melt into one, each part supplementing
the other most helpfully.
Analogy, which calls attention to similar relationships in objects not otherwise
similar, is one of the most useful methods of exposition. The following striking
specimen is from Beecher's Liverpool speech:
A savage is a man of one story, and that one story a cellar. When a man begins
to be civilized he raises another story. When you christianize and civilize the
man, you put story upon story, for you develop faculty after faculty; and you
have to supply every story with your productions.
Discarding is a less common form of platform explanation. It consists in
clearing away associated ideas so that the attention may be centered on the main
thought to be discussed. Really, it is a negative factor in exposition though a
most important one, for it is fundamental to the consideration of an intricately
related matter that subordinate and side questions should be set aside in order
to bring out the main issue. Here is an example of the method:
I cannot allow myself to be led aside from the only issue before this jury. It
is not pertinent to consider that this prisoner is the husband of a heartbroken
woman and that his babes will go through the world under the shadow of the law's
extremest penalty worked upon their father. We must forget the venerable father
and the mother whom Heaven in pity took before she learned of her son's
disgrace. What have these matters of heart, what have the blenched faces of his
friends, what have the prisoner's long and honorable career to say before this
bar when you are sworn to weigh only the direct evidence before you? The one and
only question for you to decide on the evidence is whether this man did with
revengeful intent commit the murder that every impartial witness has solemnly
laid at his door.
Classification assigns a subject to its class. By an allowable extension of the
definition it may be said to assign it also to its order, genus, and species.
Classification is useful in public speech in narrowing the issue to a desired
phase. It is equally valuable for showing a thing in its relation to other
things, or in correlation. Classification is closely akin to Definition and
Division.
This question of the liquor traffic, sirs, takes its place beside the grave
moral issues of all times. Whatever be its economic significance—and who is
there to question it—whatever vital bearing it has upon our political system—and
is there one who will deny it?—the question of the licensed saloon must quickly
be settled as the world in its advancement has settled the questions of
constitutional government for the masses, of the opium traffic, of the serf, and
of the slave—not as matters of economic and political expediency but as
questions of right and wrong.
Analysis separates a subject into its essential parts. This it may do by various
principles; for example, analysis may follow the order of time (geologic eras),
order of place (geographic facts), logical order (a sermon outline), order of
increasing interest, or procession to a climax (a lecture on 20th century
poets); and so on. A classic example of analytical exposition is the following:
In philosophy the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God, or are
circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted upon himself. Out of which
several inquiries there do arise three knowledges: divine philosophy, natural
philosophy, and human philosophy or humanity. For all things are marked and
stamped with this triple character, of the power of God, the difference of
nature, and the use of man.
—Lord Bacon, The Advancement of Learning.[16]
Division differs only from analysis in that analysis follows the inherent
divisions of a subject, as illustrated in the foregoing passage, while division
arbitrarily separates the subject for convenience of treatment, as in the
following none-too-logical example:
For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly to be compared with the
three kinds of pictures or images. For of pictures or images, we see some are
unfinished, some are perfect, and some are defaced. So of histories we may find
three kinds, memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities; for memorials are
history unfinished, or the first or rough drafts of history; and antiquities are
history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the
shipwreck of time.
—Lord Bacon, The Advancement of Learning.[16A]
Generalization states a broad principle, or a general truth, derived from
examination of a considerable number of individual facts. This synthetic
exposition is not the same as argumentative generalization, which supports a
general contention by citing instances in proof. Observe how Holmes begins with
one fact, and by adding another and another reaches a complete whole. This is
one of the most effective devices in the public speaker's repertory.
Take a hollow cylinder, the bottom closed while the top remains open, and pour
in water to the height of a few inches. Next cover the water with a flat plate
or piston, which fits the interior of the cylinder perfectly; then apply heat to
the water, and we shall witness the following phenomena. After the lapse of some
minutes the water will begin to boil, and the steam accumulating at the upper
surface will make room for itself by raising the piston slightly. As the boiling
continues, more and more steam will be formed, and raise the piston higher and
higher, till all the water is boiled away, and nothing but steam is left in the
cylinder. Now this machine, consisting of cylinder, piston, water, and fire, is
the steam-engine in its most elementary form. For a steam-engine may be defined
as an apparatus for doing work by means of heat applied to water; and since
raising such a weight as the piston is a form of doing work, this apparatus,
clumsy and inconvenient though it may be, answers the definition precisely.[17]
Reference to Experience is one of the most vital principles in exposition—as in
every other form of discourse.
"Reference to experience, as here used, means reference to the known. The known
is that which the listener has seen, heard, read, felt, believed or done, and
which still exists in his consciousness—his stock of knowledge. It embraces all
those thoughts, feelings and happenings which are to him real. Reference to
Experience, then, means coming into the listener's life.[18]
The vast results obtained by science are won by no mystical faculties, by no
mental processes, other than those which are practised by every one of us in the
humblest and meanest affairs of life. A detective policeman discovers a burglar
from the marks made by his shoe, by a mental process identical with that by
which Cuvier restored the extinct animals of Montmartre from fragments of their
bones. Nor does that process of induction and deduction by which a lady, finding
a stain of a particular kind upon her dress, concludes that somebody has upset
the inkstand thereon, differ in any way from that by which Adams and Leverrier
discovered a new planet. The man of science, in fact, simply uses with
scrupulous exactness the methods which we all habitually, and at every moment,
use carelessly.
—Thomas Henry Huxley, Lay Sermons.
Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with
all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek?
a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? is not your voice broken?
your wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and every part about you
blasted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir
John!
—Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Finally, in preparing expository material ask yourself these questions regarding
your subject:
What is it, and what is it not?
What is it like, and unlike?
What are its causes, and effects?
How shall it be divided?
With what subjects is it correlated?
What experiences does it recall?
What examples illustrate it?
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. What would be the effect of adhering to any one of the forms of discourse in
a public address?
2. Have you ever heard such an address?
3. Invent a series of examples illustrative of the distinctions made on pages
232 and 233.
4. Make a list of ten subjects that might be treated largely, if not entirely,
by exposition.
5. Name the six standards by which expository writing should be tried.
6. Define any one of the following: (a) storage battery; (b) "a free hand;" (c)
sail boat; (d) "The Big Stick;" (e) nonsense; (f) "a good sport;" (g)
short-story; (h) novel; (i) newspaper; (j) politician; (k) jealousy; (l) truth;
(m) matinée girl; (n) college honor system; (o) modish; (p) slum; (q) settlement
work; (r) forensic.
7. Amplify the definition by antithesis.
8. Invent two examples to illustrate the definition (question 6).
9. Invent two analogies for the same subject (question 6).
10. Make a short speech based on one of the following: (a) wages and salary;
(b) master and man; (c) war and peace; (d) home and the boarding house; (e)
struggle and victory; (f) ignorance and ambition.
11. Make a ten-minute speech on any of the topics named in question 6, using all
the methods of exposition already named.
12. Explain what is meant by discarding topics collateral and subordinate to a
subject.
13. Rewrite the jury-speech on page 224.
14. Define correlation.
15. Write an example of "classification," on any political, social, economic, or
moral issue of the day.
16. Make a brief analytical statement of Henry W. Grady's "The Race Problem,"
page 36.
17. By what analytical principle did you proceed? (See page 225.)
18. Write a short, carefully generalized speech from a large amount of data on
one of the following subjects: (a) The servant girl problem; (b) cats; (c) the
baseball craze; (d) reform administrations; (e) sewing societies; (f)
coeducation; (g) the traveling salesman.
19. Observe this passage from Newton's "Effective Speaking:"
"That man is a cynic. He sees goodness nowhere. He sneers at virtue, sneers at
love; to him the maiden plighting her troth is an artful schemer, and he sees
even in the mother's kiss nothing but an empty conventionality."
Write, commit and deliver two similar passages based on your choice from this
list: (a) "the egotist;" (b) "the sensualist;" (c) "the hypocrite;" (d) "the
timid man;" (e) "the joker;" (f) "the flirt;" (g) "the ungrateful woman;" (h)
"the mournful man." In both cases use the principle of "Reference to
Experience."
20. Write a passage on any of the foregoing characters in imitation of the style
of Shakespeare's characterization of Sir John Falstaff, page 227.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Argumentation will be outlined fully in subsequent chapter.
[13] The Working Principles of Rhetoric, J.F. Genung.
[14] How to Attract and Hold an Audience, J. Berg Esenwein.
[15] On the various types of definition see any college manual of Rhetoric.
[16] Quoted in The Working Principles of Rhetoric, J.F. Genung.
[16A] Quoted in The Working Principles of Rhetoric, J.F. Genung.
[17] G.C.V. Holmes, quoted in Specimens of Exposition, H. Lamont.
[18] Effective Speaking, Arthur Edward Phillips. This work covers the
preparation of public speech in a very helpful way.
CHAPTER XX
INFLUENCING BY DESCRIPTION
The groves of Eden vanish'd now so long,
Live in description, and look green in song.
—Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest.
The moment our discourse rises above the ground-line of familiar facts, and is
inflamed with passion or exalted thought, it clothes itself in images. A man
conversing in earnest, if he watch his intellectual processes, will find that
always a material image, more or less luminous, arises in his mind,
contemporaneous with every thought, which furnishes the vestment of the
thought.... This imagery is spontaneous. It is the blending of experience with
the present action of the mind. It is proper creation.—Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Nature.
Like other valuable resources in public speaking, description loses its power
when carried to an extreme. Over-ornamentation makes the subject ridiculous. A
dust-cloth is a very useful thing, but why embroider it? Whether description
shall be restrained within its proper and important limits, or be encouraged to
run riot, is the personal choice that comes before every speaker, for man's
earliest literary tendency is to depict.
The Nature of Description
To describe is to call up a picture in the mind of the hearer. "In talking of
description we naturally speak of portraying, delineating, coloring, and all the
devices of the picture painter. To describe is to visualize, hence we must look
at description as a pictorial process, whether the writer deals with material or
with spiritual objects."[19]
If you were asked to describe the rapid-fire gun you might go about it in either
of two ways: give a cold technical account of its mechanism, in whole and in
detail, or else describe it as a terrible engine of slaughter, dwelling upon its
effects rather than upon its structure.
The former of these processes is exposition, the latter is true description.
Exposition deals more with the general, while description must deal with the
particular. Exposition elucidates ideas, description treats of things.
Exposition deals with the abstract, description with the concrete. Exposition is
concerned with the internal, description with the external. Exposition is
enumerative, description literary. Exposition is intellectual, description
sensory. Exposition is impersonal, description personal.
If description is a visualizing process for the hearer, it is first of all such
for the speaker—he cannot describe what he has never seen, either physically or
in fancy. It is this personal quality—this question of the personal eye which
sees the things later to be described—that makes description so interesting in
public speech. Given a speaker of personality, and we are interested in his
personal view—his view adds to the natural interest of the scene, and may even
be the sole source of that interest to his auditors.
The seeing eye has been praised in an earlier chapter (on "Subject and
Preparation") and the imagination will be treated in a subsequent one (on
"Riding the Winged Horse"), but here we must consider the picturing mind: the
mind that forms the double habit of seeing things clearly—for we see more with
the mind than we do with the physical eye—and then of re-imaging these things
for the purpose of getting them before the minds' eyes of the hearers. No habit
is more useful than that of visualizing clearly the object, the scene, the
situation, the action, the person, about to be described. Unless that primary
process is carried out clearly, the picture will be blurred for the
hearer-beholder.
In a work of this nature we are concerned with the rhetorical analysis of
description, and with its methods, only so far as may be needed for the
practical purposes of the speaker.[20] The following grouping, therefore, will
not be regarded as complete, nor will it here be necessary to add more than a
word of explanation:
Description for Public Speakers
Objects
{ Still
Objects
{ In motion
Scenes
{ Still
Scenes
{ Including action
Situations
{ Preceding change
Situations
{ During change
Situations
{ After change
Actions
{ Mental
Actions
{Physical
Persons
{ Internal
Persons
{ External
Some of the foregoing processes will overlap, in certain instances, and all
are more likely to be found in combination than singly.
When description is intended solely to give accurate information—as to delineate
the appearance, not the technical construction, of the latest Zeppelin
airship—it is called "scientific description," and is akin to exposition. When
it is intended to present a free picture for the purpose of making a vivid
impression, it is called "artistic description." With both of these the public
speaker has to deal, but more frequently with the latter form. Rhetoricians make
still further distinctions.
Methods of Description
In public speaking, description should be mainly by suggestion, not only because
suggestive description is so much more compact and time-saving but because it is
so vivid. Suggestive expressions connote more than they literally say—they
suggest ideas and pictures to the mind of the hearer which supplement the direct
words of the speaker. When Dickens, in his "Christmas Carol," says: "In came
Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile," our minds complete the picture so
deftly begun—a much more effective process than that of a minutely detailed
description because it leaves a unified, vivid impression, and that is what we
need. Here is a present-day bit of suggestion: "General Trinkle was a gnarly oak
of a man—rough, solid, and safe; you always knew where to find him." Dickens
presents Miss Peecher as: "A little pin-cushion, a little housewife, a little
book, a little work-box, a little set of tables and weights and measures, and a
little woman all in one." In his "Knickerbocker's" "History of New York," Irving
portrays Wouter van Twiller as "a robustious beer-barrel, standing on skids."
Whatever forms of description you neglect, be sure to master the art of
suggestion.
Description may be by simple hint. Lowell notes a happy instance of this sort of
picturing by intimation when he says of Chaucer: "Sometimes he describes amply
by the merest hint, as where the Friar, before setting himself down, drives away
the cat. We know without need of more words that he has chosen the snuggest
corner."
Description may depict a thing by its effects. "When the spectator's eye is
dazzled, and he shades it," says Mozley in his "Essays," "we form the idea of a
splendid object; when his face turns pale, of a horrible one; from his quick
wonder and admiration we form the idea of great beauty; from his silent awe, of
great majesty."
Brief description may be by epithet. "Blue-eyed," "white-armed,"
"laughter-loving," are now conventional compounds, but they were fresh enough
when Homer first conjoined them. The centuries have not yet improved upon
"Wheels round, brazen, eight-spoked," or "Shields smooth, beautiful, brazen,
well-hammered." Observe the effective use of epithet in Will Levington Comfort's
"The Fighting Death," when he speaks of soldiers in a Philippine skirmish as
being "leeched against a rock."
Description uses figures of speech. Any advanced rhetoric will discuss their
forms and give examples for guidance.[21] This matter is most important, be
assured. A brilliant yet carefully restrained figurative style, a style marked
by brief, pungent, witty, and humorous comparisons and characterizations, is a
wonderful resource for all kinds of platform work.
Description may be direct. This statement is plain enough without exposition.
Use your own judgment as to whether in picturing you had better proceed from a
general view to the details, or first give the details and thus build up the
general picture, but by all means BE BRIEF.
Note the vivid compactness of these delineations from Washington Irving's
"Knickerbocker:"
He was a short, square, brawny old gentleman, with a double chin, a mastiff
mouth, and a broad copper nose, which was supposed in those days to have
acquired its fiery hue from the constant neighborhood of his tobacco pipe.
He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in
circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions,
that Dame Nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to
construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the
attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just between the
shoulders. His body was of an oblong form, particularly capacious at bottom;
which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary
habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking.
The foregoing is too long for the platform, but it is so good-humored, so full
of delightful exaggeration, that it may well serve as a model of humorous
character picturing, for here one inevitably sees the inner man in the outer.
Direct description for platform use may be made vivid by the sparing use of the
"historical present." The following dramatic passage, accompanied by the most
lively action, has lingered in the mind for thirty years after hearing Dr. T. De
Witt Talmage lecture on "Big Blunders." The crack of the bat sounds clear even
today:
Get ready the bats and take your positions. Now, give us the ball. Too low.
Don't strike. Too high. Don't strike. There it comes like lightning. Strike!
Away it soars! Higher! Higher! Run! Another base! Faster! Faster! Good! All
around at one stroke!
Observe the remarkable way in which the lecturer fused speaker, audience,
spectators, and players into one excited, ecstatic whole—just as you have found
yourself starting forward in your seat at the delivery of the ball with "three
on and two down" in the ninth inning. Notice, too, how—perhaps
unconsciously—Talmage painted the scene in Homer's characteristic style: not as
having already happened, but as happening before your eyes.
If you have attended many travel talks you must have been impressed by the
painful extremes to which the lecturers go—with a few notable exceptions, their
language is either over-ornate or crude. If you would learn the power of words
to make scenery, yes, even houses, palpitate with poetry and human appeal, read
Lafcadio Hearn, Robert Louis Stevenson, Pierre Loti, and Edmondo De Amicis.
Blue-distant, a mountain of carven stone appeared before them,—the Temple,
lifting to heaven its wilderness of chiseled pinnacles, flinging to the sky the
golden spray of its decoration.
—Lafcadio Hearn, Chinese Ghosts.
The stars were clear, colored, and jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint silvery
vapour stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points stood upright
and stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle I could see Modestine
walking round and round at the length of her tether; I could hear her steadily
munching at the sward; but there was not another sound save the indescribable
quiet talk of the runnel over the stones.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey.
It was full autumn now, late autumn—with the nightfalls gloomy, and all things
growing dark early in the old cottage, and all the Breton land looking sombre,
too. The very days seemed but twilight; immeasurable clouds, slowly passing,
would suddenly bring darkness at broad noon. The wind moaned constantly—it was
like the sound of a great cathedral organ at a distance, but playing profane
airs, or despairing dirges; at other times it would come close to the door, and
lift up a howl like wild beasts.—Pierre Loti, An Iceland Fisherman.
I see the great refectory,[22] where a battalion might have drilled; I see the
long tables, the five hundred heads bent above the plates, the rapid motion of
five hundred forks, of a thousand hands, and sixteen thousand teeth; the swarm
of servants running here and there, called to, scolded, hurried, on every side
at once; I hear the clatter of dishes, the deafening noise, the voices choked
with food crying out: "Bread—bread!" and I feel once more the formidable
appetite, the herculean strength of jaw, the exuberant life and spirits of those
far-off days.[23]
—Edmondo De Amicis, College Friends.
Suggestions for the Use of Description
Decide, on beginning a description, what point of view you wish your hearers to
take. One cannot see either a mountain or a man on all sides at once. Establish
a view-point, and do not shift without giving notice.
Choose an attitude toward your subject—shall it be idealized? caricatured?
ridiculed? exaggerated? defended? or described impartially?
Be sure of your mood, too, for it will color the subject to be described.
Melancholy will make a rose-garden look gray.
Adopt an order in which you will proceed—do not shift backward and forward from
near to far, remote to close in time, general to particular, large to small,
important to unimportant, concrete to abstract, physical to mental; but follow
your chosen order. Scattered and shifting observations produce hazy impressions
just as a moving camera spoils the time-exposure.
Do not go into needless minutiæ. Some details identify a thing with its class,
while other details differentiate it from its class. Choose only the
significant, suggestive characteristics and bring those out with terse
vividness. Learn a lesson from the few strokes used by the poster artist.
In determining what to describe and what merely to name, seek to read the
knowledge of your audience. The difference to them between the unknown and the
known is a vital one also to you.
Relentlessly cut out all ideas and words not necessary to produce the effect you
desire. Each element in a mental picture either helps or hinders. Be sure they
do not hinder, for they cannot be passively present in any discourse.
Interruptions of the description to make side-remarks are as powerful to
destroy unity as are scattered descriptive phrases. The only visual impression
that can be effective is one that is unified.
In describing, try to call up the emotions you felt when first you saw the
scene, and then try to reproduce those emotions in your hearers. Description is
primarily emotional in its appeal; nothing can be more deadly dull than a cold,
unemotional outline, while nothing leaves a warmer impression than a glowing,
spirited description.
Give a swift and vivid general view at the close of the portrayal. First and
final impressions remain the longest. The mind may be trained to take in the
characteristic points of a subject, so as to view in a single scene, action,
experience, or character, a unified impression of the whole. To describe a thing
as a whole you must first see it as a whole. Master that art and you have
mastered description to the last degree.
SELECTIONS FOR PRACTISE
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE
I went to Washington the other day, and I stood on the Capitol Hill; my heart
beat quick as I looked at the towering marble of my country's Capitol and the
mist gathered in my eyes as I thought of its tremendous significance, and the
armies and the treasury, and the judges and the President, and the Congress and
the courts, and all that was gathered there. And I felt that the sun in all its
course could not look down on a better sight than that majestic home of a
republic that had taught the world its best lessons of liberty. And I felt that
if honor and wisdom and justice abided therein, the world would at last owe to
that great house in which the ark of the covenant of my country is lodged, its
final uplifting and its regeneration.
Two days afterward, I went to visit a friend in the country, a modest man, with
a quiet country home. It was just a simple, unpretentious house, set about with
big trees, encircled in meadow and field rich with the promise of harvest. The
fragrance of the pink and hollyhock in the front yard was mingled with the aroma
of the orchard and of the gardens, and resonant with the cluck of poultry and
the hum of bees.
Inside was quiet, cleanliness, thrift, and comfort. There was the old clock that
had welcomed, in steady measure, every newcomer to the family, that had ticked
the solemn requiem of the dead, and had kept company with the watcher at the
bedside. There were the big, restful beds and the old, open fireplace, and the
old family Bible, thumbed with the fingers of hands long since still, and wet
with the tears of eyes long since closed, holding the simple annals of the
family and the heart and the conscience of the home.
Outside, there stood my friend, the master, a simple, upright man, with no
mortgage on his roof, no lien on his growing crops, master of his land and
master of himself. There was his old father, an aged, trembling man, but happy
in the heart and home of his son. And as they started to their home, the hands
of the old man went down on the young man's shoulder, laying there the
unspeakable blessing of the honored and grateful father and ennobling it with
the knighthood of the fifth commandment.
And as they reached the door the old mother came with the sunset falling fair on
her face, and lighting up her deep, patient eyes, while her lips, trembling with
the rich music of her heart, bade her husband and son welcome to their home.
Beyond was the housewife, busy with her household cares, clean of heart and
conscience, the buckler and helpmeet of her husband. Down the lane came the
children, trooping home after the cows, seeking as truant birds do the quiet of
their home nest.
And I saw the night come down on that house, falling gently as the wings of the
unseen dove. And the old man—while a startled bird called from the forest, and
the trees were shrill with the cricket's cry, and the stars were swarming in the
sky—got the family around him, and, taking the old Bible from the table, called
them to their knees, the little baby hiding in the folds of its mother's dress,
while he closed the record of that simple day by calling down God's benediction
on that family and that home. And while I gazed, the vision of that marble
Capitol faded. Forgotten were its treasures and its majesty and I said, "Oh,
surely here in the homes of the people are lodged at last the strength and the
responsibility of this government, the hope and the promise of this
republic."—Henry W. Grady.
SUGGESTIVE SCENES
One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in events and places.
The sight of a pleasant arbor puts it in our mind to sit there. One place
suggests work, another idleness, a third early rising and long rambles in the
dew. The effect of night, of any flowing water, of lighted cities, of the peep
of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls up in the mind an army of anonymous
desires and pleasures. Something, we feel, should happen; we know not what, yet
we proceed in quest of it. And many of the happiest hours in life fleet by us in
this vain attendance on the genius of the place and moment. It is thus that
tracts of young fir, and low rocks that reach into deep soundings, particularly
delight and torture me. Something must have happened in such places, and perhaps
ages back, to members of my race; and when I was a child I tried to invent
appropriate games for them, as I still try, just as vainly, to fit them with the
proper story. Some places speak distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a
murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set aside
for shipwreck. Other spots again seem to abide their destiny, suggestive and
impenetrable, "miching mallecho." The inn at Burford Bridge, with its arbours
and green garden and silent, eddying river—though it is known already as the
place where Keats wrote some of his Endymion and Nelson parted from his
Emma—still seems to wait the coming of the appropriate legend. Within these
ivied walls, behind these old green shutters, some further business smoulders,
waiting for its hour. The old Hawes Inn at the Queen's ferry makes a similar
call upon my fancy. There it stands, apart from the town, beside the pier, in a
climate of its own, half inland, half marine—in front, the ferry bubbling with
the tide and the guard-ship swinging to her anchor; behind, the old garden with
the trees. Americans seek it already for the sake of Lovel and Oldbuck, who
dined there at the beginning of the Antiquary. But you need not tell me—that is
not all; there is some story, unrecorded or not yet complete, which must express
the meaning of that inn more fully.... I have lived both at the Hawes and
Burford in a perpetual flutter, on the heel, as it seemed, of some adventure
that should justify the place; but though the feeling had me to bed at night and
called me again at morning in one unbroken round of pleasure and suspense,
nothing befell me in either worth remark. The man or the hour had not yet come;
but some day, I think, a boat shall put off from the Queen's ferry, fraught with
a dear cargo, and some frosty night a horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with
his whip upon the green shutters at the inn at Burford.
—R.L. Stevenson, A Gossip on Romance.
FROM "MIDNIGHT IN LONDON"
Clang! Clang! Clang! the fire-bells! Bing! Bing! Bing! the alarm! In an instant
quiet turns to uproar—an outburst of noise, excitement, clamor—bedlam broke
loose; Bing! Bing! Bing! Rattle, clash and clatter. Open fly the doors; brave
men mount their boxes. Bing! Bing! Bing! They're off! The horses tear down the
street like mad. Bing! Bing! Bing! goes the gong!
"Get out of the track! The engines are coming! For God's sake, snatch that child
from the road!"
On, on, wildly, resolutely, madly fly the steeds. Bing! Bing! the gong. Away
dash the horses on the wings of fevered fury. On whirls the machine, down
streets, around corners, up this avenue and across that one, out into the very
bowels of darkness, whiffing, wheezing, shooting a million sparks from the
stack, paving the path of startled night with a galaxy of stars. Over the
house-tops to the north, a volcanic burst of flame shoots out, belching with
blinding effect. The sky is ablaze. A tenement house is burning. Five hundred
souls are in peril. Merciful Heaven! Spare the victims! Are the engines coming?
Yes, here they are, dashing down the street. Look! the horses ride upon the
wind; eyes bulging like balls of fire; nostrils wide open. A palpitating billow
of fire, rolling, plunging, bounding rising, falling, swelling, heaving, and
with mad passion bursting its red-hot sides asunder, reaching out its arms,
encircling, squeezing, grabbing up, swallowing everything before it with the
hot, greedy mouth of an appalling monster.
How the horses dash around the corner! Animal instinct say you? Aye, more. Brute
reason.
"Up the ladders, men!"
The towering building is buried in bloated banks of savage, biting elements.
Forked tongues dart out and in, dodge here and there, up and down, and wind
their cutting edges around every object. A crash, a dull, explosive sound, and a
puff of smoke leaps out. At the highest point upon the roof stands a dark figure
in a desperate strait, the hands making frantic gestures, the arms swinging
wildly—and then the body shoots off into frightful space, plunging upon the
pavement with a revolting thud. The man's arm strikes a bystander as he darts
down. The crowd shudders, sways, and utters a low murmur of pity and horror. The
faint-hearted lookers-on hide their faces. One woman swoons away.
"Poor fellow! Dead!" exclaims a laborer, as he looks upon the man's body.
"Aye, Joe, and I knew him well, too! He lived next door to me, five flights
back. He leaves a widowed mother and two wee bits of orphans. I helped him bury
his wife a fortnight ago. Ah, Joe! but it's hard lines for the orphans."
A ghastly hour moves on, dragging its regiment of panic in its trail and leaving
crimson blotches of cruelty along the path of night.
"Are they all out, firemen?"
"Aye, aye, sir!"
"No, they're not! There's a woman in the top window holding a child in her
arms—over yonder in the right-hand corner! The ladders, there! A hundred pounds
to the man who makes the rescue!"
A dozen start. One man more supple than the others, and reckless in his bravery,
clambers to the top rung of the ladder.
"Too short!" he cries. "Hoist another!"
Up it goes. He mounts to the window, fastens the rope, lashes mother and babe,
swings them off into ugly emptiness, and lets them down to be rescued by his
comrades.
"Bravo, fireman!" shouts the crowd.
A crash breaks through the uproar of crackling timbers.
"Look alive, up there! Great God! The roof has fallen!"
The walls sway, rock, and tumble in with a deafening roar. The spectators cease
to breathe. The cold truth reveals itself. The fireman has been carried into the
seething furnace. An old woman, bent with the weight of age, rushes through the
fire line, shrieking, raving, and wringing her hands and opening her heart of
grief.
"Poor John! He was all I had! And a brave lad he was, too! But he's gone now. He
lost his own life in savin' two more, and now—now he's there, away in there!"
she repeats, pointing to the cruel oven.
The engines do their work. The flames die out. An eerie gloom hangs over the
ruins like a formidable, blackened pall.
And the noon of night is passed.—Ardennes Jones-Foster.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
1. Write two paragraphs on one of these: the race horse, the motor boat,
golfing, tennis; let the first be pure exposition and the second pure
description.
2. Select your own theme and do the same in two short extemporaneous speeches.
3. Deliver a short original address in the over-ornamented style.
4. (a) Point out its defects; (b) recast it in a more effective style; (c) show
how the one surpasses the other.
5. Make a list of ten subjects which lend themselves to description in the style
you prefer.
6. Deliver a two-minute speech on any one of them, using chiefly, but not
solely, description.
7. For one minute, look at any object, scene, action, picture, or person you
choose, take two minutes to arrange your thoughts, and then deliver a short
description—all without making written notes.
8. In what sense is description more personal than exposition?
9. Explain the difference between a scientific and an artistic description.
10. In the style of Dickens and Irving (pages 234, 235), write five separate
sentences describing five characters by means of suggestion—one sentence to
each.
11. Describe a character by means of a hint, after the manner of Chaucer (p.
235).
12. Read aloud the following with special attention to gesture:
His very throat was moral. You saw a good deal of it. You looked over a very low
fence of white cravat (whereof no man had ever beheld the tie, for he fastened
it behind), and there it lay, a valley between two jutting heights of collar,
serene and whiskerless before you. It seemed to say, on the part of Mr.
Pecksniff, "There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen, all is peace, a holy
calm pervades me." So did his hair, just grizzled with an iron gray, which was
all brushed off his forehead, and stood bolt upright, or slightly drooped in
kindred action with his heavy eyelids. So did his person, which was sleek though
free from corpulency. So did his manner, which was soft and oily. In a word,
even his plain black suit, and state of widower, and dangling double eye-glass,
all tended to the same purpose, and cried aloud, "Behold the moral Pecksniff!"
—Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit.
13. Which of the following do you prefer, and why?
She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen, plump as a partridge, ripe and
melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches.—Irving.
She was a splendidly feminine girl, as wholesome as a November pippin, and no
more mysterious than a window-pane.
—O. Henry.
Small, shining, neat, methodical, and buxom was Miss Peecher; cherry-cheeked and
tuneful of voice.—Dickens.
14. Invent five epithets, and apply them as you choose (p. 235).
15. (a) Make a list of five figures of speech; (b) define them; (c) give an
example—preferably original—under each.
16. Pick out the figures of speech in the address by Grady, on page 240.
17. Invent an original figure to take the place of any one in Grady's speech.
18. What sort of figures do you find in the selection from Stevenson, on page
242?
19. What methods of description does he seem to prefer?
20. Write and deliver, without notes and with descriptive gestures, a
description in imitation of any of the authors quoted in this chapter.
21. Reëxamine one of your past speeches and improve the descriptive work. Report
on what faults you found to exist.
22. Deliver an extemporaneous speech describing any dramatic scene in the style
of "Midnight in London."
23. Describe an event in your favorite sport in the style of Dr. Talmage. Be
careful to make the delivery effective.
24. Criticise, favorably or unfavorably, the descriptions of any travel talk
you may have heard recently.
25. Deliver a brief original travel talk, as though you were showing pictures.
26. Recast the talk and deliver it "without pictures."
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Writing the Short-Story, J. Berg Esenwein.
[20] For fuller treatment of Description see Genung's Working Principles of
Rhetoric, Albright's Descriptive Writing, Bates' Talks on Writing English, first
and second series, and any advanced rhetoric.
[21] See also The Art of Versification, J. Berg Esenwein and Mary Eleanor
Roberts, pp. 28-35; and Writing the Short-Story, J. Berg Esenwein, pp. 152-162;
231-240.
[22] In the Military College of Modena.
[23] This figure of speech is known as "Vision."
CHAPTER XXI
INFLUENCING BY NARRATION
The art of narration is the art of writing in hooks and eyes. The principle
consists in making the appropriate thought follow the appropriate thought, the
proper fact the proper fact; in first preparing the mind for what is to come,
and then letting it come.—Walter Bagehot, Literary Studies.
Our very speech is curiously historical. Most men, you may observe, speak only
to narrate; not in imparting what they have thought, which indeed were often a
very small matter, but in exhibiting what they have undergone or seen, which is
a quite unlimited one, do talkers dilate. Cut us off from Narrative, how would
the stream of conversation, even among the wisest, languish into detached
handfuls, and among the foolish utterly evaporate! Thus, as we do nothing but
enact History, we say little but recite it.—Thomas Carlyle, On History.
Only a small segment of the great field of narration offers its resources to the
public speaker, and that includes the anecdote, biographical facts, and the
narration of events in general.
Narration—more easily defined than mastered—is the recital of an incident, or a
group of facts and occurrences, in such a manner as to produce a desired effect.
The laws of narration are few, but its successful practise involves more of art
than would at first appear—so much, indeed, that we cannot even touch upon its
technique here, but must content ourselves with an examination of a few examples
of narration as used in public speech.
In a preliminary way, notice how radically the public speaker's use of
narrative differs from that of the story-writer in the more limited scope,
absence of extended dialogue and character drawing, and freedom from elaboration
of detail, which characterize platform narrative. On the other hand, there are
several similarities of method: the frequent combination of narration with
exposition, description, argumentation, and pleading; the care exercised in the
arrangement of material so as to produce a strong effect at the close (climax);
the very general practise of concealing the "point" (dénouement) of a story
until the effective moment; and the careful suppression of needless, and
therefore hurtful, details.
So we see that, whether for magazine or platform, the art of narration involves
far more than the recital of annals; the succession of events recorded requires
a plan in order to bring them out with real effect.
It will be noticed, too, that the literary style in platform narration is likely
to be either less polished and more vigorously dramatic than in that intended
for publication, or else more fervid and elevated in tone. In this latter
respect, however, the best platform speaking of today differs from the models of
the preceding generation, wherein a highly dignified, and sometimes pompous,
style was thought the only fitting dress for a public deliverance. Great, noble
and stirring as these older masters were in their lofty and impassioned
eloquence, we are sometimes oppressed when we read their sounding periods for
any great length of time—even allowing for all that we lose by missing the
speaker's presence, voice, and fire. So let us model our platform narration, as
our other forms of speech, upon the effective addresses of the moderns, without
lessening our admiration for the older school.
The Anecdote
An anecdote is a short narrative of a single event, told as being striking
enough to bring out a point. The keener the point, the more condensed the form,
and the more suddenly the application strikes the hearer, the better the story.
To regard an anecdote as an illustration—an interpretive picture—will help to
hold us to its true purpose, for a purposeless story is of all offenses on the
platform the most asinine. A perfectly capital joke will fall flat when it is
dragged in by the nape without evident bearing on the subject under discussion.
On the other hand, an apposite anecdote has saved many a speech from failure.
"There is no finer opportunity for the display of tact than in the introduction
of witty or humorous stories into a discourse. Wit is keen and like a rapier,
piercing deeply, sometimes even to the heart. Humor is good-natured, and does
not wound. Wit is founded upon the sudden discovery of an unsuspected relation
existing between two ideas. Humor deals with things out of relation—with the
incongruous. It was wit in Douglass Jerrold to retort upon the scowl of a
stranger whose shoulder he had familiarly slapped, mistaking him for a friend:
'I beg your pardon, I thought I knew you—but I'm glad I don't.' It was humor in
the Southern orator, John Wise, to liken the pleasure of spending an evening
with a Puritan girl to that of sitting on a block of ice in winter, cracking
hailstones between his teeth."[24]
The foregoing quotation has been introduced chiefly to illustrate the first and
simplest form of anecdote—the single sentence embodying a pungent saying.
Another simple form is that which conveys its meaning without need of
"application," as the old preachers used to say. George Ade has quoted this one
as the best joke he ever heard:
Two solemn-looking gentlemen were riding together in a railway carriage. One
gentleman said to the other: "Is your wife entertaining this summer?" Whereupon
the other gentleman replied: "Not very."
Other anecdotes need harnessing to the particular truth the speaker wishes to
carry along in his talk. Sometimes the application is made before the story is
told and the audience is prepared to make the comparison, point by point, as the
illustration is told. Henry W. Grady used this method in one of the anecdotes he
told while delivering his great extemporaneous address, "The New South."
Age does not endow all things with strength and virtue, nor are all new things
to be despised. The shoemaker who put over his door, "John Smith's shop, founded
1760," was more than matched by his young rival across the street who hung out
this sign: "Bill Jones. Established 1886. No old stock kept in this shop."
In two anecdotes, told also in "The New South," Mr. Grady illustrated another
way of enforcing the application: in both instances he split the idea he wished
to drive home, bringing in part before and part after the recital of the story.
The fact that the speaker misquoted the words of Genesis in which the Ark is
described did not seem to detract from the burlesque humor of the story.
I bespeak the utmost stretch of your courtesy tonight. I am not troubled about
those from whom I come. You remember the man whose wife sent him to a neighbor
with a pitcher of milk, who, tripping on the top step, fell, with such casual
interruptions as the landings afforded, into the basement, and, while picking
himself up, had the pleasure of hearing his wife call out:
"John, did you break the pitcher?
"No, I didn't," said John, "but I be dinged if I don't."
So, while those who call to me from behind may inspire me with energy, if not
with courage, I ask an indulgent hearing from you. I beg that you will bring
your full faith in American fairness and frankness to judgment upon what I shall
say. There was an old preacher once who told some boys of the Bible lesson he
was going to read in the morning. The boys, finding the place, glued together
the connecting pages. The next morning he read on the bottom of one page: "When
Noah was one hundred and twenty years old he took unto himself a wife, who
was"—then turning the page—"one hundred and forty cubits long, forty cubits
wide, built of gopher wood, and covered with pitch inside and out." He was
naturally puzzled at this. He read it again, verified it, and then said, "My
friends, this is the first time I ever met this in the Bible, but I accept it as
an evidence of the assertion that we are fearfully and wonderfully made." If I
could get you to hold such faith to-night, I could proceed cheerfully to the
task I otherwise approach with a sense of consecration.
Now and then a speaker will plunge without introduction into an anecdote,
leaving the application to follow. The following illustrates this method:
A large, slew-footed darky was leaning against the corner of the railroad
station in a Texas town when the noon whistle in the canning factory blew and
the hands hurried out, bearing their grub buckets. The darky listened, with his
head on one side until the rocketing echo had quite died away. Then he heaved a
deep sigh and remarked to himself:
"Dar she go. Dinner time for some folks—but jes' 12 o'clock fur me!"
That is the situation in thousands of American factories, large and small,
today. And why? etc., etc.
Doubtless the most frequent platform use of the anecdote is in the pulpit. The
sermon "illustration," however, is not always strictly narrative in form, but
tends to extended comparison, as the following from Dr. Alexander Maclaren:
Men will stand as Indian fakirs do, with their arms above their heads until they
stiffen there. They will perch themselves upon pillars like Simeon Stylites, for
years, till the birds build their nests in their hair. They will measure all the
distance from Cape Comorin to Juggernaut's temple with their bodies along the
dusty road. They will wear hair shirts and scourge themselves. They will fast
and deny themselves. They will build cathedrals and endow churches. They will do
as many of you do, labor by fits and starts all thru your lives at the endless
task of making yourselves ready for heaven, and winning it by obedience and by
righteousness. They will do all these things and do them gladly, rather than
listen to the humbling message that says, "You do not need to do anything—wash."
Is it your washing, or the water, that will clean you? Wash and be clean!
Naaman's cleaning was only a test of his obedience, and a token that it was God
who cleansed him. There was no power in Jordan's waters to take away the taint
of leprosy. Our cleansing is in that blood of Jesus Christ that has the power to
take away all sin, and to make the foulest amongst us pure and clean.
One final word must be said about the introduction to the anecdote. A clumsy,
inappropriate introduction is fatal, whereas a single apt or witty sentence will
kindle interest and prepare a favorable hearing. The following extreme
illustration, by the English humorist, Captain Harry Graham, well satirizes the
stumbling manner:
The best story that I ever heard was one that I was told once in the fall of
1905 (or it may have been 1906), when I was visiting Boston—at least, I think it
was Boston; it may have been Washington (my memory is so bad).
I happened to run across a most amusing man whose name I forget—Williams or
Wilson or Wilkins; some name like that—and he told me this story while we were
waiting for a trolley car.
I can still remember how heartily I laughed at the time; and again, that
evening, after I had gone to bed, how I laughed myself to sleep recalling the
humor of this incredibly humorous story. It was really quite extraordinarily
funny. In fact, I can truthfully affirm that it is quite the most amusing story
I have ever had the privilege of hearing. Unfortunately, I've forgotten it.
Biographical Facts
Public speaking has much to do with personalities; naturally, therefore, the
narration of a series of biographical details, including anecdotes among the
recital of interesting facts, plays a large part in the eulogy, the memorial
address, the political speech, the sermon, the lecture, and other platform
deliverances. Whole addresses may be made up of such biographical details, such
as a sermon on "Moses," or a lecture on "Lee."
The following example is in itself an expanded anecdote, forming a link in a
chain:
MARIUS IN PRISON
The peculiar sublimity of the Roman mind does not express itself, nor is it at
all to be sought, in their poetry. Poetry, according to the Roman ideal of it,
was not an adequate organ for the grander movements of the national mind. Roman
sublimity must be looked for in Roman acts, and in Roman sayings. Where, again,
will you find a more adequate expression of the Roman majesty, than in the
saying of Trajan—Imperatorem oportere stantem mori—that Cæsar ought to die
standing; a speech of imperatorial grandeur! Implying that he, who was "the
foremost man of all this world,"—and, in regard to all other nations, the
representative of his own,—should express its characteristic virtue in his
farewell act—should die in procinctu—and should meet the last enemy as the
first, with a Roman countenance and in a soldier's attitude. If this had an
imperatorial—what follows had a consular majesty, and is almost the grandest
story upon record.
Marius, the man who rose to be seven times consul, was in a dungeon, and a slave
was sent in with commission to put him to death. These were the persons,—the two
extremities of exalted and forlorn humanity, its vanward and its rearward man, a
Roman consul and an abject slave. But their natural relations to each other
were, by the caprice of fortune, monstrously inverted: the consul was in chains;
the slave was for a moment the arbiter of his fate. By what spells, what magic,
did Marius reinstate himself in his natural prerogatives? By what marvels drawn
from heaven or from earth, did he, in the twinkling of an eye, again invest
himself with the purple, and place between himself and his assassin a host of
shadowy lictors? By the mere blank supremacy of great minds over weak ones. He
fascinated the slave, as a rattlesnake does a bird. Standing "like Teneriffe,"
he smote him with his eye, and said, "Tune, homo, audes occidere C.
Marium?"—"Dost thou, fellow, presume to kill Caius Marius?" Whereat, the
reptile, quaking under the voice, nor daring to affront the consular eye, sank
gently to the ground—turned round upon his hands and feet—and, crawling out of
the prison like any other vermin, left Marius standing in solitude as steadfast
and immovable as the capitol.
—Thomas De Quincy.
Here is a similar example, prefaced by a general historical statement and
concluding with autobiographical details:
A REMINISCENCE OF LEXINGTON
One raw morning in spring—it will be eighty years the 19th day of this
month—Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that Great Deliverance, were
both at Lexington; they also had "obstructed an officer" with brave words.
British soldiers, a thousand strong, came to seize them and carry them over sea
for trial, and so nip the bud of Freedom auspiciously opening in that early
spring. The town militia came together before daylight, "for training." A great,
tall man, with a large head and a high, wide brow, their captain,—one who had
"seen service,"—marshalled them into line, numbering but seventy, and bade
"every man load his piece with powder and ball. I will order the first man shot
that runs away," said he, when some faltered. "Don't fire unless fired upon, but
if they want to have a war, let it begin here."
Gentlemen, you know what followed; those farmers and mechanics "fired the shot
heard round the world." A little monument covers the bones of such as before had
pledged their fortune and their sacred honor to the Freedom of America, and that
day gave it also their lives. I was born in that little town, and bred up amid
the memories of that day. When a boy, my mother lifted me up, one Sunday, in her
religious, patriotic arms, and held me while I read the first monumental line I
ever saw—"Sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind."
Since then I have studied the memorial marbles of Greece and Rome, in many an
ancient town; nay, on Egyptian obelisks have read what was written before the
Eternal raised up Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt; but no chiseled stone has
ever stirred me to such emotion as these rustic names of men who fell "In the
Sacred Cause of God and their Country."
Gentlemen, the Spirit of Liberty, the Love of Justice, were early fanned into a
flame in my boyish heart. That monument covers the bones of my own kinsfolk; it
was their blood which reddened the long, green grass at Lexington. It was my own
name which stands chiseled on that stone; the tall captain who marshalled his
fellow farmers and mechanics into stern array, and spoke such brave and
dangerous words as opened the war of American Independence,—the last to leave
the field,—was my father's father. I learned to read out of his Bible, and with
a musket he that day captured from the foe, I learned another religious lesson,
that "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God." I keep them both "Sacred to
Liberty and the Rights of Mankind," to use them both "In the Sacred Cause of God
and my Country."—Theodore Parker.
Narration of Events in General
In this wider, emancipated narration we find much mingling of other forms of
discourse, greatly to the advantage of the speech, for this truth cannot be too
strongly emphasized: The efficient speaker cuts loose from form for the sake of
a big, free effect. The present analyses are for no other purpose than to
acquaint you with form—do not allow any such models to hang as a weight about
your neck.
The following pure narration of events, from George William Curtis's "Paul
Revere's Ride," varies the biographical recital in other parts of his famous
oration:
That evening, at ten o'clock, eight hundred British troops, under
Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, took boat at the foot of the Common and crossed to the
Cambridge shore. Gage thought his secret had been kept, but Lord Percy, who had
heard the people say on the Common that the troops would miss their aim,
undeceived him. Gage instantly ordered that no one should leave the town. But as
the troops crossed the river, Ebenezer Dorr, with a message to Hancock and
Adams, was riding over the Neck to Roxbury, and Paul Revere was rowing over the
river to Charlestown, having agreed with his friend, Robert Newman, to show
lanterns from the belfry of the Old North Church—"One if by land, and two if by
sea"—as a signal of the march of the British.
The following, from the same oration, beautifully mingles description with
narration:
It was a brilliant night. The winter had been unusually mild, and the spring
very forward. The hills were already green. The early grain waved in the fields,
and the air was sweet with the blossoming orchards. Already the robins whistled,
the bluebirds sang, and the benediction of peace rested upon the landscape.
Under the cloudless moon the soldiers silently marched, and Paul Revere swiftly
rode, galloping through Medford and West Cambridge, rousing every house as he
went spurring for Lexington and Hancock and Adams, and evading the British
patrols who had been sent out to stop the news.
In the succeeding extract from another of Mr. Curtis's addresses, we have a free
use of allegory as illustration:
THE LEADERSHIP OF EDUCATED MEN
There is a modern English picture which the genius of Hawthorne might have
inspired. The painter calls it, "How they met themselves." A man and a woman,
haggard and weary, wandering lost in a somber wood, suddenly meet the shadowy
figures of a youth and a maid. Some mysterious fascination fixes the gaze and
stills the hearts of the wanderers, and their amazement deepens into awe as they
gradually recognize themselves as once they were; the soft bloom of youth upon
their rounded cheeks, the dewy light of hope in their trusting eyes, exulting
confidence in their springing step, themselves blithe and radiant with the glory
of the dawn. Today, and here, we meet ourselves. Not to these familiar scenes
alone—yonder college-green with its reverend traditions; the halcyon cove of the
Seekonk, upon which the memory of Roger Williams broods like a bird of calm; the
historic bay, beating forever with the muffled oars of Barton and of Abraham
Whipple; here, the humming city of the living; there, the peaceful city of the
dead;—not to these only or chiefly do we return, but to ourselves as we once
were. It is not the smiling freshmen of the year, it is your own beardless and
unwrinkled faces, that are looking from the windows of University Hall and of
Hope College. Under the trees upon the hill it is yourselves whom you see
walking, full of hopes and dreams, glowing with conscious power, and "nourishing
a youth sublime;" and in this familiar temple, which surely has never echoed
with eloquence so fervid and inspiring as that of your commencement orations, it
is not yonder youths in the galleries who, as they fondly believe, are
whispering to yonder maids; it is your younger selves who, in the days that are
no more, are murmuring to the fairest mothers and grandmothers of those maids.
Happy the worn and weary man and woman in the picture could they have felt their
older eyes still glistening with that earlier light, and their hearts yet
beating with undiminished sympathy and aspiration. Happy we, brethren, whatever
may have been achieved, whatever left undone, if, returning to the home of our
earlier years, we bring with us the illimitable hope, the unchilled resolution,
the inextinguishable faith of youth.
—George William Curtis.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Clip from any source ten anecdotes and state what truths they may be used to
illustrate.
2. Deliver five of these in your own language, without making any application.
3. From the ten, deliver one so as to make the application before telling the
anecdote.
4. Deliver another so as to split the application.
5. Deliver another so as to make the application after the narration.
6. Deliver another in such a way as to make a specific application needless.
7. Give three ways of introducing an anecdote, by saying where you heard it,
etc.
8. Deliver an illustration that is not strictly an anecdote, in the style of
Curtis's speech on page 259.
9. Deliver an address on any public character, using the forms illustrated in
this chapter.
10. Deliver an address on some historical event in the same manner.
11. Explain how the sympathies and viewpoint of the speaker will color an
anecdote, a biography, or a historical account.
12. Illustrate how the same anecdote, or a section of a historical address, may
be given two different effects by personal prejudice.
13. What would be the effect of shifting the viewpoint in the midst of a
narration?
14. What is the danger of using too much humor in an address? Too much pathos?
FOOTNOTES:
[24] How to Attract and Hold an Audience, J. Berg Esenwein.
CHAPTER XXII
INFLUENCING BY SUGGESTION
Sometimes the feeling that a given way of looking at things is undoubtedly
correct prevents the mind from thinking at all.... In view of the hindrances
which certain kinds or degrees of feeling throw into the way of thinking, it
might be inferred that the thinker must suppress the element of feeling in the
inner life. No greater mistake could be made. If the Creator endowed man with
the power to think, to feel, and to will, these several activities of the mind
are not designed to be in conflict, and so long as any one of them is not
perverted or allowed to run to excess, it necessarily aids and strengthens the
others in their normal functions.
—Nathan C. Schaeffer, Thinking and Learning to Think.
When we weigh, compare, and decide upon the value of any given ideas, we reason;
when an idea produces in us an opinion or an action, without first being
subjected to deliberation, we are moved by suggestion.
Man was formerly thought to be a reasoning animal, basing his actions on the
conclusions of natural logic. It was supposed that before forming an opinion or
deciding on a course of conduct he weighed at least some of the reasons for and
against the matter, and performed a more or less simple process of reasoning.
But modern research has shown that quite the opposite is true. Most of our
opinions and actions are not based upon conscious reasoning, but are the result
of suggestion. In fact, some authorities declare that an act of pure reasoning
is very rare in the average mind. Momentous decisions are made, far-reaching
actions are determined upon, primarily by the force of suggestion.
Notice that word "primarily," for simple thought, and even mature reasoning,
often follows a suggestion accepted in the mind, and the thinker fondly supposes
that his conclusion is from first to last based on cold logic.
The Basis of Suggestion
We must think of suggestion both as an effect and as a cause. Considered as an
effect, or objectively, there must be something in the hearer that predisposes
him to receive suggestion; considered as a cause, or subjectively, there must be
some methods by which the speaker can move upon that particularly susceptible
attitude of the hearer. How to do this honestly and fairly is our problem—to do
it dishonestly and trickily, to use suggestion to bring about conviction and
action without a basis of right and truth and in a bad cause, is to assume the
terrible responsibility that must fall on the champion of error. Jesus scorned
not to use suggestion so that he might move men to their benefit, but every
vicious trickster has adopted the same means to reach base ends. Therefore
honest men will examine well into their motives and into the truth of their
cause, before seeking to influence men by suggestion.
Three fundamental conditions make us all susceptive to suggestion:
We naturally respect authority. In every mind this is only a question of degree,
ranging from the subject who is easily hypnotized to the stubborn mind that
fortifies itself the more strongly with every assault upon its opinion. The
latter type is almost immune to suggestion.
One of the singular things about suggestion is that it is rarely a fixed
quantity. The mind that is receptive to the authority of a certain person may
prove inflexible to another; moods and environments that produce hypnosis
readily in one instance may be entirely inoperative in another; and some minds
can scarcely ever be thus moved. We do know, however, that the feeling of the
subject that authority—influence, power, domination, control, whatever you wish
to call it—lies in the person of the suggester, is the basis of all suggestion.
The extreme force of this influence is demonstrated in hypnotism. The hypnotic
subject is told that he is in the water; he accepts the statement as true and
makes swimming motions. He is told that a band is marching down the street,
playing "The Star Spangled Banner;" he declares he hears the music, arises and
stands with head bared.
In the same way some speakers are able to achieve a modified hypnotic effect
upon their audiences. The hearers will applaud measures and ideas which, after
individual reflection, they will repudiate unless such reflection brings the
conviction that the first impression is correct.
A second important principle is that our feelings, thoughts and wills tend to
follow the line of least resistance. Once open the mind to the sway of one
feeling and it requires a greater power of feeling, thought, or will—or even all
three—to unseat it. Our feelings influence our judgments and volitions much more
than we care to admit. So true is this that it is a superhuman task to get an
audience to reason fairly on a subject on which it feels deeply, and when this
result is accomplished the success becomes noteworthy, as in the case of Henry
Ward Beecher's Liverpool speech. Emotional ideas once accepted are soon
cherished, and finally become our very inmost selves. Attitudes based on
feelings alone are prejudices.
What is true of our feelings, in this respect, applies to our ideas: All
thoughts that enter the mind tend to be accepted as truth unless a stronger and
contradictory thought arises.
The speaker skilled in moving men to action manages to dominate the minds of his
audience with his thoughts by subtly prohibiting the entertaining of ideas
hostile to his own. Most of us are captured by the latest strong attack, and if
we can be induced to act while under the stress of that last insistent thought,
we lose sight of counter influences. The fact is that almost all our
decisions—if they involve thought at all—are of this sort: At the moment of
decision the course of action then under contemplation usurps the attention, and
conflicting ideas are dropped out of consideration.
The head of a large publishing house remarked only recently that ninety per cent
of the people who bought books by subscription never read them. They buy because
the salesman presents his wares so skillfully that every consideration but the
attractiveness of the book drops out of the mind, and that thought prompts
action. Every idea that enters the mind will result in action unless a
contradictory thought arises to prohibit it. Think of singing the musical scale
and it will result in your singing it unless the counter-thought of its futility
or absurdity inhibits your action. If you bandage and "doctor" a horse's foot,
he will go lame. You cannot think of swallowing, without the muscles used in
that process being affected. You cannot think of saying "hello," without a
slight movement of the muscles of speech. To warn children that they should not
put beans up their noses is the surest method of getting them to do it. Every
thought called up in the mind of your audience will work either for or against
you. Thoughts are not dead matter; they radiate dynamic energy—the thoughts all
tend to pass into action. "Thought is another name for fate." Dominate your
hearers' thoughts, allay all contradictory ideas, and you will sway them as you
wish.
Volitions as well as feelings and thoughts tend to follow the line of least
resistance. That is what makes habit. Suggest to a man that it is impossible to
change his mind and in most cases it becomes more difficult to do so—the
exception is the man who naturally jumps to the contrary. Counter suggestion is
the only way to reach him. Suggest subtly and persistently that the opinions of
those in the audience who are opposed to your views are changing, and it
requires an effort of the will—in fact, a summoning of the forces of feeling,
thought and will—to stem the tide of change that has subconsciously set in.
But, not only are we moved by authority, and tend toward channels of least
resistance: We are all influenced by our environments. It is difficult to rise
above the sway of a crowd—its enthusiasms and its fears are contagious because
they are suggestive. What so many feel, we say to ourselves, must have some
basis in truth. Ten times ten makes more than one hundred. Set ten men to
speaking to ten audiences of ten men each, and compare the aggregate power of
those ten speakers with that of one man addressing one hundred men. The ten
speakers may be more logically convincing than the single orator, but the
chances are strongly in favor of the one man's reaching a greater total effect,
for the hundred men will radiate conviction and resolution as ten small groups
could not. We all know the truism about the enthusiasm of numbers. (See the
chapter on "Influencing the Crowd.")
Environment controls us unless the contrary is strongly suggested. A gloomy day,
in a drab room, sparsely tenanted by listeners, invites platform disaster.
Everyone feels it in the air. But let the speaker walk squarely up to the issue
and suggest by all his feeling, manner and words that this is going to be a
great gathering in every vital sense, and see how the suggestive power of
environment recedes before the advance of a more potent suggestion—if such the
speaker is able to make it.
Now these three factors—respect for authority, tendency to follow lines of least
resistance, and susceptibility to environment—all help to bring the auditor into
a state of mind favorable to suggestive influences, but they also react on the
speaker, and now we must consider those personally causative, or subjective,
forces which enable him to use suggestion effectively.
How the Speaker Can Make Suggestion Effective
We have seen that under the influence of authoritative suggestion the audience
is inclined to accept the speaker's assertion without argument and criticism.
But the audience is not in this state of mind unless it has implicit confidence
in the speaker. If they lack faith in him, question his motives or knowledge, or
even object to his manner they will not be moved by his most logical conclusion
and will fail to give him a just hearing. It is all a matter of their confidence
in him. Whether the speaker finds it already in the warm, expectant look of his
hearers, or must win to it against opposition or coldness, he must gain that one
great vantage point before his suggestions take on power in the hearts of his
listeners. Confidence is the mother of Conviction.
Note in the opening of Henry W. Grady's after-dinner speech how he attempted to
secure the confidence of his audience. He created a receptive atmosphere by a
humorous story; expressed his desire to speak with earnestness and sincerity;
acknowledged "the vast interests involved;" deprecated his "untried arm," and
professed his humility. Would not such an introduction give you confidence in
the speaker, unless you were strongly opposed to him? And even then, would it
not partly disarm your antagonism?
Mr. President:—Bidden by your invitation to a discussion of the race
problem—forbidden by occasion to make a political speech—I appreciate, in trying
to reconcile orders with propriety, the perplexity of the little maid, who,
bidden to learn to swim, was yet adjured, "Now, go, my darling; hang your
clothes on a hickory limb, and don't go near the water."
The stoutest apostle of the Church, they say, is the missionary, and the
missionary, wherever he unfurls his flag, will never find himself in deeper need
of unction and address than I, bidden tonight to plant the standard of a
Southern Democrat in Boston's banquet hall, and to discuss the problem of the
races in the home of Phillips and of Sumner. But, Mr. President, if a purpose to
speak in perfect frankness and sincerity; if earnest understanding of the vast
interests involved; if a consecrating sense of what disaster may follow further
misunderstanding and estrangement; if these may be counted to steady
undisciplined speech and to strengthen an untried arm—then, sir, I shall find
the courage to proceed.
Note also Mr. Bryan's attempt to secure the confidence of his audience in the
following introduction to his "Cross of Gold" speech delivered before the
National Democratic Convention in Chicago, 1896. He asserts his own inability to
oppose the "distinguished gentleman;" he maintains the holiness of his cause;
and he declares that he will speak in the interest of humanity—well knowing that
humanity is likely to have confidence in the champion of their rights. This
introduction completely dominated the audience, and the speech made Mr. Bryan
famous.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention: I would be presumptuous indeed to
present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if
this were a mere measuring of abilities; but this is not a contest between
persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a
righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you
in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity.
Some speakers are able to beget confidence by their very manner, while others
can not.
To secure confidence, be confident. How can you expect others to accept a
message in which you lack, or seem to lack, faith yourself? Confidence is as
contagious as disease. Napoleon rebuked an officer for using the word
"impossible" in his presence. The speaker who will entertain no idea of defeat
begets in his hearers the idea of his victory. Lady Macbeth was so confident of
success that Macbeth changed his mind about undertaking the assassination.
Columbus was so certain in his mission that Queen Isabella pawned her jewels to
finance his expedition. Assert your message with implicit assurance, and your
own belief will act as so much gunpowder to drive it home.
Advertisers have long utilized this principle. "The machine you will eventually
buy," "Ask the man who owns one," "Has the strength of Gibraltar," are publicity
slogans so full of confidence that they give birth to confidence in the mind of
the reader.
It should—but may not!—go without saying that confidence must have a solid
ground of merit or there will be a ridiculous crash. It is all very well for the
"spellbinder" to claim all the precincts—the official count is just ahead. The
reaction against over-confidence and over-suggestion ought to warn those whose
chief asset is mere bluff.
A short time ago a speaker arose in a public-speaking club and asserted that
grass would spring from wood-ashes sprinkled over the soil, without the aid of
seed. This idea was greeted with a laugh, but the speaker was so sure of his
position that he reiterated the statement forcefully several times and cited his
own personal experience as proof. One of the most intelligent men in the
audience, who at first had derided the idea, at length came to believe in it.
When asked the reason for his sudden change of attitude, he replied: "Because
the speaker is so confident." In fact, he was so confident that it took a letter
from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to dislodge his error.
If by a speaker's confidence, intelligent men can be made to believe such
preposterous theories as this where will the power of self-reliance cease when
plausible propositions are under consideration, advanced with all the power of
convincing speech?
Note the utter assurance in these selections:
I know not what course others may take, but as for me give me liberty or give me
death.—Patrick Henry.
I ne'er will ask ye quarter, and I ne'er will be your slave;
But I'll swim the sea of slaughter, till I sink beneath its wave.
—Patten.
Come one, come all. This rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.
—Sir Walter Scott
INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud;
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
—William Ernest Henley.
Authority is a factor in suggestion. We generally accept as truth, and without
criticism, the words of an authority. When he speaks, contradictory ideas rarely
arise in the mind to inhibit the action he suggests. A judge of the Supreme
Court has the power of his words multiplied by the virtue of his position. The
ideas of the U.S. Commissioner of Immigration on his subject are much more
effective and powerful than those of a soap manufacturer, though the latter may
be an able economist.
This principle also has been used in advertising. We are told that the
physicians to two Kings have recommended Sanatogen. We are informed that the
largest bank in America, Tiffany and Co., and The State, War, and Navy
Departments, all use the Encyclopedia Britannica. The shrewd promoter gives
stock in his company to influential bankers or business men in the community in
order that he may use their examples as a selling argument.
If you wish to influence your audience through suggestion, if you would have
your statements accepted without criticism or argument, you should appear in the
light of an authority—and be one. Ignorance and credulity will remain unchanged
unless the suggestion of authority be followed promptly by facts. Don't claim
authority unless you carry your license in your pocket. Let reason support the
position that suggestion has assumed.
Advertising will help to establish your reputation—it is "up to you" to maintain
it. One speaker found that his reputation as a magazine writer was a splendid
asset as a speaker. Mr. Bryan's publicity, gained by three nominations for the
presidency and his position as Secretary of State, helps him to command large
sums as a speaker. But—back of it all, he is a great speaker. Newspaper
announcements, all kinds of advertising, formality, impressive introductions,
all have a capital effect on the attitude of the audience. But how ridiculous
are all these if a toy pistol is advertised as a sixteen-inch gun!
Note how authority is used in the following to support the strength of the
speaker's appeal:
Professor Alfred Russell Wallace has just celebrated his 90th birthday. Sharing
with Charles Darwin the honor of discovering evolution, Professor Wallace has
lately received many and signal honors from scientific societies. At the dinner
given him in London his address was largely made up of reminiscences. He
reviewed the progress of civilization during the last century and made a series
of brilliant and startling contrasts between the England of 1813 and the world
of 1913. He affirmed that our progress is only seeming and not real. Professor
Wallace insists that the painters, the sculptors, the architects of Athens and
Rome were so superior to the modern men that the very fragments of their marbles
and temples are the despair of the present day artists. He tells us that man has
improved his telescope and spectacles, but that he is losing his eyesight; that
man is improving his looms, but stiffening his fingers; improving his automobile
and his locomotive, but losing his legs; improving his foods, but losing his
digestion. He adds that the modern white slave traffic, orphan asylums, and
tenement house life in factory towns, make a black page in the history of the
twentieth century.
Professor Wallace's views are reinforced by the report of the commission of
Parliament on the causes of the deterioration of the factory-class people. In
our own country Professor Jordan warns us against war, intemperance,
overworking, underfeeding of poor children, and disturbs our contentment with
his "Harvest of Blood." Professor Jenks is more pessimistic. He thinks that the
pace, the climate, and the stress of city life, have broken down the Puritan
stock, that in another century our old families will be extinct, and that the
flood of immigration means a Niagara of muddy waters fouling the pure springs of
American life. In his address in New Haven Professor Kellogg calls the roll of
the signs of race degeneracy and tells us that this deterioration even indicates
a trend toward race extinction.
—Newell Dwight Hillis.
From every side come warnings to the American people. Our medical journals are
filled with danger signals; new books and magazines, fresh from the press, tell
us plainly that our people are fronting a social crisis. Mr. Jefferson, who was
once regarded as good Democratic authority, seems to have differed in opinion
from the gentleman who has addressed us on the part of the minority. Those who
are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a
function of the bank, and that the government ought to go out of the banking
business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he
did, that the issue of money is a function of government, and that the banks
ought to go out of the governing business.
—William Jennings Bryan.
Authority is the great weapon against doubt, but even its force can rarely
prevail against prejudice and persistent wrong-headedness. If any speaker has
been able to forge a sword that is warranted to piece such armor, let him bless
humanity by sharing his secret with his platform brethren everywhere, for thus
far he is alone in his glory.
There is a middle-ground between the suggestion of authority and the confession
of weakness that offers a wide range for tact in the speaker. No one can advise
you when to throw your "hat in the ring" and say defiantly at the outstart,
"Gentlemen, I am here to fight!" Theodore Roosevelt can do that—Beecher would
have been mobbed if he had begun in that style at Liverpool. It is for your own
tact to decide whether you will use the disarming grace of Henry W. Grady's
introduction just quoted (even the time-worn joke was ingenuous and seemed to
say, "Gentlemen, I come to you with no carefully-palmed coins"), or whether the
solemn gravity of Mr. Bryan before the Convention will prove to be more
effective. Only be sure that your opening attitude is well thought out, and if
it change as you warm up to your subject, let not the change lay you open to a
revulsion of feeling in your audience.
Example is a powerful means of suggestion. As we saw while thinking of
environment in its effects on an audience, we do, without the usual amount of
hesitation and criticism, what others are doing. Paris wears certain hats and
gowns; the rest of the world imitates. The child mimics the actions, accents and
intonations of the parent. Were a child never to hear anyone speak, he would
never acquire the power of speech, unless under most arduous training, and even
then only imperfectly. One of the biggest department stores in the United States
spends fortunes on one advertising slogan: "Everybody is going to the big
store." That makes everybody want to go.
You can reinforce the power of your message by showing that it has been widely
accepted. Political organizations subsidize applause to create the impression
that their speakers' ideas are warmly received and approved by the audience. The
advocates of the commission-form of government of cities, the champions of votes
for women, reserve as their strongest arguments the fact that a number of cities
and states have already successfully accepted their plans. Advertisements use
the testimonial for its power of suggestion.
Observe how this principle has been applied in the following selections, and
utilize it on every occasion possible in your attempts to influence through
suggestion:
The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring
to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field.
Why stand ye here idle?
—Patrick Henry.
With a zeal approaching the zeal which inspired the Crusaders who followed Peter
the Hermit, our silver Democrats went forth from victory unto victory until they
are now assembled, not to discuss, not to debate, but to enter up the judgment
already rendered by the plain people of this country. In this contest brother
has been arrayed against brother, father against son. The warmest ties of love,
acquaintance, and association have been disregarded; old leaders have been cast
aside when they refused to give expression to the sentiments of those whom they
would lead, and new leaders have sprung up to give direction to this cause of
truth. Thus has the contest been waged, and we have assembled here under as
binding and solemn instructions as were ever imposed upon representatives of the
people.
—William Jennings Bryan.
Figurative and indirect language has suggestive force, because it does not
make statements that can be directly disputed. It arouses no contradictory ideas
in the minds of the audience, thereby fulfilling one of the basic requisites of
suggestion. By implying a conclusion in indirect or figurative language it is
often asserted most forcefully.
Note that in the following Mr. Bryan did not say that Mr. McKinley would be
defeated. He implied it in a much more effective manner:
Mr. McKinley was nominated at St. Louis upon a platform which declared for the
maintenance of the gold standard until it can be changed into bimetallism by
international agreement. Mr. McKinley was the most popular man among the
Republicans, and three months ago everybody in the Republican party prophesied
his election. How is it today? Why, the man who was once pleased to think that
he looked like Napoleon—that man shudders today when he remembers that he was
nominated on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. Not only that, but as he
listens he can hear with ever-increasing distinctness the sound of the waves as
they beat upon the lonely shores of St. Helena.
Had Thomas Carlyle said: "A false man cannot found a religion," his words would
have been neither so suggestive nor so powerful, nor so long remembered as his
implication in these striking words:
A false man found a religion? Why, a false man cannot build a brick house! If he
does not know and follow truly the properties of mortar, burnt clay, and what
else he works in, it is no house that he makes, but a rubbish heap. It will not
stand for twelve centuries, to lodge a hundred and eighty millions; it will fall
straightway. A man must conform himself to Nature's laws, be verily in communion
with Nature and the truth of things, or Nature will answer him, No, not at all!
Observe how the picture that Webster draws here is much more emphatic and
forceful than any mere assertion could be:
Sir, I know not how others may feel, but as for myself when I see my alma mater
surrounded, like Caesar in the senate house, by those who are reiterating stab
after stab, I would not for this right hand have her turn to me and say, "And
thou, too, my son!"—Webster.
A speech should be built on sound logical foundations, and no man should dare to
speak in behalf of a fallacy. Arguing a subject, however, will necessarily
arouse contradictory ideas in the mind of your audience. When immediate action
or persuasion is desired, suggestion is more efficacious than argument—when both
are judiciously mixed, the effect is irresistible.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Make an outline, or brief, of the contents of this chapter.
2. Revise the introduction to any of your written addresses, with the teachings
of this chapter in mind.
3. Give two original examples of the power of suggestion as you have observed it
in each of these fields: (a) advertising; (b) politics; (c) public sentiment.
4. Give original examples of suggestive speech, illustrating two of the
principles set forth in this chapter.
5. What reasons can you give that disprove the general contention of this
chapter?
6. What reasons not already given seem to you to support it?
7. What effect do his own suggestions have on the speaker himself?
8. Can suggestion arise from the audience? If so, show how.
9. Select two instances of suggestion in the speeches found in the Appendix.
10. Change any two passages in the same, or other, speeches so as to use
suggestion more effectively.
11. Deliver those passages in the revised form.
12. Choosing your own subject, prepare and deliver a short speech largely in the
suggestive style.
CHAPTER XXIII
INFLUENCING BY ARGUMENT
Common sense is the common sense of mankind. It is the product of common
observation and experience. It is modest, plain, and unsophisticated. It sees
with everybody's eyes, and hears with everybody's ears. It has no capricious
distinctions, no perplexities, and no mysteries. It never equivocates, and never
trifles. Its language is always intelligible. It is known by clearness of speech
and singleness of purpose.
—George Jacob Holyoake, Public Speaking and Debate.
The very name of logic is awesome to most young speakers, but so soon as they
come to realize that its processes, even when most intricate, are merely
technical statements of the truths enforced by common sense, it will lose its
terrors. In fact, logic[25] is a fascinating subject, well worth the public
speaker's study, for it explains the principles that govern the use of argument
and proof.
Argumentation is the process of producing conviction by means of reasoning.
Other ways of producing conviction there are, notably suggestion, as we have
just shown, but no means is so high, so worthy of respect, as the adducing of
sound reasons in support of a contention.
Since more than one side of a subject must be considered before we can claim to
have deliberated upon it fairly, we ought to think of argumentation under two
aspects: building up an argument, and tearing down an argument; that is, you
must not only examine into the stability of your structure of argument so that
it may both support the proposition you intend to probe and yet be so sound that
it cannot be overthrown by opponents, but you must also be so keen to detect
defects in argument that you will be able to demolish the weaker arguments of
those who argue against you.
We can consider argumentation only generally, leaving minute and technical
discussions to such excellent works as George P. Baker's "The Principles of
Argumentation," and George Jacob Holyoake's "Public Speaking and Debate." Any
good college rhetoric also will give help on the subject, especially the works
of John Franklin Genung and Adams Sherman Hill. The student is urged to
familiarize himself with at least one of these texts.
The following series of questions will, it is hoped, serve a triple purpose:
that of suggesting the forms of proof together with the ways in which they may
be used; that of helping the speaker to test the strength of his arguments; and
that of enabling the speaker to attack his opponent's arguments with both
keenness and justice.
TESTING AN ARGUMENT
I. The Question Under Discussion
1. Is it clearly stated?
(a) Do the terms of statement mean the same to each
disputant? (For example, the meaning of the term "gentleman" may not
be mutually agreed upon.)
(b) Is confusion likely to arise as to its purpose?
2. Is it fairly stated?
(a) Does it include enough?
(b) Does it include too much?
(c) Is it stated so as to contain a trap?
3. Is it a debatable question?
4. What is the pivotal point in the whole question?
5. What are the subordinate points?
II. The Evidence
1. The witnesses as to facts
(a) Is each witness impartial? What is his relation to the
subject at issue?
(b) Is he mentally competent?
(c) Is he morally credible?
(d) Is he in a position to know the facts? Is he an
eye-witness?
(e) Is he a willing witness?
(f) Is his testimony contradicted?
(g) Is his testimony corroborated?
(h) Is his testimony contrary to well-known facts or general
principles?
(i) Is it probable?
2. The authorities cited as evidence
(a) Is the authority well-recognized as such?
(b) What constitutes him an authority?
(c) Is his interest in the case an impartial one?
(d) Does he state his opinion positively and clearly?
(e) Are the non-personal authorities cited (books, etc.)
reliable and unprejudiced?
3. The facts adduced as evidence
(a) Are they sufficient in number to constitute proof?
(b) Are they weighty enough in character?
(c) Are they in harmony with reason?
(d) Are they mutually harmonious or contradictory?
(e) Are they admitted, doubted, or disputed?
4. The principles adduced as evidence
(a) Are they axiomatic?
(b) Are they truths of general experience?
(c) Are they truths of special experience?
(d) Are they truths arrived at by experiment?
Were such experiments special or general?
Were the experiments authoritative and conclusive?
III. The Reasoning
1. Inductions
(a) Are the facts numerous enough to warrant accepting the
generalization as being conclusive?
(b) Do the facts agree only when considered in the
light of this explanation as a conclusion?
(c) Have you overlooked any contradictory facts?
(d) Are the contradictory facts sufficiently explained when
this inference is accepted as true?
(e) Are all contrary positions shown to be relatively
untenable?
(f) Have you accepted mere opinions as facts?
2. Deductions
(a) Is the law or general principle a well-established one?
(b) Does the law or principle clearly include the fact you
wish to deduce from it, or have you strained the inference?
(c) Does the importance of the law or principle warrant so
important an inference?
(d) Can the deduction be shown to prove too much?
3. Parallel cases
(a) Are the cases parallel at enough points to warrant an
inference of similar cause or effect?
(b) Are the cases parallel at the vital point at issue?
(c) Has the parallelism been strained?
(d) Are there no other parallels that would point to a
stronger contrary conclusion?
4. Inferences
(a) Are the antecedent conditions such as would make the
allegation probable? (Character and opportunities of the accused, for
example.)
(b) Are the signs that point to the inference either clear
or numerous enough to warrant its acceptance as fact?
(c) Are the signs cumulative, and agreeable one with the other?
(d) Could the signs be made to point to a contrary conclusion?
5. Syllogisms
(a) Have any steps been omitted in the syllogisms?
(Such as in a syllogism in enthymeme.) If so, test any such by
filling out the syllogisms.
(b) Have you been guilty of stating a conclusion that really
does not follow? (A non sequitur.)
(c) Can your syllogism be reduced to an absurdity?
(Reductio ad absurdum.)
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Show why an unsupported assertion is not an argument.
2. Illustrate how an irrelevant fact may be made to seem to support an argument.
3. What inferences may justly be made from the following?
During the Boer War it was found that the average Englishman did not measure up
to the standards of recruiting and the average soldier in the field manifested a
low plane of vitality and endurance. Parliament, alarmed by the disastrous
consequences, instituted an investigation. The commission appointed brought in a
finding that alcoholic poisoning was the great cause of the national degeneracy.
The investigations of the commission have been supplemented by investigations of
scientific bodies and individual scientists, all arriving at the same
conclusion. As a consequence, the British Government has placarded the streets
of a hundred cities with billboards setting forth the destructive and
degenerating nature of alcohol and appealing to the people in the name of the
nation to desist from drinking alcoholic beverages. Under efforts directed by
the Government the British Army is fast becoming an army of total abstainers.
The Governments of continental Europe followed the lead of the British
Government. The French Government has placarded France with appeals to the
people, attributing the decline of the birth rate and increase in the death rate
to the widespread use of alcoholic beverages. The experience of the German
Government has been the same. The German Emperor has clearly stated that
leadership in war and in peace will be held by the nation that roots out
alcohol. He has undertaken to eliminate even the drinking of beer, so far as
possible, from the German Army and Navy.—Richmond Pearson Hobson, Before the
U.S. Congress.
4. Since the burden of proof lies on him who attacks a position, or argues for a
change in affairs, how would his opponent be likely to conduct his own part of a
debate?
5. Define (a) syllogism; (b) rebuttal; (c) "begging the question;" (d) premise;
(e) rejoinder; (f) sur-rejoinder; (g) dilemma; (h) induction; (i) deduction; (j)
a priori; (k) a posteriori; (l) inference.
6. Criticise this reasoning:
Men ought not to smoke tobacco, because to do so is contrary to best medical
opinion. My physician has expressly condemned the practise, and is a medical
authority in this country.
7. Criticise this reasoning:
Men ought not to swear profanely, because it is wrong. It is wrong for the
reason that it is contrary to the Moral Law, and it is contrary to the Moral Law
because it is contrary to the Scriptures. It is contrary to the Scriptures
because it is contrary to the will of God, and we know it is contrary to God's
will because it is wrong.
8. Criticise this syllogism:
MAJOR PREMISE: All men who have no cares are happy.
MINOR PREMISE: Slovenly men are careless.
CONCLUSION: Therefore, slovenly men are happy.
9. Criticise the following major, or foundation, premises:
All is not gold that glitters.
All cold may be expelled by fire.
10. Criticise the following fallacy (non sequitur):
MAJOR PREMISE: All strong men admire strength.
MINOR PREMISE: This man is not strong.
CONCLUSION: Therefore this man does not admire strength.
11. Criticise these statements:
Sleep is beneficial on account of its soporific qualities.
Fiske's histories are authentic because they contain accurate accounts of
American history, and we know that they are true accounts for otherwise they
would not be contained in these authentic works.
12. What do you understand from the terms "reasoning from effect to cause" and
"from cause to effect?" Give examples.
13. What principle did Richmond Pearson Hobson employ in the following?
What is the police power of the States? The police power of the Federal
Government or the State—any sovereign State—has been defined. Take the
definition given by Blackstone, which is:
The due regulation and domestic order of the Kingdom, whereby the inhabitants of
a State, like members of a well-governed family, are bound to conform their
general behavior to the rules of propriety, of neighborhood and good manners,
and to be decent, industrious, and inoffensive in their respective stations.
Would this amendment interfere with any State carrying on the promotion of its
domestic order?
Or you can take the definition in another form, in which it is given by Mr.
Tiedeman, when he says:
The object of government is to impose that degree of restraint upon human
actions which is necessary to a uniform, reasonable enjoyment of private rights.
The power of the government to impose this restraint is called the police power.
Judge Cooley says of the liquor traffic:
The business of manufacturing and selling liquor is one that affects the public
interests in many ways and leads to many disorders. It has a tendency to
increase pauperism and crime. It renders a large force of peace officers
essential, and it adds to the expense of the courts and of nearly all branches
of civil administration.
Justice Bradley, of the United States Supreme Court, says:
Licenses may be properly required in the pursuit of many professions and
avocations, which require peculiar skill and training or supervision for the
public welfare. The profession or avocation is open to all alike who will
prepare themselves with the requisite qualifications or give the requisite
security for preserving public order. This is in harmony with the general
proposition that the ordinary pursuits of life, forming the greater per cent of
the industrial pursuits, are and ought to be free and open to all, subject only
to such general regulations, applying equally to all, as the general good may
demand.
All such regulations are entirely competent for the legislature to make and are
in no sense an abridgment of the equal rights of citizens. But a license to do
that which is odious and against common right is necessarily an outrage upon the
equal rights of citizens.
14. What method did Jesus employ in the following:
Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith
shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and
to be trodden under foot of men.
Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather
into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than
they?
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field; how they
grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; And yet I say unto you, that even
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so
clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the
oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a
stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil,
know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father
which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
15. Make five original syllogisms[26] on the following models:
Major Premise: He who administers arsenic gives poison. Minor Premise: The
prisoner administered arsenic to the victim. Conclusion: Therefore the prisoner
is a poisoner.
Major Premise: All dogs are quadrupeds. Minor Premise: This animal is a biped.
Conclusion: Therefore this animal is not a dog.
16. Prepare either the positive or the negative side of the following question
for debate: The recall of judges should be adopted as a national principle.
17. Is this question debatable? Benedict Arnold was a gentleman. Give reasons
for your answer.
18. Criticise any street or dinner-table argument you have heard recently.
19. Test the reasoning of any of the speeches given in this volume.
20. Make a short speech arguing in favor of instruction in public speaking in
the public evening schools.
21. (a) Clip a newspaper editorial in which the reasoning is weak. (b) Criticise
it. (c) Correct it.
22. Make a list of three subjects for debate, selected from the monthly
magazines.
23. Do the same from the newspapers.
24. Choosing your own question and side, prepare a brief suitable for a
ten-minute debating argument. The following models of briefs may help you:
DEBATE
Resolved: That armed intervention is not justifiable on the part of any nation
to collect, on behalf of private individuals, financial claims against any
American nation.[27]
Brief of Affirmative Argument
First speaker—Chafee
Armed intervention for collection of private claims from any American
nation is not justifiable, for
1. It is wrong in principle, because
(a) It violates the fundamental principles of international law for a
very slight cause
(b) It is contrary to the proper function of the State, and
(c) It is contrary to justice, since claims are exaggerated.
Second speaker—Hurley
2. It is disastrous in its results, because
(a) It incurs danger of grave international complications
(b) It tends to increase the burden of debt in the South American
republics
(c) It encourages a waste of the world's capital, and
(d) It disturbs peace and stability in South America.
Third speaker—Bruce
3. It is unnecessary to collect in this way, because
(a) Peaceful methods have succeeded
(b) If these should fail, claims should be settled by The Hague
Tribunal
(c) The fault has always been with European States when force has been
used, and
(d) In any case, force should not be used, for it counteracts the
movement towards peace.
Brief of Negative Argument
First speaker—Branch
Armed intervention for the collection of private financial claims
against some American States is justifiable, for
1. When other means of collection have failed, armed intervention
against any nation is essentially proper, because
(a) Justice should always be secured
(b) Non-enforcement of payment puts a premium on dishonesty
(c) Intervention for this purpose is sanctioned by the best
international authority
(d) Danger of undue collection is slight and can be avoided entirely by
submission of claims to The Hague Tribunal before intervening.
Second speaker—Stone
2. Armed intervention is necessary to secure justice in tropical
America, for
(a) The governments of this section constantly repudiate just debts
(b) They insist that the final decision about claims shall rest with
their own corrupt courts
(c) They refuse to arbitrate sometimes.
Third speaker—Dennett
3. Armed intervention is beneficial in its results, because
(a) It inspires responsibility
(b) In administering custom houses it removes temptation to revolutions
(c) It gives confidence to desirable capital.
Among others, the following books were used in the preparation of the
arguments:
N. "The Monroe Doctrine," by T.B. Edgington. Chapters 22-28.
"Digest of International Law," by J.B. Moore. Report of Penfield of
proceedings before Hague Tribunal in 1903.
"Statesman's Year Book" (for statistics).
A. Minister Drago's appeal to the United States, in Foreign
Relations of United States, 1903.
President Roosevelt's Message, 1905, pp. 33-37.
And articles in the following magazines (among many others):
"Journal of Political Economy," December, 1906.
"Atlantic Monthly," October, 1906.
"North American Review," Vol. 183, p. 602.
All of these contain material valuable for both sides, except those marked
"N" and "A," which are useful only for the negative and affirmative,
respectively.
Note:—Practise in debating is most helpful to the public speaker, but if
possible each debate should be under the supervision of some person whose word
will be respected, so that the debaters might show regard for courtesy,
accuracy, effective reasoning, and the necessity for careful preparation. The
Appendix contains a list of questions for debate.
25. Are the following points well considered?
The Inheritance Tax is Not a Good Social Reform Measure
A. Does not strike at the root of the evil
1. Fortunes not a menace in themselves A fortune of $500,000 may
be a greater social evil than one of $500,000,000
2. Danger of wealth depends on its wrong accumulation and use
3. Inheritance tax will not prevent rebates, monopoly,
discrimination, bribery, etc.
4. Laws aimed at unjust accumulation and use of wealth furnish the
true remedy.
B. It would be evaded
1. Low rates are evaded
2. Rate must be high to result in distribution of great fortunes.
26. Class exercises: Mock Trial for (a) some serious political offense; (b) a
burlesque offense.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] McCosh's Logic is a helpful volume, and not too technical for the beginner.
A brief digest of logical principles as applied to public speaking is contained
in How to Attract and Hold an Audience, by J. Berg Esenwein.
[26] For those who would make a further study of the syllogism the following
rules are given: 1. In a syllogism there should be only three terms. 2. Of these
three only one can be the middle term. 3. One premise must be affirmative. 4.
The conclusion must be negative if either premise is negative. 5. To prove a
negative, one of the premises must be negative.
Summary of Regulating Principles: 1. Terms which agree with the same thing agree
with each other; and when only one of two terms agrees with a third term, the
two terms disagree with each other. 2. "Whatever is affirmed of a class may be
affirmed of all the members of that class," and "Whatever is denied of a class
may be denied of all the members of that class."
[27] All the speakers were from Brown University. The affirmative briefs were
used in debate with the Dartmouth College team, and the negative briefs were
used in debate with the Williams College team. From The Speaker, by permission.
CHAPTER XXIV
INFLUENCING BY PERSUASION
She hath prosperous art
When she will play with reason and discourse,
And well she can persuade.
—Shakespeare, Measure for Measure.
Him we call an artist who shall play on an assembly of men as a master on the
keys of a piano,—who seeing the people furious, shall soften and compose them,
shall draw them, when he will, to laughter and to tears. Bring him to his
audience, and, be they who they may,—coarse or refined, pleased or displeased,
sulky or savage, with their opinions in the keeping of a confessor or with their
opinions in their bank safes,—he will have them pleased and humored as he
chooses; and they shall carry and execute what he bids them.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essay on Eloquence.
More good and more ill have been effected by persuasion than by any other form
of speech. It is an attempt to influence by means of appeal to some particular
interest held important by the hearer. Its motive may be high or low, fair or
unfair, honest or dishonest, calm or passionate, and hence its scope is
unparalleled in public speaking.
This "instilment of conviction," to use Matthew Arnold's expression, is
naturally a complex process in that it usually includes argumentation and often
employs suggestion, as the next chapter will illustrate. In fact, there is
little public speaking worthy of the name that is not in some part persuasive,
for men rarely speak solely to alter men's opinions—the ulterior purpose is
almost always action.
The nature of persuasion is not solely intellectual, but is largely emotional.
It uses every principle of public speaking, and every "form of discourse," to
use a rhetorician's expression, but argument supplemented by special appeal is
its peculiar quality. This we may best see by examining
The Methods of Persuasion
High-minded speakers often seek to move their hearers to action by an appeal to
their highest motives, such as love of liberty. Senator Hoar, in pleading for
action on the Philippine question, used this method:
What has been the practical statesmanship which comes from your ideals and your
sentimentalities? You have wasted nearly six hundred millions of treasure. You
have sacrificed nearly ten thousand American lives—the flower of our youth. You
have devastated provinces. You have slain uncounted thousands of the people you
desire to benefit. You have established reconcentration camps. Your generals are
coming home from their harvest bringing sheaves with them, in the shape of other
thousands of sick and wounded and insane to drag out miserable lives, wrecked in
body and mind. You make the American flag in the eyes of a numerous people the
emblem of sacrilege in Christian churches, and of the burning of human
dwellings, and of the horror of the water torture. Your practical statesmanship
which disdains to take George Washington and Abraham Lincoln or the soldiers of
the Revolution or of the Civil War as models, has looked in some cases to Spain
for your example. I believe—nay, I know—that in general our officers and
soldiers are humane. But in some cases they have carried on your warfare with a
mixture of American ingenuity and Castilian cruelty.
Your practical statesmanship has succeeded in converting a people who three
years ago were ready to kiss the hem of the garment of the American and to
welcome him as a liberator, who thronged after your men, when they landed on
those islands, with benediction and gratitude, into sullen and irreconcilable
enemies, possessed of a hatred which centuries cannot eradicate.
Mr. President, this is the eternal law of human nature. You may struggle against
it, you may try to escape it, you may persuade yourself that your intentions are
benevolent, that your yoke will be easy and your burden will be light, but it
will assert itself again. Government without the consent of the
governed—authority which heaven never gave—can only be supported by means which
heaven never can sanction.
The American people have got this one question to answer. They may answer it
now; they can take ten years, or twenty years, or a generation, or a century to
think of it. But will not down. They must answer it in the end: Can you lawfully
buy with money, or get by brute force of arms, the right to hold in subjugation
an unwilling people, and to impose on them such constitution as you, and not
they, think best for them?
Senator Hoar then went on to make another sort of appeal—the appeal to fact and
experience:
We have answered this question a good many times in the past. The fathers
answered it in 1776, and founded the Republic upon their answer, which has been
the corner-stone. John Quincy Adams and James Monroe answered it again in the
Monroe Doctrine, which John Quincy Adams declared was only the doctrine of the
consent of the governed. The Republican party answered it when it took
possession of the force of government at the beginning of the most brilliant
period in all legislative history. Abraham Lincoln answered it when, on that
fatal journey to Washington in 1861, he announced that as the doctrine of his
political creed, and declared, with prophetic vision, that he was ready to be
assassinated for it if need be. You answered it again yourselves when you said
that Cuba, who had no more title than the people of the Philippine Islands had
to their independence, of right ought to be free and independent.
—George F. Hoar.
Appeal to the things that man holds dear is another potent form of
persuasion.
Joseph Story, in his great Salem speech (1828) used this method most
dramatically:
I call upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors—by the dear ashes
which repose in this precious soil—by all you are, and all you hope to be—resist
every object of disunion, resist every encroachment upon your liberties, resist
every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother your public schools, or
extinguish your system of public instruction.
I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman, the love of your
offspring; teach them, as they climb your knees, or lean on your bosoms, the
blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with their baptismal vows, to
be true to their country, and never to forget or forsake her.
I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons you are; whose inheritance
you possess. Life can never be too short, which brings nothing but disgrace and
oppression. Death never comes too soon, if necessary in defence of the liberties
of your country.
I call upon you, old men, for your counsels, and your prayers, and your
benedictions. May not your gray hairs go down in sorrow to the grave, with the
recollection that you have lived in vain. May not your last sun sink in the west
upon a nation of slaves.
No; I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far brighter visions.
We, who are now assembled here, must soon be gathered to the congregation of
other days. The time of our departure is at hand, to make way for our children
upon the theatre of life. May God speed them and theirs. May he who, at the
distance of another century, shall stand here to celebrate this day, still look
round upon a free, happy, and virtuous people. May he have reason to exult as we
do. May he, with all the enthusiasm of truth as well as of poetry, exclaim, that
here is still his country.—Joseph Story.
The appeal to prejudice is effective—though not often, if ever, justifiable; yet
so long as special pleading endures this sort of persuasion will be resorted to.
Rudyard Kipling uses this method—as have many others on both sides—in discussing
the great European war. Mingled with the appeal to prejudice, Mr. Kipling uses
the appeal to self-interest; though not the highest, it is a powerful motive in
all our lives. Notice how at the last the pleader sweeps on to the highest
ground he can take. This is a notable example of progressive appeal, beginning
with a low motive and ending with a high one in such a way as to carry all the
force of prejudice yet gain all the value of patriotic fervor.
Through no fault nor wish of ours we are at war with Germany, the power which
owes its existence to three well-thought-out wars; the power which, for the last
twenty years, has devoted itself to organizing and preparing for this war; the
power which is now fighting to conquer the civilized world.
For the last two generations the Germans in their books, lectures, speeches and
schools have been carefully taught that nothing less than this world-conquest
was the object of their preparations and their sacrifices. They have prepared
carefully and sacrificed greatly.
We must have men and men and men, if we, with our allies, are to check the
onrush of organized barbarism.
Have no illusions. We are dealing with a strong and magnificently equipped
enemy, whose avowed aim is our complete destruction. The violation of Belgium,
the attack on France and the defense against Russia, are only steps by the way.
The German's real objective, as she always has told us, is England, and
England's wealth, trade and worldwide possessions.
If you assume, for an instant, that the attack will be successful, England will
not be reduced, as some people say, to the rank of a second rate power, but we
shall cease to exist as a nation. We shall become an outlying province of
Germany, to be administered with that severity German safety and interest
require.
We are against such a fate. We enter into a new life in which all the facts of
war that we had put behind or forgotten for the last hundred years, have
returned to the front and test us as they tested our fathers. It will be a long
and a hard road, beset with difficulties and discouragements, but we tread it
together and we will tread it together to the end.
Our petty social divisions and barriers have been swept away at the outset of
our mighty struggle. All the interests of our life of six weeks ago are dead. We
have but one interest now, and that touches the naked heart of every man in this
island and in the empire.
If we are to win the right for ourselves and for freedom to exist on earth,
every man must offer himself for that service and that sacrifice.
From these examples it will be seen that the particular way in which the
speakers appealed to their hearers was by coming close home to their interests,
and by themselves showing emotion—two very important principles which you must
keep constantly in mind.
To accomplish the former requires a deep knowledge of human motive in general
and an understanding of the particular audience addressed. What are the motives
that arouse men to action? Think of them earnestly, set them down on the tablets
of your mind, study how to appeal to them worthily. Then, what motives would be
likely to appeal to your hearers? What are their ideals and interests in life? A
mistake in your estimate may cost you your case. To appeal to pride in
appearance would make one set of men merely laugh—to try to arouse sympathy for
the Jews in Palestine would be wasted effort among others. Study your audience,
feel your way, and when you have once raised a spark, fan it into a flame by
every honest resource you possess.
The larger your audience the more sure you are to find a universal basis of
appeal. A small audience of bachelors will not grow excited over the importance
of furniture insurance; most men can be roused to the defense of the freedom of
the press.
Patent medicine advertisement usually begins by talking about your pains—they
begin on your interests. If they first discussed the size and rating of their
establishment, or the efficacy of their remedy, you would never read the "ad."
If they can make you think you have nervous troubles you will even plead for a
remedy—they will not have to try to sell it.
The patent medicine men are pleading—asking you to invest your money in their
commodity—yet they do not appear to be doing so. They get over on your side of
the fence, and arouse a desire for their nostrums by appealing to your own
interests.
Recently a book-salesman entered an attorney's office in New York and inquired:
"Do you want to buy a book?" Had the lawyer wanted a book he would probably have
bought one without waiting for a book-salesman to call. The solicitor made the
same mistake as the representative who made his approach with: "I want to sell
you a sewing machine." They both talked only in terms of their own interests.
The successful pleader must convert his arguments into terms of his hearers'
advantage. Mankind are still selfish, are interested in what will serve them.
Expunge from your address your own personal concern and present your appeal in
terms of the general good, and to do this you need not be insincere, for you had
better not plead any cause that is not for the hearers' good. Notice how Senator
Thurston in his plea for intervention in Cuba and Mr. Bryan in his "Cross of
Gold" speech constituted themselves the apostles of humanity.
Exhortation is a highly impassioned form of appeal frequently used by the pulpit
in efforts to arouse men to a sense of duty and induce them to decide their
personal courses, and by counsel in seeking to influence a jury. The great
preachers, like the great jury-lawyers, have always been masters of persuasion.
Notice the difference among these four exhortations, and analyze the motives
appealed to:
Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay! Let not a traitor
live!—Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar.
Strike—till the last armed foe expires,
Strike—for your altars and your fires,
Strike—for the green graves of your sires,
God—and your native land!
—Fitz-Greene Halleck, Marco Bozzaris.
Believe, gentlemen, if it were not for those children, he would not come here
to-day to seek such remuneration; if it were not that, by your verdict, you may
prevent those little innocent defrauded wretches from becoming wandering
beggars, as well as orphans on the face of this earth. Oh, I know I need not ask
this verdict from your mercy; I need not extort it from your compassion; I will
receive it from your justice. I do conjure you, not as fathers, but as
husbands:—not as husbands, but as citizens:—not as citizens, but as men:—not as
men, but as Christians:—by all your obligations, public, private, moral, and
religious; by the hearth profaned; by the home desolated; by the canons of the
living God foully spurned;—save, oh: save your firesides from the contagion,
your country from the crime, and perhaps thousands, yet unborn, from the shame,
and sin, and sorrow of this example!
—Charles Phillips, Appeal to the jury in behalf of Guthrie.
So I appeal from the men in silken hose who danced to music made by slaves and
called it freedom, from the men in bell-crown hats who led Hester Prynne to her
shame and called it religion, to that Americanism which reaches forth its arms
to smite wrong with reason and truth, secure in the power of both. I appeal from
the patriarchs of New England to the poets of New England; from Endicott to
Lowell; from Winthrop to Longfellow; from Norton to Holmes; and I appeal in the
name and by the rights of that common citizenship—of that common origin, back of
both the Puritan and the Cavalier, to which all of us owe our being. Let the
dead past, consecrated by the blood of its martyrs, not by its savage hatreds,
darkened alike by kingcraft and priestcraft—let the dead past bury its dead. Let
the present and the future ring with the song of the singers. Blessed be the
lessons they teach, the laws they make. Blessed be the eye to see, the light to
reveal. Blessed be tolerance, sitting ever on the right hand of God to guide the
way with loving word, as blessed be all that brings us nearer the goal of true
religion, true republicanism, and true patriotism, distrust of watchwords and
labels, shams and heroes, belief in our country and ourselves. It was not Cotton
Mather, but John Greenleaf Whittier, who cried:
Dear God and Father of us all,
Forgive our faith in cruel lies,
Forgive the blindness that denies.
Cast down our idols—overturn
Our Bloody altars—make us see
Thyself in Thy humanity!
—Henry Watterson, Puritan and Cavalier.
Goethe, on being reproached for not having written war songs against the
French, replied, "In my poetry I have never shammed. How could I have written
songs of hate without hatred?" Neither is it possible to plead with full
efficiency for a cause for which you do not feel deeply. Feeling is contagious
as belief is contagious. The speaker who pleads with real feeling for his own
convictions will instill his feelings into his listeners. Sincerity, force,
enthusiasm, and above all, feeling—these are the qualities that move multitudes
and make appeals irresistible. They are of far greater importance than technical
principles of delivery, grace of gesture, or polished enunciation—important as
all these elements must doubtless be considered. Base your appeal on reason, but
do not end in the basement—let the building rise, full of deep emotion and noble
persuasion.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. (a) What elements of appeal do you find in the following? (b) Is it too
florid? (c) Is this style equally powerful today? (d) Are the sentences too long
and involved for clearness and force?
Oh, gentlemen, am I this day only the counsel of my client? No, no; I am the
advocate of humanity—of yourselves—your homes—your wives—your families—your
little children. I am glad that this case exhibits such atrocity; unmarked as it
is by any mitigatory feature, it may stop the frightful advance of this
calamity; it will be met now, and marked with vengeance. If it be not, farewell
to the virtues of your country; farewell to all confidence between man and man;
farewell to that unsuspicious and reciprocal tenderness, without which marriage
is but a consecrated curse. If oaths are to be violated, laws disregarded,
friendship betrayed, humanity trampled, national and individual honor stained,
and if a jury of fathers and of husbands will give such miscreancy a passport to
their homes, and wives, and daughters,—farewell to all that yet remains of
Ireland! But I will not cast such a doubt upon the character of my country.
Against the sneer of the foe, and the skepticism of the foreigner, I will still
point to the domestic virtues, that no perfidy could barter, and no bribery can
purchase, that with a Roman usage, at once embellish and consecrate households,
giving to the society of the hearth all the purity of the altar; that lingering
alike in the palace and the cottage, are still to be found scattered over this
land—the relic of what she was—the source perhaps of what she may be—the lone,
the stately, and magnificent memorials, that rearing their majesty amid
surrounding ruins, serve at once as the landmarks of the departed glory, and the
models by which the future may be erected.
Preserve those virtues with a vestal fidelity; mark this day, by your verdict,
your horror of their profanation; and believe me, when the hand which records
that verdict shall be dust, and the tongue that asks it, traceless in the grave,
many a happy home will bless its consequences, and many a mother teach her
little child to hate the impious treason of adultery.
—Charles Phillips.
2. Analyze and criticise the forms of appeal used in the selections from Hoar,
Story, and Kipling.
3. What is the type of persuasion used by Senator Thurston (page 50)?
4. Cite two examples each, from selections in this volume, in which speakers
sought to be persuasive by securing the hearers' (a) sympathy for themselves;
(b) sympathy with their subjects; (c) self-pity.
5. Make a short address using persuasion.
6. What other methods of persuasion than those here mentioned can you name?
7. Is it easier to persuade men to change their course of conduct than to
persuade them to continue in a given course? Give examples to support your
belief.
8. In how far are we justified in making an appeal to self-interest in order to
lead men to adopt a given course?
9. Does the merit of the course have any bearing on the merit of the methods
used?
10. Illustrate an unworthy method of using persuasion.
11. Deliver a short speech on the value of skill in persuasion.
12. Does effective persuasion always produce conviction?
13. Does conviction always result in action?
14. Is it fair for counsel to appeal to the emotions of a jury in a murder
trial?
15. Ought the judge use persuasion in making his charge?
16. Say how self-consciousness may hinder the power of persuasion in a speaker.
17. Is emotion without words ever persuasive? If so, illustrate.
18. Might gestures without words be persuasive? If so, illustrate.
19. Has posture in a speaker anything to do with persuasion? Discuss.
20. Has voice? Discuss.
21. Has manner? Discuss.
22. What effect does personal magnetism have in producing conviction?
23. Discuss the relation of persuasion to (a) description; (b) narration; (c)
exposition; (d) pure reason.
24. What is the effect of over-persuasion?
25. Make a short speech on the effect of the constant use of persuasion on the
sincerity of the speaker himself.
26. Show by example how a general statement is not as persuasive as a concrete
example illustrating the point being discussed.
27. Show by example how brevity is of value in persuasion.
28. Discuss the importance of avoiding an antagonistic attitude in persuasion.
29. What is the most persuasive passage you have found in the selections of this
volume. On what do you base your decision?
30. Cite a persuasive passage from some other source. Read or recite it aloud.
31. Make a list of the emotional bases of appeal, grading them from low to high,
according to your estimate.
32. Would circumstances make any difference in such grading? If so, give
examples.
33. Deliver a short, passionate appeal to a jury, pleading for justice to a poor
widow.
34. Deliver a short appeal to men to give up some evil way.
35. Criticise the structure of the sentence beginning with the last line of page
296.
CHAPTER XXV
INFLUENCING THE CROWD
Success in business, in the last analysis, turns upon touching the imagination
of crowds. The reason that preachers in this present generation are less
successful in getting people to want goodness than business men are in getting
them to want motorcars, hats, and pianolas, is that business men as a class are
more close and desperate students of human nature, and have boned down harder to
the art of touching the imaginations of the crowds.—Gerald Stanley Lee, Crowds.
In the early part of July, 1914, a collection of Frenchmen in Paris, or Germans
in Berlin, was not a crowd in a psychological sense. Each individual had his own
special interests and needs, and there was no powerful common idea to unify
them. A group then represented only a collection of individuals. A month later,
any collection of Frenchmen or Germans formed a crowd: Patriotism, hate, a
common fear, a pervasive grief, had unified the individuals.
The psychology of the crowd is far different from the psychology of the personal
members that compose it. The crowd is a distinct entity. Individuals restrain
and subdue many of their impulses at the dictates of reason. The crowd never
reasons. It only feels. As persons there is a sense of responsibility attached
to our actions which checks many of our incitements, but the sense of
responsibility is lost in the crowd because of its numbers. The crowd is
exceedingly suggestible and will act upon the wildest and most extreme ideas.
The crowd-mind is primitive and will cheer plans and perform actions which its
members would utterly repudiate.
A mob is only a highly-wrought crowd. Ruskin's description is fitting: "You can
talk a mob into anything; its feelings may be—usually are—on the whole, generous
and right, but it has no foundation for them, no hold of them. You may tease or
tickle it into anything at your pleasure. It thinks by infection, for the most
part, catching an opinion like a cold, and there is nothing so little that it
will not roar itself wild about, when the fit is on, nothing so great but it
will forget in an hour when the fit is past."[28]
History will show us how the crowd-mind works. The medieval mind was not given
to reasoning; the medieval man attached great weight to the utterance of
authority; his religion touched chiefly the emotions. These conditions provided
a rich soil for the propagation of the crowd-mind when, in the eleventh century,
flagellation, a voluntary self-scourging, was preached by the monks.
Substituting flagellation for reciting penitential psalms was advocated by the
reformers. A scale was drawn up, making one thousand strokes equivalent to ten
psalms, or fifteen thousand to the entire psalter. This craze spread by
leaps—and crowds. Flagellant fraternities sprang up. Priests carrying banners
led through the streets great processions reciting prayers and whipping their
bloody bodies with leathern thongs fitted with four iron points. Pope Clement
denounced this practise and several of the leaders of these processions had to
be burned at the stake before the frenzy could be uprooted.
All western and central Europe was turned into a crowd by the preaching of the
crusaders, and millions of the followers of the Prince of Peace rushed to the
Holy Land to kill the heathen. Even the children started on a crusade against
the Saracens. The mob-spirit was so strong that home affections and persuasion
could not prevail against it and thousands of mere babes died in their attempts
to reach and redeem the Sacred Sepulchre.
In the early part of the eighteenth century the South Sea Company was formed in
England. Britain became a speculative crowd. Stock in the South Sea Company rose
from 128-1/2 points in January to 550 in May, and scored 1,000 in July. Five
million shares were sold at this premium. Speculation ran riot. Hundreds of
companies were organized. One was formed "for a wheel of perpetual motion."
Another never troubled to give any reason at all for taking the cash of its
subscribers—it merely announced that it was organized "for a design which will
hereafter be promulgated." Owners began to sell, the mob caught the suggestion,
a panic ensued, the South Sea Company stock fell 800 points in a few days, and
more than a billion dollars evaporated in this era of frenzied speculation.
The burning of the witches at Salem, the Klondike gold craze, and the
forty-eight people who were killed by mobs in the United States in 1913, are
examples familiar to us in America.
The Crowd Must Have a Leader
The leader of the crowd or mob is its determining factor. He becomes
self-hynoptized with the idea that unifies its members, his enthusiasm is
contagious—and so is theirs. The crowd acts as he suggests. The great mass of
people do not have any very sharply-drawn conclusions on any subject outside of
their own little spheres, but when they become a crowd they are perfectly
willing to accept ready-made, hand-me-down opinions. They will follow a leader
at all costs—in labor troubles they often follow a leader in preference to
obeying their government, in war they will throw self-preservation to the bushes
and follow a leader in the face of guns that fire fourteen times a second. The
mob becomes shorn of will-power and blindly obedient to its dictator. The
Russian Government, recognizing the menace of the crowd-mind to its autocracy,
formerly prohibited public gatherings. History is full of similar instances.
How the Crowd is Created
Today the crowd is as real a factor in our socialized life as are magnates and
monopolies. It is too complex a problem merely to damn or praise it—it must be
reckoned with, and mastered. The present problem is how to get the most and the
best out of the crowd-spirit, and the public speaker finds this to be peculiarly
his own question. His influence is multiplied if he can only transmute his
audience into a crowd. His affirmations must be their conclusions.
This can be accomplished by unifying the minds and needs of the audience and
arousing their emotions. Their feelings, not their reason, must be played
upon—it is "up to" him to do this nobly. Argument has its place on the platform,
but even its potencies must subserve the speaker's plan of attack to win
possession of his audience.
Reread the chapter on "Feeling and Enthusiasm." It is impossible to make an
audience a crowd without appealing to their emotions. Can you imagine the
average group becoming a crowd while hearing a lecture on Dry Fly Fishing, or on
Egyptian Art? On the other hand, it would not have required world-famous
eloquence to have turned any audience in Ulster, in 1914, into a crowd by
discussing the Home Rule Act. The crowd-spirit depends largely on the subject
used to fuse their individualities into one glowing whole.
Note how Antony played upon the feelings of his hearers in the famous funeral
oration given by Shakespeare in "Julius Cæsar." From murmuring units the men
became a unit—a mob.
ANTONY'S ORATION OVER CÆSAR'S BODY
Friends, Romans, countrymen! Lend me your ears;
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones:
So let it be with Cæsar! The Noble Brutus
Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest—
For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men—
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see, that, on the Lupercal,
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
Oh, judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!—Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me. [Weeps.
1 Plebeian. Methinks there is much reason in his sayings.
2 Ple. If thou consider rightly of the matter,
Cæsar has had great wrong.
3 Ple. Has he, masters?
I fear there will a worse come in his place.
4 Ple. Mark'd ye his words? He would not take the crown;
Therefore, 'tis certain, he was not ambitious.
1 Ple. If it be found so, some will dear abide it.
2 Ple. Poor soul, his eyes are red as fire with weeping.
3 Ple. There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.
4 Ple. Now mark him, he begins again to speak.
Ant. But yesterday, the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world: now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
Oh, masters! if I were dispos'd to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men.
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men.
But here's a parchment, with the seal of Cæsar;
I found it in his closet; 'tis his will:
Let but the commons hear this testament—
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read—
And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.
4 Ple. We'll hear the will: Read it, Mark Antony.
All. The will! the will! we will hear Cæsar's will.
Ant. Have patience, gentle friends: I must not read it;
It is not meet you know how Cæsar lov'd you.
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;
And, being men, hearing the will of Cæsar,
It will inflame you, it will make you mad:
'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs;
For if you should, oh, what would come of it!
4 Ple. Read the will; we'll hear it, Antony!
You shall read us the will! Cæsar's will!
Ant. Will you be patient? Will you stay awhile?
I have o'ershot myself, to tell you of it.
I fear I wrong the honorable men
Whose daggers have stab'd Cæsar; I do fear it.
4 Ple. They were traitors: Honorable men!
All. The will! the testament!
2 Ple. They were villains, murtherers! The will! Read the will!
Ant. You will compel me then to read the will?
Then, make a ring about the corpse of Cæsar,
And let me shew you him that made the will.
Shall I descend? And will you give me leave?
All. Come down.
2 Ple. Descend. [He comes down from the Rostrum.
3 Ple. You shall have leave.
4 Ple. A ring; stand round.
1 Ple. Stand from the hearse, stand from the body.
2 Ple. Room for Antony!—most noble Antony!
Ant. Nay, press not so upon me; stand far off.
All. Stand back! room! bear back!
Ant. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now;
You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Cæsar put it on;
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii.
Look, in this place, ran Cassius' dagger through:
See, what a rent the envious Casca made:
Through this, the well-beloved Brutus stab'd;
And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar follow'd it!—
As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd
If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no;
For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel:
Judge, O you Gods, how Cæsar lov'd him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all!
For when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart;
And in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey's statue,
Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell.
Oh what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I and you, and all of us, fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us.
Oh! now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity; these are gracious drops.
Kind souls! what, weep you, when you but behold
Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? Look you here!
Here is himself, mar'd, as you see, by traitors.
1 Ple. Oh, piteous spectacle!
2 Ple. Oh, noble Cæsar!
3 Ple. Oh, woful day!
4 Ple. Oh, traitors, villains!
1 Ple. Oh, most bloody sight!
2 Ple. We will be reveng'd!
All. Revenge; about—seek—burn—fire—kill—day!—Let not
a traitor live!
Ant. Stay, countrymen.
1 Ple. Peace there! Hear the noble Antony.
2 Ple. We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with him.
Ant. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny:
They that have done this deed are honorable:
What private griefs they have, alas! I know not,
That made them do it; they are wise, and honorable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts;
I am no orator, as Brutus is;
But as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That love my friend, and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him:
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood. I only speak right on:
I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show your sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor, dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Cæsar, that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.
All. We'll mutiny!
1 Ple. We'll burn the house of Brutus.
3 Ple. Away, then! Come, seek the conspirators.
Ant. Yet hear me, countrymen; yet hear me speak.
All. Peace, ho! Hear Antony, most noble Antony.
Ant. Why, friends, you go to do you know not what.
Wherein hath Cæsar thus deserv'd your loves?
Alas! you know not!—I must tell you then.
You have forgot the will I told you of.
Ple. Most true;—the will!—let's stay, and hear the will.
Ant. Here is the will, and under Cæsar's seal.
To every Roman citizen he gives,
To every several man, seventy-five drachmas.
2 Ple. Most noble Cæsar!—we'll revenge his death.
3 Ple. O royal Cæsar!
Ant. Hear me with patience.
All. Peace, ho!
Ant. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbours, and new-planted orchards,
On this side Tiber; he hath left them you,
And to your heirs forever, common pleasures,
To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.
Here was a Cæsar! When comes such another?
1 Ple. Never, never!—Come, away, away!
We'll burn his body in the holy place,
And with the brands fire the traitors' houses.
Take up the body.
2 Ple. Go, fetch fire.
3 Ple. Pluck down benches.
4 Ple. Pluck down forms, windows, anything.
[Exeunt Citizens, with the body.
Ant. Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot,
Take thou what course thou wilt!
To unify single, auditors into a crowd, express their common needs,
aspirations, dangers, and emotions, deliver your message so that the interests
of one shall appear to be the interests of all. The conviction of one man is
intensified in proportion as he finds others sharing his belief—and feeling.
Antony does not stop with telling the Roman populace that Cæsar fell—he makes
the tragedy universal:
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us.
Applause, generally a sign of feeling, helps to unify an audience. The nature
of the crowd is illustrated by the contagion of applause. Recently a throng in a
New York moving-picture and vaudeville house had been applauding several songs,
and when an advertisement for tailored skirts was thrown on the screen some one
started the applause, and the crowd, like sheep, blindly imitated—until someone
saw the joke and laughed; then the crowd again followed a leader and laughed at
and applauded its own stupidity.
Actors sometimes start applause for their lines by snapping their fingers. Some
one in the first few rows will mistake it for faint applause, and the whole
theatre will chime in.
An observant auditor will be interested in noticing the various devices a
monologist will use to get the first round of laughter and applause. He works so
hard because he knows an audience of units is an audience of indifferent
critics, but once get them to laughing together and each single laugher sweeps a
number of others with him, until the whole theatre is aroar and the entertainer
has scored. These are meretricious schemes, to be sure, and do not savor in the
least of inspiration, but crowds have not changed in their nature in a thousand
years and the one law holds for the greatest preacher and the pettiest
stump-speaker—you must fuse your audience or they will not warm to your message.
The devices of the great orator may not be so obvious as those of the vaudeville
monologist, but the principle is the same: he tries to strike some universal
note that will have all his hearers feeling alike at the same time.
The evangelist knows this when he has the soloist sing some touching song
just before the address. Or he will have the entire congregation sing, and that
is the psychology of "Now everybody sing!" for he knows that they who will not
join in the song are as yet outside the crowd. Many a time has the popular
evangelist stopped in the middle of his talk, when he felt that his hearers were
units instead of a molten mass (and a sensitive speaker can feel that condition
most depressingly) and suddenly demanded that everyone arise and sing, or repeat
aloud a familiar passage, or read in unison; or perhaps he has subtly left the
thread of his discourse to tell a story that, from long experience, he knew
would not fail to bring his hearers to a common feeling.
These things are important resources for the speaker, and happy is he who uses
them worthily and not as a despicable charlatan. The difference between a
demagogue and a leader is not so much a matter of method as of principle. Even
the most dignified speaker must recognize the eternal laws of human nature. You
are by no means urged to become a trickster on the platform—far from it!—but
don't kill your speech with dignity. To be icily correct is as silly as to rant.
Do neither, but appeal to those world-old elements in your audience that have
been recognized by all great speakers from Demosthenes to Sam Small, and see to
it that you never debase your powers by arousing your hearers unworthily.
It is as hard to kindle enthusiasm in a scattered audience as to build a fire
with scattered sticks. An audience to be converted into a crowd must be made to
appear as a crowd. This cannot be done when they are widely scattered over a
large seating space or when many empty benches separate the speaker from his
hearers. Have your audience seated compactly. How many a preacher has bemoaned
the enormous edifice over which what would normally be a large congregation has
scattered in chilled and chilling solitude Sunday after Sunday! Bishop Brooks
himself could not have inspired a congregation of one thousand souls seated in
the vastness of St. Peter's at Rome. In that colossal sanctuary it is only on
great occasions which bring out the multitudes that the service is before the
high altar—at other times the smaller side-chapels are used.
Universal ideas surcharged with feeling help to create the crowd-atmosphere.
Examples: liberty, character, righteousness, courage, fraternity, altruism,
country, and national heroes. George Cohan was making psychology practical and
profitable when he introduced the flag and flag-songs into his musical comedies.
Cromwell's regiments prayed before the battle and went into the fight singing
hymns. The French corps, singing the Marseillaise in 1914, charged the Germans
as one man. Such unifying devices arouse the feelings, make soldiers fanatical
mobs—and, alas, more efficient murderers.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Sesame and Lilies.
CHAPTER XXVI
RIDING THE WINGED HORSE
To think, and to feel, constitute the two grand divisions of men of genius—the
men of reasoning and the men of imagination.
—Isaac Disraeli, Literary Character of Men of Genius.
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
—Shakespeare, Midsummer-Night's Dream.
It is common, among those who deal chiefly with life's practicalities, to think
of imagination as having little value in comparison with direct thinking. They
smile with tolerance when Emerson says that "Science does not know its debt to
the imagination," for these are the words of a speculative essayist, a
philosopher, a poet. But when Napoleon—the indomitable welder of
empires—declares that "The human race is governed by its imagination," the
authoritative word commands their respect.
Be it remembered, the faculty of forming mental images is as efficient a cog as
may be found in the whole mind-machine. True, it must fit into that other vital
cog, pure thought, but when it does so it may be questioned which is the more
productive of important results for the happiness and well-being of man. This
should become more apparent as we go on.
I. WHAT IS IMAGINATION?
Let us not seek for a definition, for a score of varying ones may be found, but
let us grasp this fact: By imagination we mean either the faculty or the process
of forming mental images.
The subject-matter of imagination may be really existent in nature, or not at
all real, or a combination of both; it may be physical or spiritual, or both—the
mental image is at once the most lawless and the most law-abiding child that has
ever been born of the mind.
First of all, as its name suggests, the process of imagination—for we are
thinking of it now as a process rather than as a faculty—is memory at work.
Therefore we must consider it primarily as
1. Reproductive Imagination
We see or hear or feel or taste or smell something and the sensation passes
away. Yet we are conscious of a greater or lesser ability to reproduce such
feelings at will. Two considerations, in general, will govern the vividness of
the image thus evoked—the strength of the original impression, and the
reproductive power of one mind as compared with another. Yet every normal person
will be able to evoke images with some degree of clearness.
The fact that not all minds possess this imaging faculty in anything like equal
measure will have an important bearing on the public speaker's study of this
question. No man who does not feel at least some poetic impulses is likely to
aspire seriously to be a poet, yet many whose imaging faculties are so dormant
as to seem actually dead do aspire to be public speakers. To all such we say
most earnestly: Awaken your image-making gift, for even in the most coldly
logical discourse it is sure to prove of great service. It is important that you
find out at once just how full and how trustworthy is your imagination, for it
is capable of cultivation—as well as of abuse.
Francis Galton[29] says: "The French appear to possess the visualizing faculty
in a high degree. The peculiar ability they show in pre-arranging ceremonials
and fêtes of all kinds and their undoubted genius for tactics and strategy show
that they are able to foresee effects with unusual clearness. Their ingenuity in
all technical contrivances is an additional testimony in the same direction, and
so is their singular clearness of expression. Their phrase figurez-vous, or
picture to yourself, seems to express their dominant mode of perception. Our
equivalent, of 'image,' is ambiguous."
But individuals differ in this respect just as markedly as, for instance, the
Dutch do from the French. And this is true not only of those who are classified
by their friends as being respectively imaginative or unimaginative, but of
those whose gifts or habits are not well known.
Let us take for experiment six of the best-known types of imaging and see in
practise how they arise in our own minds.
By all odds the most common type is, (a) the visual image. Children who more
readily recall things seen than things heard are called by psychologists
"eye-minded," and most of us are bent in this direction. Close your eyes now and
re-call—the word thus hyphenated is more suggestive—the scene around this
morning's breakfast table. Possibly there was nothing striking in the situation
and the image is therefore not striking. Then image any notable table scene in
your experience—how vividly it stands forth, because at the time you felt the
impression strongly. Just then you may not have been conscious of how strongly
the scene was laying hold upon you, for often we are so intent upon what we see
that we give no particular thought to the fact that it is impressing us. It may
surprise you to learn how accurately you are able to image a scene when a long
time has elapsed between the conscious focussing of your attention on the image
and the time when you saw the original.
(b) The auditory image is probably the next most vivid of our recalled
experiences. Here association is potent to suggest similarities. Close out all
the world beside and listen to the peculiar wood-against-wood sound of the sharp
thunder among rocky mountains—the crash of ball against ten-pins may suggest it.
Or image (the word is imperfect, for it seems to suggest only the eye) the sound
of tearing ropes when some precious weight hangs in danger. Or recall the bay of
a hound almost upon you in pursuit—choose your own sound, and see how pleasantly
or terribly real it becomes when imaged in your brain.
(c) The motor image is a close competitor with the auditory for second place.
Have you ever awakened in the night, every muscle taut and striving, to feel
your self straining against the opposing football line that held like a
stone-wall—or as firmly as the headboard of your bed? Or voluntarily recall the
movement of the boat when you cried inwardly, "It's all up with me!" The
perilous lurch of a train, the sudden sinking of an elevator, or the unexpected
toppling of a rocking-chair may serve as further experiments.
(d) The gustatory image is common enough, as the idea of eating lemons will
testify. Sometimes the pleasurable recollection of a delightful dinner will
cause the mouth to water years afterward, or the "image" of particularly
atrocious medicine will wrinkle the nose long after it made one day in boyhood
wretched.
(e) The olfactory image is even more delicate. Some there are who are affected
to illness by the memory of certain odors, while others experience the most
delectable sensations by the rise of pleasing olfactory images.
(f) The tactile image, to name no others, is well nigh as potent. Do you shudder
at the thought of velvet rubbed by short-nailed finger tips? Or were you ever
"burned" by touching an ice-cold stove? Or, happier memory, can you still feel
the touch of a well-loved absent hand?
Be it remembered that few of these images are present in our minds except in
combination—the sight and sound of the crashing avalanche are one; so are the
flash and report of the huntman's gun that came so near "doing for us."
Thus, imaging—especially conscious reproductive imagination—will become a
valuable part of our mental processes in proportion as we direct and control it.
2. Productive Imagination
All of the foregoing examples, and doubtless also many of the experiments you
yourself may originate, are merely reproductive. Pleasurable or horrific as
these may be, they are far less important than the images evoked by the
productive imagination—though that does not infer a separate faculty.
Recall, again for experiment, some scene whose beginning you once saw enacted on
a street corner but passed by before the dénouement was ready to be disclosed.
Recall it all—that far the image is reproductive. But what followed? Let your
fantasy roam at pleasure—the succeeding scenes are productive, for you have more
or less consciously invented the unreal on the basis of the real.
And just here the fictionist, the poet, and the public speaker will see the
value of productive imagery. True, the feet of the idol you build are on the
ground, but its head pierces the clouds, it is a son of both earth and heaven.
One fact it is important to note here: Imagery is a valuable mental asset in
proportion as it is controlled by the higher intellectual power of pure reason.
The untutored child of nature thinks largely in images and therefore attaches to
them undue importance. He readily confuses the real with the unreal—to him they
are of like value. But the man of training readily distinguishes the one from
the other and evaluates each with some, if not with perfect, justice.
So we see that unrestrained imaging may produce a rudderless steamer, while the
trained faculty is the graceful sloop, skimming the seas at her skipper's will,
her course steadied by the helm of reason and her lightsome wings catching every
air of heaven.
The game of chess, the war-lord's tactical plan, the evolution of a geometrical
theorem, the devising of a great business campaign, the elimination of waste in
a factory, the dénouement of a powerful drama, the overcoming of an economic
obstacle, the scheme for a sublime poem, and the convincing siege of an audience
may—nay, indeed must—each be conceived in an image and wrought to reality
according to the plans and specifications laid upon the trestle board by some
modern imaginative Hiram. The farmer who would be content with the seed he
possesses would have no harvest. Do not rest satisfied with the ability to
recall images, but cultivate your creative imagination by building "what might
be" upon the foundation of "what is."
II. THE USES OF IMAGING IN PUBLIC SPEAKING
By this time you will have already made some general application of these ideas
to the art of the platform, but to several specific uses we must now refer.
1. Imaging in Speech-Preparation
(a) Set the image of your audience before you while you prepare. Disappointment
may lurk here, and you cannot be forearmed for every emergency, but in the main
you must meet your audience before you actually do—image its probable mood and
attitude toward the occasion, the theme, and the speaker.
(b) Conceive your speech as a whole while you are preparing its parts, else can
you not see—image—how its parts shall be fitly framed together.
(c) Image the language you will use, so far as written or extemporaneous speech
may dictate. The habit of imaging will give you choice of varied figures of
speech, for remember that an address without fresh comparisons is like a garden
without blooms. Do not be content with the first hackneyed figure that comes
flowing to your pen-point, but dream on until the striking, the unusual, yet the
vividly real comparison points your thought like steel does the arrow-tip.
Note the freshness and effectiveness of the following description from the
opening of O. Henry's story, "The Harbinger."
Long before the springtide is felt in the dull bosom of the yokel does the city
man know that the grass-green goddess is upon her throne. He sits at his
breakfast eggs and toast, begirt by stone walls, opens his morning paper and
sees journalism leave vernalism at the post.
For whereas Spring's couriers were once the evidence of our finer senses, now
the Associated Press does the trick.
The warble of the first robin in Hackensack, the stirring of the maple sap in
Bennington, the budding of the pussy willows along the main street in Syracuse,
the first chirp of the blue bird, the swan song of the blue point, the annual
tornado in St. Louis, the plaint of the peach pessimist from Pompton, N.J., the
regular visit of the tame wild goose with a broken leg to the pond near
Bilgewater Junction, the base attempt of the Drug Trust to boost the price of
quinine foiled in the House by Congressman Jinks, the first tall poplar struck
by lightning and the usual stunned picknickers who had taken refuge, the first
crack of the ice jamb in the Allegheny River, the finding of a violet in its
mossy bed by the correspondent at Round Corners—these are the advanced signs of
the burgeoning season that are wired into the wise city, while the farmer sees
nothing but winter upon his dreary fields.
But these be mere externals. The true harbinger is the heart. When Strephon
seeks his Chloe and Mike his Maggie, then only is Spring arrived and the
newspaper report of the five foot rattler killed in Squire Pettregrew's pasture
confirmed.
A hackneyed writer would probably have said that the newspaper told the city man
about spring before the farmer could see any evidence of it, but that the real
harbinger of spring was love and that "In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly
turns to thoughts of love."
2. Imaging in Speech-Delivery
When once the passion of speech is on you and you are "warmed up"—perhaps by
striking till the iron is hot so that you may not fail to strike when it is
hot—your mood will be one of vision.
Then (a) Re-image past emotion—of which more elsewhere. The actor re-calls the
old feelings every time he renders his telling lines.
(b) Reconstruct in image the scenes you are to describe.
(c) Image the objects in nature whose tone you are delineating, so that bearing
and voice and movement (gesture) will picture forth the whole convincingly.
Instead of merely stating the fact that whiskey ruins homes, the temperance
speaker paints a drunkard coming home to abuse his wife and strike his children.
It is much more effective than telling the truth in abstract terms. To depict
the cruelness of war, do not assert the fact abstractly—"War is cruel." Show the
soldier, an arm swept away by a bursting shell, lying on the battlefield
pleading for water; show the children with tear-stained faces pressed against
the window pane praying for their dead father to return. Avoid general and
prosaic terms. Paint pictures. Evolve images for the imagination of your
audience to construct into pictures of their own.
III. HOW TO ACQUIRE THE IMAGING HABIT
You remember the American statesman who asserted that "the way to resume is to
resume"? The application is obvious. Beginning with the first simple analyses of
this chapter, test your own qualities of image-making. One by one practise the
several kinds of images; then add—even invent—others in combination, for many
images come to us in complex form, like the combined noise and shoving and hot
odor of a cheering crowd.
After practising on reproductive imaging, turn to the productive, beginning with
the reproductive and adding productive features for the sake of cultivating
invention.
Frequently, allow your originating gifts full swing by weaving complete
imaginary fabrics—sights, sounds, scenes; all the fine world of fantasy lies
open to the journeyings of your winged steed.
In like manner train yourself in the use of figurative language. Learn first to
distinguish and then to use its varied forms. When used with restraint, nothing
can be more effective than the trope; but once let extravagance creep in by the
window, and power will flee by the door.
All in all, master your images—let not them master you.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Give original examples of each kind of reproductive imagination.
2. Build two of these into imaginary incidents for platform use, using your
productive, or creative, imagination.
3. Define (a) phantasy; (b) vision; (c) fantastic; (d) phantasmagoria; (e)
transmogrify; (f) recollection.
4. What is a "figure of speech"?
5. Define and give two examples of each of the following figures of speech[30].
At least one of the examples under each type would better be original. (a)
simile; (b) metaphor; (c) metonymy; (d) synecdoche; (e) apostrophe; (f) vision;
(g) personification; (h) hyperbole; (i) irony.
6. (a) What is an allegory? (b) Name one example. (c) How could a short allegory
be used as part of a public address?
7. Write a short fable[31] for use in a speech. Follow either the ancient form
(Æsop) or the modern (George Ade, Josephine Dodge Daskam).
8. What do you understand by "the historical present?" Illustrate how it may be
used (ONLY occasionally) in a public address.
9. Recall some disturbance on the street, (a) Describe it as you would on the
platform; (b) imagine what preceded the disturbance; (c) imagine what followed
it; (d) connect the whole in a terse, dramatic narration for the platform and
deliver it with careful attention to all that you have learned of the public
speaker's art.
10. Do the same with other incidents you have seen or heard of, or read of in
the newspapers.
NOTE: It is hoped that this exercise will be varied and expanded until the pupil
has gained considerable mastery of imaginative narration. (See chapter on
"Narration.")
11. Experiments have proved that the majority of people think most vividly in
terms of visual images. However, some think more readily in terms of auditory
and motor images. It is a good plan to mix all kinds of images in the course of
your address for you will doubtless have all kinds of hearers. This plan will
serve to give variety and strengthen your effects by appealing to the several
senses of each hearer, as well as interesting many different auditors. For
exercise, (a) give several original examples of compound images, and (b)
construct brief descriptions of the scenes imagined. For example, the falling of
a bridge in process of building.
12. Read the following observantly:
The strikers suffered bitter poverty last winter in New York.
Last winter a woman visiting the East Side of New York City saw another woman
coming out of a tenement house wringing her hands. Upon inquiry the visitor
found that a child had fainted in one of the apartments. She entered, and saw
the child ill and in rags, while the father, a striker, was too poor to provide
medical help. A physician was called and said the child had fainted from lack of
food. The only food in the home was dried fish. The visitor provided groceries
for the family and ordered the milkman to leave milk for them daily. A month
later she returned. The father of the family knelt down before her, and calling
her an angel said that she had saved their lives, for the milk she had provided
was all the food they had had.
In the two preceding paragraphs we have substantially the same story, told
twice. In the first paragraph we have a fact stated in general terms. In the
second, we have an outline picture of a specific happening. Now expand this
outline into a dramatic recital, drawing freely upon your imagination.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Inquiries into Human Faculty.
[30] Consult any good rhetoric. An unabridged dictionary will also be of help.
[31] For a full discussion of the form see, The Art of Story-Writing, by J. Berg
Esenwein and Mary D. Chambers.
CHAPTER XXVII
GROWING A VOCABULARY
Boys flying kites haul in their white winged birds;
You can't do that way when you're flying words.
"Careful with fire," is good advice we know,
"Careful with words," is ten times doubly so.
Thoughts unexpressed many sometimes fall back dead;
But God Himself can't kill them when they're said.
—Will Carleton, The First Settler's Story.
The term "vocabulary" has a special as well as a general meaning. True, all
vocabularies are grounded in the everyday words of the language, out of which
grow the special vocabularies, but each such specialized group possesses a
number of words of peculiar value for its own objects. These words may be used
in other vocabularies also, but the fact that they are suited to a unique order
of expression marks them as of special value to a particular craft or calling.
In this respect the public speaker differs not at all from the poet, the
novelist, the scientist, the traveler. He must add to his everyday stock, words
of value for the public presentation of thought. "A study of the discourses of
effective orators discloses the fact that they have a fondness for words
signifying power, largeness, speed, action, color, light, and all their
opposites. They frequently employ words expressive of the various emotions.
Descriptive words, adjectives used in fresh relations with nouns, and apt
epithets, are freely employed. Indeed, the nature of public speech permits the
use of mildly exaggerated words which, by the time they have reached the
hearer's judgment, will leave only a just impression."[32]
Form the Book-Note Habit
To possess a word involves three things: To know its special and broader
meanings, to know its relation to other words, and to be able to use it. When
you see or hear a familiar word used in an unfamiliar sense, jot it down, look
it up, and master it. We have in mind a speaker of superior attainments who
acquired his vocabulary by noting all new words he heard or read. These he
mastered and put into use. Soon his vocabulary became large, varied, and exact.
Use a new word accurately five times and it is yours. Professor Albert E.
Hancock says: "An author's vocabulary is of two kinds, latent and dynamic:
latent—those words he understands; dynamic—those he can readily use. Every
intelligent man knows all the words he needs, but he may not have them all ready
for active service. The problem of literary diction consists in turning the
latent into the dynamic." Your dynamic vocabulary is the one you must especially
cultivate.
In his essay on "A College Magazine" in the volume, Memories and Portraits,
Stevenson shows how he rose from imitation to originality in the use of words.
He had particular reference to the formation of his literary style, but words
are the raw materials of style, and his excellent example may well be followed
judiciously by the public speaker. Words in their relations are vastly more
important than words considered singly.
Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a
thing was said or an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either
some conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down
at once and set myself to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and I knew it;
and tried again, and was again unsuccessful, and always unsuccessful; but at
least in these vain bouts I got some practice in rhythm, in harmony, in
construction and coördination of parts.
I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir
Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne.
That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write; whether I have profited or
not, that is the way. It was the way Keats learned, and there never was a finer
temperament for literature than Keats'.
It is the great point of these imitations that there still shines beyond the
student's reach, his inimitable model. Let him try as he please, he is still
sure of failure; and it is an old and very true saying that failure is the only
highroad to success.
Form the Reference-Book Habit
Do not be content with your general knowledge of a word—press your study until
you have mastered its individual shades of meaning and usage. Mere fluency is
sure to become despicable, but accuracy never. The dictionary contains the
crystallized usage of intellectual giants. No one who would write effectively
dare despise its definitions and discriminations. Think, for example, of the
different meanings of mantle, or model, or quantity. Any late edition of an
unabridged dictionary is good, and is worth making sacrifices to own.
Books of synonyms and antonyms—used cautiously, for there are few perfect
synonyms in any language—will be found of great help. Consider the shades of
meanings among such word-groups as thief, peculator, defaulter, embezzler,
burglar, yeggman, robber, bandit, marauder, pirate, and many more; or the
distinctions among Hebrew, Jew, Israelite, and Semite. Remember that no book of
synonyms is trustworthy unless used with a dictionary. "A Thesaurus of the
English Language," by Dr. Francis A. March, is expensive, but full and
authoritative. Of smaller books of synonyms and antonyms there are plenty.[33]
Study the connectives of English speech. Fernald's book on this title is a mine
of gems. Unsuspected pitfalls lie in the loose use of and, or, for, while, and a
score of tricky little connectives.
Word derivations are rich in suggestiveness. Our English owes so much to foreign
tongues and has changed so much with the centuries that whole addresses may grow
out of a single root-idea hidden away in an ancient word-origin. Translation,
also, is excellent exercise in word-mastery and consorts well with the study of
derivations.
Phrase books that show the origins of familiar expressions will surprise most of
us by showing how carelessly everyday speech is used. Brewer's "A Dictionary of
Phrase, and Fable," Edwards' "Words, Facts, and Phrases," and Thornton's "An
American Glossary," are all good—the last, an expensive work in three volumes.
A prefix or a suffix may essentially change the force of the stem, as in
master-ful and master-ly, contempt-ible and contempt-uous, envi-ous and
envi-able. Thus to study words in groups, according to their stems, prefixes,
and suffixes is to gain a mastery over their shades of meaning, and introduce us
to other related words.
Do not Favor one Set or Kind of Words more than Another
"Sixty years and more ago, Lord Brougham, addressing the students of the
University of Glasgow, laid down the rule that the native (Anglo-Saxon) part of
our vocabulary was to be favored at the expense of that other part which has
come from the Latin and Greek. The rule was an impossible one, and Lord Brougham
himself never tried seriously to observe it; nor, in truth, has any great writer
made the attempt. Not only is our language highly composite, but the component
words have, in De Quincey's phrase, 'happily coalesced.' It is easy to jest at
words in -osity and -ation, as 'dictionary' words, and the like. But even Lord
Brougham would have found it difficult to dispense with pomposity and
imagination."[34]
The short, vigorous Anglo-Saxon will always be preferred for passages of special
thrust and force, just as the Latin will continue to furnish us with flowing and
smooth expressions; to mingle all sorts, however, will give variety—and that is
most to be desired.
Discuss Words With Those Who Know Them
Since the language of the platform follows closely the diction of everyday
speech, many useful words may be acquired in conversation with cultivated men,
and when such discussion takes the form of disputation as to the meanings and
usages of words, it will prove doubly valuable. The development of word-power
marches with the growth of individuality.
Search Faithfully for the Right Word
Books of reference are tripled in value when their owner has a passion for
getting the kernels out of their shells. Ten minutes a day will do wonders for
the nut-cracker. "I am growing so peevish about my writing," says Flaubert. "I
am like a man whose ear is true, but who plays falsely on the violin: his
fingers refuse to reproduce precisely those sounds of which he has the inward
sense. Then the tears come rolling down from the poor scraper's eyes and the bow
falls from his hand."
The same brilliant Frenchman sent this sound advice to his pupil, Guy de
Maupassant: "Whatever may be the thing which one wishes to say, there is but one
word for expressing it, only one verb to animate it, only one adjective to
qualify it. It is essential to search for this word, for this verb, for this
adjective, until they are discovered, and to be satisfied with nothing else."
Walter Savage Landor once wrote: "I hate false words, and seek with care,
difficulty, and moroseness those that fit the thing." So did Sentimental Tommy,
as related by James M. Barrie in his novel bearing his hero's name as a title.
No wonder T. Sandys became an author and a lion!
Tommy, with another lad, is writing an essay on "A Day in Church," in
competition for a university scholarship. He gets on finely until he pauses for
lack of a word. For nearly an hour he searches for this elusive thing, until
suddenly he is told that the allotted time is up, and he has lost! Barrie may
tell the rest:
Essay! It was no more an essay than a twig is a tree, for the gowk had stuck in
the middle of his second page. Yes, stuck is the right expression, as his
chagrined teacher had to admit when the boy was cross-examined. He had not been
"up to some of his tricks;" he had stuck, and his explanations, as you will
admit, merely emphasized his incapacity.
He had brought himself to public scorn for lack of a word. What word? they asked
testily; but even now he could not tell. He had wanted a Scotch word that would
signify how many people were in church, and it was on the tip of his tongue, but
would come no farther. Puckle was nearly the word, but it did not mean so many
people as he meant. The hour had gone by just like winking; he had forgotten all
about time while searching his mind for the word.
The other five [examiners] were furious.... "You little tattie doolie," Cathro
roared, "were there not a dozen words to wile from if you had an ill-will to
puckle? What ailed you at manzy, or—"
"I thought of manzy," replied Tommy, woefully, for he was ashamed of himself,
"but—but a manzy's a swarm. It would mean that the folk in the kirk were buzzing
thegither like bees, instead of sitting still."
"Even if it does mean that," said Mr. Duthie, with impatience, "what was the
need of being so particular? Surely the art of essay-writing consists in using
the first word that comes and hurrying on."
"That's how I did," said the proud McLauchlan [Tommy's successful
competitor]....
"I see," interposed Mr. Gloag, "that McLauchlan speaks of there being a mask of
people in the church. Mask is a fine Scotch word."
"I thought of mask," whimpered Tommy, "but that would mean the kirk was
crammed, and I just meant it to be middling full."
"Flow would have done," suggested Mr. Lonimer.
"Flow's but a handful," said Tommy.
"Curran, then, you jackanapes!"
"Curran's no enough."
Mr. Lorrimer flung up his hands in despair.
"I wanted something between curran and mask," said Tommy, doggedly, yet almost
at the crying.
Mr. Ogilvy, who had been hiding his admiration with difficulty, spread a net for
him. "You said you wanted a word that meant middling full. Well, why did you not
say middling full—or fell mask?"
"Yes, why not?" demanded the ministers, unconsciously caught in the net.
"I wanted one word," replied Tommy, unconsciously avoiding it.
"You jewel!" muttered Mr. Ogilvy under his breath, but Mr. Cathro would have
banged the boy's head had not the ministers interfered.
"It is so easy, too, to find the right word," said Mr. Gloag.
"It's no; it's difficult as to hit a squirrel," cried Tommy, and again Mr.
Ogilvy nodded approval.
And then an odd thing happened. As they were preparing to leave the school
[Cathro having previously run Tommy out by the neck], the door opened a little
and there appeared in the aperture the face of Tommy, tear-stained but excited.
"I ken the word now," he cried, "it came to me a' at once; it is hantle!"
Mr. Ogilvy ... said in an ecstasy to himself, "He had to think of it till he got
it—and he got it. The laddie is a genius!"
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. What is the derivation of the word vocabulary?
2. Briefly discuss any complete speech given in this volume, with reference to
(a) exactness, (b) variety, and (c) charm, in the use of words.
3. Give original examples of the kinds of word-studies referred to on pages 337
and 338.
4. Deliver a short talk on any subject, using at least five words which have not
been previously in your "dynamic" vocabulary.
5. Make a list of the unfamiliar words found in any address you may select.
6. Deliver a short extemporaneous speech giving your opinions on the merits and
demerits of the use of unusual words in public speaking.
7. Try to find an example of the over-use of unusual words in a speech.
8. Have you used reference books in word studies? If so, state with what result.
9. Find as many synonyms and antonyms as possible for each of the following
words: Excess, Rare, Severe, Beautiful, Clear, Happy, Difference, Care,
Skillful, Involve, Enmity, Profit, Absurd, Evident, Faint, Friendly, Harmony,
Hatred, Honest, Inherent.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] How to Attract and Hold an Audience, J. Berg Esenwein.
[33] A book of synonyms and antonyms is in preparation for this series, "The
Writer's Library."
[34] Composition and Rhetoric, J.M. Hart.
CHAPTER XXVIII
MEMORY TRAINING
Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain,
Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain;
Awake but one, and lo! what myriads rise!
Each stamps its image as the other flies!
Hail, memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumber'd treasures shine!
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway!
—Samuel Rogers, Pleasures of Memory.
Many an orator, like Thackeray, has made the best part of his speech to
himself—on the way home from the lecture hall. Presence of mind—it remained for
Mark Twain to observe—is greatly promoted by absence of body. A hole in the
memory is no less a common complaint than a distressing one.
Henry Ward Beecher was able to deliver one of the world's greatest addresses at
Liverpool because of his excellent memory. In speaking of the occasion Mr.
Beecher said that all the events, arguments and appeals that he had ever heard
or read or written seemed to pass before his mind as oratorical weapons, and
standing there he had but to reach forth his hand and "seize the weapons as they
went smoking by." Ben Jonson could repeat all he had written. Scaliger memorized
the Iliad in three weeks. Locke says: "Without memory, man is a perpetual
infant." Quintilian and Aristotle regarded it as a measure of genius.
Now all this is very good. We all agree that a reliable memory is an invaluable
possession for the speaker. We never dissent for a moment when we are solemnly
told that his memory should be a storehouse from which at pleasure he can draw
facts, fancies, and illustrations. But can the memory be trained to act as the
warder for all the truths that we have gained from thinking, reading, and
experience? And if so, how? Let us see.
Twenty years ago a poor immigrant boy, employed as a dish washer in New York,
wandered into the Cooper Union and began to read a copy of Henry George's
"Progress and Poverty." His passion for knowledge was awakened, and he became a
habitual reader. But he found that he was not able to remember what he read, so
he began to train his naturally poor memory until he became the world's greatest
memory expert. This man was the late Mr. Felix Berol. Mr. Berol could tell the
population of any town in the world, of more than five thousand inhabitants. He
could recall the names of forty strangers who had just been introduced to him
and was able to tell which had been presented third, eighth, seventeenth, or in
any order. He knew the date of every important event in history, and could not
only recall an endless array of facts but could correlate them perfectly.
To what extent Mr. Berol's remarkable memory was natural and required only
attention, for its development, seems impossible to determine with exactness,
but the evidence clearly indicates that, however useless were many of his memory
feats, a highly retentive memory was developed where before only "a good
forgettery" existed.
The freak memory is not worth striving for, but a good working memory decidedly
is. Your power as a speaker will depend to a large extent upon your ability to
retain impressions and call them forth when occasion demands, and that sort of
memory is like muscle—it responds to training.
What Not to Do
It is sheer misdirected effort to begin to memorize by learning words by rote,
for that is beginning to build a pyramid at the apex. For years our schools were
cursed by this vicious system—vicious not only because it is inefficient but for
the more important reason that it hurts the mind. True, some minds are natively
endowed with a wonderful facility in remembering strings of words, facts, and
figures, but such are rarely good reasoning minds; the normal person must
belabor and force the memory to acquire in this artificial way.
Again, it is hurtful to force the memory in hours of physical weakness or mental
weariness. Health is the basis of the best mental action and the operation of
memory is no exception.
Finally, do not become a slave to a system. Knowledge of a few simple facts of
mind and memory will set you to work at the right end of the operation. Use
these principles, whether included in a system or not, but do not bind yourself
to a method that tends to lay more stress on the way to remember than on the
development of memory itself. It is nothing short of ridiculous to memorize ten
words in order to remember one fact.
The Natural Laws of Memory
Concentrated attention at the time when you wish to store the mind is the first
step in memorizing—and the most important one by far. You forgot the fourth of
the list of articles your wife asked you to bring home chiefly because you
allowed your attention to waver for an instant when she was telling you.
Attention may not be concentrated attention. When a siphon is charged with gas
it is sufficiently filled with the carbonic acid vapor to make its influence
felt; a mind charged with an idea is charged to a degree sufficient to hold it.
Too much charging will make the siphon burst; too much attention to trifles
leads to insanity. Adequate attention, then, is the fundamental secret of
remembering.
Generally we do not give a fact adequate attention when it does not seem
important. Almost everyone has seen how the seeds in an apple point, and has
memorized the date of Washington's death. Most of us have—perhaps
wisely—forgotten both. The little nick in the bark of a tree is healed over and
obliterated in a season, but the gashes in the trees around Gettysburg are still
apparent after fifty years. Impressions that are gathered lightly are soon
obliterated. Only deep impressions can be recalled at will. Henry Ward Beecher
said: "One intense hour will do more than dreamy years." To memorize ideas and
words, concentrate on them until they are fixed firmly and deeply in your mind
and accord to them their true importance. Listen with the mind and you will
remember.
How shall you concentrate? How would you increase the fighting-effectiveness of
a man-of-war? One vital way would be to increase the size and number of its
guns. To strengthen your memory, increase both the number and the force of your
mental impressions by attending to them intensely. Loose, skimming reading, and
drifting habits of reading destroy memory power. However, as most books and
newspapers do not warrant any other kind of attention, it will not do altogether
to condemn this method of reading; but avoid it when you are trying to memorize.
Environment has a strong influence upon concentration, until you have learned to
be alone in a crowd and undisturbed by clamor. When you set out to memorize a
fact or a speech, you may find the task easier away from all sounds and moving
objects. All impressions foreign to the one you desire to fix in your mind must
be eliminated.
The next great step in memorizing is to pick out the essentials of the subject,
arrange them in order, and dwell upon them intently. Think clearly of each
essential, one after the other. Thinking a thing—not allowing the mind to wander
to non-essentials—is really memorizing.
Association of ideas is universally recognized as an essential in memory work;
indeed, whole systems of memory training have been founded on this principle.
Many speakers memorize only the outlines of their addresses, filling in the
words at the moment of speaking. Some have found it helpful to remember an
outline by associating the different points with objects in the room. Speaking
on "Peace," you may wish to dwell on the cost the cruelty, and the failure of
war, and so lead to the justice of arbitration. Before going on the platform if
you will associate four divisions of your outline with four objects in the room,
this association may help you to recall them. You may be prone to forget your
third point, but you remember that once when you were speaking the electric
lights failed, so arbitrarily the electric light globe will help you to remember
"failure." Such associations, being unique, tend to stick in the mind. While
recently speaking on the six kinds of imagination the present writer formed them
into an acrostic—visual, auditory, motor, gustatory, olfactory, and tactile,
furnished the nonsense word vamgot, but the six points were easily remembered.
In the same way that children are taught to remember the spelling of teasing
words—separate comes from separ—and as an automobile driver remembers that two
C's and then two H's lead him into Castor Road, Cottman Street, Haynes Street
and Henry Street, so important points in your address may be fixed in mind by
arbitrary symbols invented by yourself. The very work of devising the scheme is
a memory action. The psychological process is simple: it is one of noting
intently the steps by which a fact, or a truth, or even a word, has come to you.
Take advantage of this tendency of the mind to remember by association.
Repetition is a powerful aid to memory. Thurlow Weed, the journalist and
political leader, was troubled because he so easily forgot the names of persons
he met from day to day. He corrected the weakness, relates Professor William
James, by forming the habit of attending carefully to names he had heard during
the day and then repeating them to his wife every evening. Doubtless Mrs. Weed
was heroically longsuffering, but the device worked admirably.
After reading a passage you would remember, close the book, reflect, and repeat
the contents—aloud, if possible.
Reading thoughtfully aloud has been found by many to be a helpful memory
practise.
Write what you wish to remember. This is simply one more way of increasing the
number and the strength of your mental impressions by utilizing all your avenues
of impression. It will help to fix a speech in your mind if you speak it aloud,
listen to it, write it out, and look at it intently. You have then impressed it
on your mind by means of vocal, auditory, muscular and visual impressions.
Some folk have peculiarly distinct auditory memories; they are able to recall
things heard much better than things seen. Others have the visual memory; they
are best able to recall sight-impressions. As you recall a walk you have taken,
are you able to remember better the sights or the sounds? Find out what kinds of
impressions your memory retains best, and use them the most. To fix an idea in
mind, use every possible kind of impression.
Daily habit is a great memory cultivator. Learn a lesson from the Marathon
runner. Regular exercise, though never so little daily, will strengthen your
memory in a surprising measure. Try to describe in detail the dress, looks and
manner of the people you pass on the street. Observe the room you are in, close
your eyes, and describe its contents. View closely the landscape, and write out
a detailed description of it. How much did you miss? Notice the contents of the
show windows on the street; how many features are you able to recall? Continual
practise in this feat may develop in you as remarkable proficiency as it did in
Robert Houdin and his son.
The daily memorizing of a beautiful passage in literature will not only lend
strength to the memory, but will store the mind with gems for quotation. But
whether by little or much add daily to your memory power by practise.
Memorize out of doors. The buoyancy of the wood, the shore, or the stormy night
on deserted streets may freshen your mind as it does the minds of countless
others.
Lastly, cast out fear. Tell yourself that you can and will and do remember. By
pure exercise of selfism assert your mastery. Be obsessed with the fear of
forgetting and you cannot remember. Practise the reverse. Throw aside your
manuscript crutches—you may tumble once or twice, but what matters that, for you
are going to learn to walk and leap and run.
Memorizing a Speech
Now let us try to put into practise the foregoing suggestions. First, reread
this chapter, noting the nine ways by which memorizing may be helped.
Then read over the following selection from Beecher, applying so many of the
suggestions as are practicable. Get the spirit of the selection firmly in your
mind. Make mental note of—write down, if you must—the succession of ideas. Now
memorize the thought. Then memorize the outline, the order in which the
different ideas are expressed. Finally, memorize the exact wording.
No, when you have done all this, with the most faithful attention to directions,
you will not find memorizing easy, unless you have previously trained your
memory, or it is naturally retentive. Only by constant practise will memory
become strong and only by continually observing these same principles will it
remain strong. You will, however, have made a beginning, and that is no mean
matter.
THE REIGN OF THE COMMON PEOPLE
I do not suppose that if you were to go and look upon the experiment of
self-government in America you would have a very high opinion of it. I have not
either, if I just look upon the surface of things. Why, men will say: "It stands
to reason that 60,000,000 ignorant of law, ignorant of constitutional history,
ignorant of jurisprudence, of finance, and taxes and tariffs and forms of
currency—60,000,000 people that never studied these things—are not fit to rule."
Your diplomacy is as complicated as ours, and it is the most complicated on
earth, for all things grow in complexity as they develop toward a higher
condition. What fitness is there in these people? Well, it is not democracy
merely; it is a representative democracy. Our people do not vote in mass for
anything; they pick out captains of thought, they pick out the men that do know,
and they send them to the Legislature to think for them, and then the people
afterward ratify or disallow them.
But when you come to the Legislature I am bound to confess that the thing does
not look very much more cheering on the outside. Do they really select the best
men? Yes; in times of danger they do very generally, but in ordinary time,
"kissing goes by favor." You know what the duty of a regular
Republican-Democratic legislator is. It is to get back again next winter. His
second duty is what? His second duty is to put himself under that extraordinary
providence that takes care of legislators' salaries. The old miracle of the
prophet and the meal and the oil is outdone immeasurably in our days, for they
go there poor one year, and go home rich; in four years they become
moneylenders, all by a trust in that gracious providence that takes care of
legislators' salaries. Their next duty after that is to serve the party that
sent them up, and then, if there is anything left of them, it belongs to the
commonwealth. Someone has said very wisely, that if a man traveling wishes to
relish his dinner he had better not go into the kitchen to see where it is
cooked; if a man wishes to respect and obey the law, he had better not go to the
Legislature to see where that is cooked.
—Henry Ward Beecher.
From a lecture delivered in Exeter Hall, London, 1886, when making his last tour
of Great Britain.
In Case of Trouble
But what are you to do if, notwithstanding all your efforts, you should forget
your points, and your mind, for the minute, becomes blank? This is a deplorable
condition that sometimes arises and must be dealt with. Obviously, you can sit
down and admit defeat. Such a consummation is devoutly to be shunned.
Walking slowly across the platform may give you time to grip yourself, compose
your thoughts, and stave off disaster. Perhaps the surest and most practical
method is to begin a new sentence with your last important word. This is not
advocated as a method of composing a speech—it is merely an extreme measure
which may save you in tight circumstances. It is like the fire department—the
less you must use it the better. If this method is followed very long you are
likely to find yourself talking about plum pudding or Chinese Gordon in the most
unexpected manner, so of course you will get back to your lines the earliest
moment that your feet have hit the platform.
Let us see how this plan works—obviously, your extemporized words will lack
somewhat of polish, but in such a pass crudity is better than failure.
Now you have come to a dead wall after saying: "Joan of Arc fought for liberty."
By this method you might get something like this:
"Liberty is a sacred privilege for which mankind always had to fight. These
struggles [Platitude—but push on] fill the pages of history. History records the
gradual triumph of the serf over the lord, the slave over the master. The master
has continually tried to usurp unlimited powers. Power during the medieval ages
accrued to the owner of the land with a spear and a strong castle; but the
strong castle and spear were of little avail after the discovery of gunpowder.
Gunpowder was the greatest boon that liberty had ever known."
Thus far you have linked one idea with another rather obviously, but you are
getting your second wind now and may venture to relax your grip on the
too-evident chain; and so you say:
"With gunpowder the humblest serf in all the land could put an end to the life
of the tyrannical baron behind the castle walls. The struggle for liberty, with
gunpowder as its aid, wrecked empires, and built up a new era for all mankind."
In a moment more you have gotten back to your outline and the day is saved.
Practising exercises like the above will not only fortify you against the
death of your speech when your memory misses fire, but it will also provide an
excellent training for fluency in speaking. Stock up with ideas.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Pick out and state briefly the nine helps to memorizing suggested in this
chapter.
2. Report on whatever success you may have had with any of the plans for memory
culture suggested in this chapter. Have any been less successful than others?
3. Freely criticise any of the suggested methods.
4. Give an original example of memory by association of ideas.
5. List in order the chief ideas of any speech in this volume.
6. Repeat them from memory.
7. Expand them into a speech, using your own words.
8. Illustrate practically what would you do, if in the midst of a speech on
Progress, your memory failed you and you stopped suddenly on the following
sentence: "The last century saw marvelous progress in varied lines of activity."
9. How many quotations that fit well in the speaker's tool chest can you recall
from memory?
10. Memorize the poem on page 42. How much time does it require?
CHAPTER XXIX
RIGHT THINKING AND PERSONALITY
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be
called.—John Stuart Mill, On Liberty.
Right thinking fits for complete living by developing the power to appreciate
the beautiful in nature and art, power to think the true and to will the good,
power to live the life of thought, and faith, and hope, and love.
—N.C. Schaeffer, Thinking and Learning to Think.
The speaker's most valuable possession is personality—that indefinable,
imponderable something which sums up what we are, and makes us different from
others; that distinctive force of self which operates appreciably on those whose
lives we touch. It is personality alone that makes us long for higher things.
Rob us of our sense of individual life, with its gains and losses, its duties
and joys, and we grovel. "Few human creatures," says John Stuart Mill, "would
consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest
allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be
a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and
conscience would be selfish and base, even though he should be persuaded that
the fool, or the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they
with theirs.... It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied, better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if
the fool or the pig is of a different opinion, it is only because they know only
their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both
sides."
Now it is precisely because the Socrates type of person lives on the plan of
right thinking and restrained feeling and willing that he prefers his state to
that of the animal. All that a man is, all his happiness, his sorrow, his
achievements, his failures, his magnetism, his weakness, all are in an amazingly
large measure the direct results of his thinking. Thought and heart combine to
produce right thinking: "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." As he does
not think in his heart so he can never become.
Since this is true, personality can be developed and its latent powers brought
out by careful cultivation. We have long since ceased to believe that we are
living in a realm of chance. So clear and exact are nature's laws that we
forecast, scores of years in advance, the appearance of a certain comet and
foretell to the minute an eclipse of the Sun. And we understand this law of
cause and effect in all our material realms. We do not plant potatoes and expect
to pluck hyacinths. The law is universal: it applies to our mental powers, to
morality, to personality, quite as much as to the heavenly bodies and the grain
of the fields. "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap," and nothing
else.
Character has always been regarded as one of the chief factors of the speaker's
power. Cato defined the orator as vir bonus dicendi peritus—a good man skilled
in speaking. Phillips Brooks says: "Nobody can truly stand as a utterer before
the world, unless he be profoundly living and earnestly thinking." "Character,"
says Emerson, "is a natural power, like light and heat, and all nature
cooperates with it. The reason why we feel one man's presence, and do not feel
another's is as simple as gravity. Truth is the summit of being: justice is the
application of it to affairs. All individual natures stand in a scale, according
to the purity of this element in them. The will of the pure runs down into other
natures, as water runs down from a higher into a lower vessel. This natural
force is no more to be withstood than any other natural force.... Character is
nature in the highest form."
It is absolutely impossible for impure, bestial and selfish thoughts to blossom
into loving and altruistic habits. Thistle seeds bring forth only the thistle.
Contrariwise, it is entirely impossible for continual altruistic, sympathetic,
and serviceful thoughts to bring forth a low and vicious character. Either
thoughts or feelings precede and determine all our actions. Actions develop into
habits, habits constitute character, and character determines destiny. Therefore
to guard our thoughts and control our feelings is to shape our destinies. The
syllogism is complete, and old as it is it is still true.
Since "character is nature in the highest form," the development of character
must proceed on natural lines. The garden left to itself will bring forth weeds
and scrawny plants, but the flower-beds nurtured carefully will blossom into
fragrance and beauty.
As the student entering college largely determines his vocation by choosing from
the different courses of the curriculum, so do we choose our characters by
choosing our thoughts. We are steadily going up toward that which we most wish
for, or steadily sinking to the level of our low desires. What we secretly
cherish in our hearts is a symbol of what we shall receive. Our trains of
thoughts are hurrying us on to our destiny. When you see the flag fluttering to
the South, you know the wind is coming from the North. When you see the straws
and papers being carried to the Northward you realize the wind is blowing out of
the South. It is just as easy to ascertain a man's thoughts by observing the
tendency of his character.
Let it not be suspected for one moment that all this is merely a preachment on
the question of morals. It is that, but much more, for it touches the whole
man—his imaginative nature, his ability to control his feelings, the mastery of
his thinking faculties, and—perhaps most largely—his power to will and to carry
his volitions into effective action.
Right thinking constantly assumes that the will sits enthroned to execute the
dictates of mind, conscience and heart. Never tolerate for an instant the
suggestion that your will is not absolutely efficient. The way to will is to
will—and the very first time you are tempted to break a worthy resolution—and
you will be, you may be certain of that—make your fight then and there. You
cannot afford to lose that fight. You must win it—don't swerve for an instant,
but keep that resolution if it kills you. It will not, but you must fight just
as though life depended on the victory; and indeed your personality may actually
lie in the balances!
Your success or failure as a speaker will be determined very largely by your
thoughts and your mental attitude. The present writer had a student of limited
education enter one of his classes in public speaking. He proved to be a very
poor speaker; and the instructor could conscientiously do little but point out
faults. However, the young man was warned not to be discouraged. With sorrow in
his voice and the essence of earnestness beaming from his eyes, he replied: "I
will not be discouraged! I want so badly to know how to speak!" It was warm,
human, and from the very heart. And he did keep on trying—and developed into a
creditable speaker.
There is no power under the stars that can defeat a man with that attitude. He
who down in the deeps of his heart earnestly longs to get facility in speaking,
and is willing to make the sacrifices necessary, will reach his goal. "Ask and
ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto
you," is indeed applicable to those who would acquire speech-power. You will not
realize the prize that you wish for languidly, but the goal that you start out
to attain with the spirit of the old guard that dies but never surrenders, you
will surely reach.
Your belief in your ability and your willingness to make sacrifices for that
belief, are the double index to your future achievements. Lincoln had a dream of
his possibilities as a speaker. He transmuted that dream into life solely
because he walked many miles to borrow books which he read by the log-fire glow
at night. He sacrificed much to realize his vision. Livingstone had a great
faith in his ability to serve the benighted races of Africa. To actualize that
faith he gave up all. Leaving England for the interior of the Dark Continent he
struck the death blow to Europe's profits from the slave trade. Joan of Arc had
great self-confidence, glorified by an infinite capacity for sacrifice. She
drove the English beyond the Loire, and stood beside Charles while he was
crowned.
These all realized their strongest desires. The law is universal. Desire
greatly, and you shall achieve; sacrifice much, and you shall obtain.
Stanton Davis Kirkham has beautifully expressed this thought: "You may be
keeping accounts, and presently you shall walk out of the door that has for so
long seemed to you the barrier of your ideals, and shall find yourself before an
audience—the pen still behind your ear, the ink stains on your fingers—and then
and there shall pour out the torrent of your inspiration. You may be driving
sheep, and you shall wander to the city—bucolic and open-mouthed; shall wander
under the intrepid guidance of the spirit into the studio of the master, and
after a time he shall say, 'I have nothing more to teach you.' And now you have
become the master, who did so recently dream of great things while driving
sheep. You shall lay down the saw and the plane to take upon yourself the
regeneration of the world."
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. What, in your own words, is personality?
2. How does personality in a speaker affect you as a listener?
3. In what ways does personality show itself in a speaker?
4. Deliver a short speech on "The Power of Will in the Public Speaker."
5. Deliver a short address based on any sentence you choose from this chapter.
CHAPTER XXX
AFTER-DINNER AND OTHER OCCASIONAL SPEAKING
The perception of the ludicrous is a pledge of sanity.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays.
And let him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak.
—Francis Bacon, Essay on Civil and Moral Discourse.
Perhaps the most brilliant, and certainly the most entertaining, of all speeches
are those delivered on after-dinner and other special occasions. The air of
well-fed content in the former, and of expectancy well primed in the latter,
furnishes an audience which, though not readily won, is prepared for the best,
while the speaker himself is pretty sure to have been chosen for his gifts of
oratory.
The first essential of good occasional speaking is to study the occasion.
Precisely what is the object of the meeting? How important is the occasion to
the audience? How large will the audience be? What sort of people are they? How
large is the auditorium? Who selects the speakers' themes? Who else is to speak?
What are they to speak about? Precisely how long am I to speak? Who speaks
before I do and who follows?
If you want to hit the nail on the head ask such questions as these.[35] No
occasional address can succeed unless it fits the occasion to a T. Many
prominent men have lost prestige because they were too careless or too busy or
too self-confident to respect the occasion and the audience by learning the
exact conditions under which they were to speak. Leaving too much to the moment
is taking a long chance and generally means a less effective speech, if not a
failure.
Suitability is the big thing in an occasional speech. When Mark Twain addressed
the Army of the Tennessee in reunion at Chicago, in 1877, he responded to the
toast, "The Babies." Two things in that after-dinner speech are remarkable: the
bright introduction, by which he subtly claimed the interest of all, and the
humorous use of military terms throughout:
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: "The Babies." Now, that's something like. We haven't
all had the good fortune to be ladies; we have not all been generals, or poets,
or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common
ground—for we've all been babies. It is a shame that for a thousand years the
world's banquets have utterly ignored the baby, as if he didn't amount to
anything! If you, gentlemen, will stop and think a minute—if you will go back
fifty or a hundred years, to your early married life, and recontemplate your
first baby—you will remember that he amounted to a good deal—and even something
over.
"As a vessel is known by the sound, whether it be cracked or not," said
Demosthenes, "so men are proved by their speeches whether they be wise or
foolish." Surely the occasional address furnishes a severe test of a speaker's
wisdom. To be trivial on a serious occasion, to be funereal at a banquet, to be
long-winded ever—these are the marks of non-sense. Some imprudent souls seem to
select the most friendly of after-dinner occasions for the explosion of a
bomb-shell of dispute. Around the dinner table it is the custom of even
political enemies to bury their hatchets anywhere rather than in some convenient
skull. It is the height of bad taste to raise questions that in hours
consecrated to good-will can only irritate.
Occasional speeches offer good chances for humor, particularly the funny story,
for humor with a genuine point is not trivial. But do not spin a whole skein of
humorous yarns with no more connection than the inane and threadbare "And that
reminds me." An anecdote without bearing may be funny but one less funny that
fits theme and occasion is far preferable. There is no way, short of sheer power
of speech, that so surely leads to the heart of an audience as rich, appropriate
humor. The scattered diners in a great banqueting hall, the after-dinner
lethargy, the anxiety over approaching last-train time, the over-full list of
over-full speakers—all throw out a challenge to the speaker to do his best to
win an interested hearing. And when success does come it is usually due to a
happy mixture of seriousness and humor, for humor alone rarely scores so heavily
as the two combined, while the utterly grave speech never does on such
occasions.
If there is one place more than another where second-hand opinions and
platitudes are unwelcome it is in the after-dinner speech. Whether you are
toast-master or the last speaker to try to hold the waning crowd at midnight, be
as original as you can. How is it possible to summarize the qualities that go to
make up the good after-dinner speech, when we remember the inimitable
serious-drollery of Mark Twain, the sweet southern eloquence of Henry W. Grady,
the funereal gravity of the humorous Charles Battell Loomis, the charm of Henry
Van Dyke, the geniality of F. Hopkinson Smith, and the all-round delightfulness
of Chauncey M. Depew? America is literally rich in such gladsome speakers, who
punctuate real sense with nonsense, and so make both effective.
Commemorative occasions, unveilings, commencements, dedications, eulogies, and
all the train of special public gatherings, offer rare opportunities for the
display of tact and good sense in handling occasion, theme, and audience. When
to be dignified and when colloquial, when to soar and when to ramble arm in arm
with your hearers, when to flame and when to soothe, when to instruct and when
to amuse—in a word, the whole matter of APPROPRIATENESS must constantly be in
mind lest you write your speech on water.
Finally, remember the beatitude: Blessed is the man that maketh short speeches,
for he shall be invited to speak again.
SELECTIONS FOR STUDY
LAST DAYS OF THE CONFEDERACY
(Extract)
The Rapidan suggests another scene to which allusion has often been made since
the war, but which, as illustrative also of the spirit of both armies, I may be
permitted to recall in this connection. In the mellow twilight of an April day
the two armies were holding their dress parades on the opposite hills bordering
the river. At the close of the parade a magnificent brass band of the Union army
played with great spirit the patriotic airs, "Hail Columbia," and "Yankee
Doodle." Whereupon the Federal troops responded with a patriotic shout. The same
band then played the soul-stirring strains of "Dixie," to which a mighty
response came from ten thousand Southern troops. A few moments later, when the
stars had come out as witnesses and when all nature was in harmony, there came
from the same band the old melody, "Home, Sweet Home." As its familiar and
pathetic notes rolled over the water and thrilled through the spirits of the
soldiers, the hills reverberated with a thundering response from the united
voices of both armies. What was there in this old, old music, to so touch the
chords of sympathy, so thrill the spirits and cause the frames of brave men to
tremble with emotion? It was the thought of home. To thousands, doubtless, it
was the thought of that Eternal Home to which the next battle might be the
gateway. To thousands of others it was the thought of their dear earthly homes,
where loved ones at that twilight hour were bowing round the family altar, and
asking God's care over the absent soldier boy.
—General J.B. Gordon, C.s.a.
WELCOME TO KOSSUTH
(Extract)
Let me ask you to imagine that the contest, in which the United States asserted
their independence of Great Britain, had been unsuccessful; that our armies,
through treason or a league of tyrants against us, had been broken and
scattered; that the great men who led them, and who swayed our councils—our
Washington, our Franklin, and the venerable president of the American
Congress—had been driven forth as exiles. If there had existed at that day, in
any part of the civilized world, a powerful Republic, with institutions resting
on the same foundations of liberty which our own countrymen sought to establish,
would there have been in that Republic any hospitality too cordial, any sympathy
too deep, any zeal for their glorious but unfortunate cause, too fervent or too
active to be shown toward these illustrious fugitives? Gentlemen, the case I
have supposed is before you. The Washingtons, the Franklins, the Hancocks of
Hungary, driven out by a far worse tyranny than was ever endured here, are
wanderers in foreign lands. Some of them have sought a refuge in our country—one
sits with this company our guest to-night—and we must measure the duty we owe
them by the same standard which we would have had history apply, if our
ancestors had met with a fate like theirs.
—William Cullen Bryant.
THE INFLUENCE OF UNIVERSITIES
(Extract)
When the excitement of party warfare presses dangerously near our national
safeguards, I would have the intelligent conservatism of our universities and
colleges warn the contestants in impressive tones against the perils of a breach
impossible to repair.
When popular discontent and passion are stimulated by the arts of designing
partisans to a pitch perilously near to class hatred or sectional anger, I would
have our universities and colleges sound the alarm in the name of American
brotherhood and fraternal dependence.
When the attempt is made to delude the people into the belief that their
suffrages can change the operation of national laws, I would have our
universities and colleges proclaim that those laws are inexorable and far
removed from political control.
When selfish interest seeks undue private benefits through governmental aid, and
public places are claimed as rewards of party service, I would have our
universities and colleges persuade the people to a relinquishment of the demand
for party spoils and exhort them to a disinterested and patriotic love of their
government, whose unperverted operation secures to every citizen his just share
of the safety and prosperity it holds in store for all.
I would have the influence of these institutions on the side of religion and
morality. I would have those they send out among the people not ashamed to
acknowledge God, and to proclaim His interposition in the affairs of men,
enjoining such obedience to His laws as makes manifest the path of national
perpetuity and prosperity
—Grover Cleveland, delivered at the Princeton Sesqui-Centennial, 1896.
EULOGY OF GARFIELD
(Extract)
Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the very
frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust
from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspirations,
its victories, into the visible presence of death—and he did not quail. Not
alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up
life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor,
through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with
clear sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight and
ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell—what brilliant, broken plans,
what baffled, high ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm, manhood's
friendships, what bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind him a proud,
expectant nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy
mother, wearing the full rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of
his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from
childhood's day of frolic; the fair young daughter; the sturdy sons just
springing into closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding
a father's love and care; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet
all demand. Before him, desolation and great darkness! And his soul was not
shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound and universal
sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation's
love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy
could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine press alone. With
unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of
life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet he heard the voice of
God. With simple resignation he bowed to the Divine decree.
—James G. Blaine, delivered at the memorial service held by the U.S. Senate and
House of Representatives.
EULOGY OF LEE
(Extract)
At the bottom of all true heroism is unselfishness. Its crowning expression is
sacrifice. The world is suspicious of vaunted heroes. But when the true hero has
come, and we know that here he is in verity, ah! how the hearts of men leap
forth to greet him! how worshipfully we welcome God's noblest work—the strong,
honest, fearless, upright man. In Robert Lee was such a hero vouchsafed to us
and to mankind, and whether we behold him declining command of the federal army
to fight the battles and share the miseries of his own people; proclaiming on
the heights in front of Gettysburg that the fault of the disaster was his own;
leading charges in the crisis of combat; walking under the yoke of conquest
without a murmur of complaint; or refusing fortune to come here and train the
youth of his country in the paths of duty,—he is ever the same meek, grand,
self-sacrificing spirit. Here he exhibited qualities not less worthy and heroic
than those displayed on the broad and open theater of conflict, when the eyes of
nations watched his every action. Here in the calm repose of civil and domestic
duties, and in the trying routine of incessant tasks, he lived a life as high as
when, day by day, he marshalled and led his thin and wasting lines, and slept by
night upon the field that was to be drenched again in blood upon the morrow. And
now he has vanished from us forever. And is this all that is left of him—this
handful of dust beneath the marble stone? No! the ages answer as they rise from
the gulfs of time, where lie the wrecks of kingdoms and estates, holding up in
their hands as their only trophies, the names of those who have wrought for man
in the love and fear of God, and in love—unfearing for their fellow-men. No! the
present answers, bending by his tomb. No! the future answers as the breath of
the morning fans its radiant brow, and its soul drinks in sweet inspirations
from the lovely life of Lee. No! methinks the very heavens echo, as melt into
their depths the words of reverent love that voice the hearts of men to the
tingling stars.
Come we then to-day in loyal love to sanctify our memories, to purify our hopes,
to make strong all good intent by communion with the spirit of him who, being
dead yet speaketh. Come, child, in thy spotless innocence; come, woman, in thy
purity; come, youth, in thy prime; come, manhood, in thy strength; come, age, in
thy ripe wisdom; come, citizen; come, soldier; let us strew the roses and lilies
of June around his tomb, for he, like them, exhaled in his life Nature's
beneficence, and the grave has consecrated that life and given it to us all; let
us crown his tomb with the oak, the emblem of his strength, and with the laurel
the emblem of his glory, and let these guns, whose voices he knew of old, awake
the echoes of the mountains, that nature herself may join in his solemn requiem.
Come, for here he rests, and
On this green bank, by this fair stream,
We set to-day a votive stone,
That memory may his deeds redeem?
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
—John Warwick Daniel, on the unveiling of Lee's statue at Washington and Lee
University, Lexington, Virginia, 1883.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Why should humor find a place in after-dinner speaking?
2. Briefly give your impressions of any notable after-dinner address that you
have heard.
3. Briefly outline an imaginary occasion of any sort and give three subjects
appropriate for addresses.
4. Deliver one such address, not to exceed ten minutes in length.
5. What proportion of emotional ideas do you find in the extracts given in this
chapter?
6. Humor was used in some of the foregoing addresses—in which others would it
have been inappropriate?
7. Prepare and deliver an after-dinner speech suited to one of the following
occasions, and be sure to use humor:
A lodge banquet.
A political party dinner.
A church men's club dinner.
A civic association banquet.
A banquet in honor of a celebrity.
A woman's club annual dinner.
A business men's association dinner.
A manufacturers' club dinner.
An alumni banquet.
An old home week barbecue.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] See also page 205.
CHAPTER XXXI
MAKING CONVERSATION EFFECTIVE
In conversation avoid the extremes of forwardness and reserve.
—Cato.
Conversation is the laboratory and workshop of the student.
—Emerson, Essays: Circles.
The father of W.E. Gladstone considered conversation to be both an art and an
accomplishment. Around the dinner table in his home some topic of local or
national interest, or some debated question, was constantly being discussed. In
this way a friendly rivalry for supremacy in conversation arose among the
family, and an incident observed in the street, an idea gleaned from a book, a
deduction from personal experience, was carefully stored as material for the
family exchange. Thus his early years of practise in elegant conversation
prepared the younger Gladstone for his career as a leader and speaker.
There is a sense in which the ability to converse effectively is efficient
public speaking, for our conversation is often heard by many, and occasionally
decisions of great moment hinge upon the tone and quality of what we say in
private.
Indeed, conversation in the aggregate probably wields more power than press and
platform combined. Socrates taught his great truths, not from public rostrums,
but in personal converse. Men made pilgrimages to Goethe's library and
Coleridge's home to be charmed and instructed by their speech, and the culture
of many nations was immeasurably influenced by the thoughts that streamed out
from those rich well-springs.
Most of the world-moving speeches are made in the course of conversation.
Conferences of diplomats, business-getting arguments, decisions by boards of
directors, considerations of corporate policy, all of which influence the
political, mercantile and economic maps of the world, are usually the results of
careful though informal conversation, and the man whose opinions weigh in such
crises is he who has first carefully pondered the words of both antagonist and
protagonist.
However important it may be to attain self-control in light social converse, or
about the family table, it is undeniably vital to have oneself perfectly in hand
while taking part in a momentous conference. Then the hints that we have given
on poise, alertness, precision of word, clearness of statement, and force of
utterance, with respect to public speech, are equally applicable to
conversation.
The form of nervous egotism—for it is both—that suddenly ends in flusters just
when the vital words need to be uttered, is the sign of coming defeat, for a
conversation is often a contest. If you feel this tendency embarrassing you, be
sure to listen to Holmes's advice:
And when you stick on conversational burs,
Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.
Here bring your will into action, for your trouble is a wandering attention.
You must force your mind to persist along the chosen line of conversation and
resolutely refuse to be diverted by any subject or happening that may
unexpectedly pop up to distract you. To fail here is to lose effectiveness
utterly.
Concentration is the keynote of conversational charm and efficiency. The
haphazard habit of expression that uses bird-shot when a bullet is needed
insures missing the game, for diplomacy of all sorts rests upon the precise
application of precise words, particularly—if one may paraphrase Tallyrand—in
those crises when language is no longer used to conceal thought.
We may frequently gain new light on old subjects by looking at word-derivations.
Conversation signifies in the original a turn-about exchange of ideas, yet most
people seem to regard it as a monologue. Bronson Alcott used to say that many
could argue, but few converse. The first thing to remember in conversation,
then, is that listening—respectful, sympathetic, alert listening—is not only due
to our fellow converser but due to ourselves. Many a reply loses its point
because the speaker is so much interested in what he is about to say that it is
really no reply at all but merely an irritating and humiliating irrelevancy.
Self-expression is exhilarating. This explains the eternal impulse to decorate
totem poles and paint pictures, write poetry and expound philosophy. One of the
chief delights of conversation is the opportunity it affords for
self-expression. A good conversationalist who monopolizes all the conversation,
will be voted a bore because he denies others the enjoyment of self-expression,
while a mediocre talker who listens interestedly may be considered a good
conversationalist because he permits his companions to please themselves through
self-expression. They are praised who please: they please who listen well.
The first step in remedying habits of confusion in manner, awkward bearing,
vagueness in thought, and lack of precision in utterance, is to recognize your
faults. If you are serenely unconscious of them, no one—least of all
yourself—can help you. But once diagnose your own weaknesses, and you can
overcome them by doing four things:
1. WILL to overcome them, and keep on willing.
2. Hold yourself in hand by assuring yourself that you know precisely what you
ought to say. If you cannot do that, be quiet until you are clear on this vital
point.
3. Having thus assured yourself, cast out the fear of those who listen to
you—they are only human and will respect your words if you really have something
to say and say it briefly, simply, and clearly.
4. Have the courage to study the English language until you are master of at
least its simpler forms.
Conversational Hints
Choose some subject that will prove of general interest to the whole group. Do
not explain the mechanism of a gas engine at an afternoon tea or the culture of
hollyhocks at a stag party.
It is not considered good taste for a man to bare his arm in public and show
scars or deformities. It is equally bad form for him to flaunt his own woes, or
the deformity of some one else's character. The public demands plays and stories
that end happily. All the world is seeking happiness. They cannot long be
interested in your ills and troubles. George Cohan made himself a millionaire
before he was thirty by writing cheerful plays. One of his rules is generally
applicable to conversation: "Always leave them laughing when you say good bye."
Dynamite the "I" out of your conversation. Not one man in nine hundred and seven
can talk about himself without being a bore. The man who can perform that feat
can achieve marvels without talking about himself, so the eternal "I" is not
permissible even in his talk.
If you habitually build your conversation around your own interests it may prove
very tiresome to your listener. He may be thinking of bird dogs or dry fly
fishing while you are discussing the fourth dimension, or the merits of a
cucumber lotion. The charming conversationalist is prepared to talk in terms of
his listener's interest. If his listener spends his spare time investigating
Guernsey cattle or agitating social reforms, the discriminating
conversationalist shapes his remarks accordingly. Richard Washburn Child says he
knows a man of mediocre ability who can charm men much abler than himself when
he discusses electric lighting. This same man probably would bore, and be bored,
if he were forced to converse about music or Madagascar.
Avoid platitudes and hackneyed phrases. If you meet a friend from Keokuk on
State Street or on Pike's Peak, it is not necessary to observe: "How small this
world is after all!" This observation was doubtless made prior to the formation
of Pike's Peak. "This old world is getting better every day." "Fanner's wives do
not have to work as hard as formerly." "It is not so much the high cost of
living as the cost of high living." Such observations as these excite about the
same degree of admiration as is drawn out by the appearance of a 1903-model
touring car. If you have nothing fresh or interesting you can always remain
silent. How would you like to read a newspaper that flashed out in bold
headlines "Nice Weather We Are Having," or daily gave columns to the same old
material you had been reading week after week?
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Give a short speech describing the conversational bore.
2. In a few words give your idea of a charming converser.
3. What qualities of the orator should not be used in conversation.
4. Give a short humorous delineation of the conversational "oracle."
5. Give an account of your first day at observing conversation around you.
6. Give an account of one day's effort to improve your own conversation.
7. Give a list of subjects you heard discussed during any recent period you may
select.
8. What is meant by "elastic touch" in conversation?
9. Make a list of "Bromides," as Gellett Burgess calls those threadbare
expressions which "bore us to extinction"—itself a Bromide.
10. What causes a phrase to become hackneyed?
11. Define the words, (a) trite; (b) solecism; (c) colloquialism; (d) slang; (e)
vulgarism; (f) neologism.
12. What constitutes pretentious talk?
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
FIFTY QUESTIONS FOR DEBATE
1. Has Labor Unionism justified its existence?
2. Should all church printing be brought out under the Union Label?
3. Is the Open Shop a benefit to the community?
4. Should arbitration of industrial disputes be made compulsory?
5. Is Profit-Sharing a solution of the wage problem?
6. Is a minimum wage law desirable?
7. Should the eight-hour day be made universal in America?
8. Should the state compensate those who sustain irreparable business loss
because of the enactment of laws prohibiting the manufacture and sale of
intoxicating drinks?
9. Should public utilities be owned by the municipality?
10. Should marginal trading in stocks be prohibited?
11. Should the national government establish a compulsory system of old-age
insurance by taxing the incomes of those to be benefited?
12. Would the triumph of socialistic principles result in deadening personal
ambition?
13. Is the Presidential System a better form of government for the United
States than the Parliamental System?
14. Should our legislation be shaped toward the gradual abandonment of the
protective tariff?
15. Should the government of the larger cities be vested solely in a commission
of not more than nine men elected by the voters at large?
16. Should national banks be permitted to issue, subject to tax and government
supervision, notes based on their general assets?
17. Should woman be given the ballot on the present basis of suffrage for men?
18. Should the present basis of suffrage be restricted?
19. Is the hope of permanent world-peace a delusion?
20. Should the United States send a diplomatic representative to the Vatican?
21. Should the Powers of the world substitute an international police for
national standing armies?
22. Should the United States maintain the Monroe Doctrine?
23. Should the Recall of Judges be adopted?
24. Should the Initiative and Referendum be adopted as a national principle?
25. Is it desirable that the national government should own all railroads
operating in interstate territory?
26. Is it desirable that the national government should own interstate telegraph
and telephone systems?
27. Is the national prohibition of the liquor traffic an economic necessity?
28. Should the United States army and navy be greatly strengthened?
29. Should the same standards of altruism obtain in the relations of nations as
in those of individuals?
30. Should our government be more highly centralized?
31. Should the United States continue its policy of opposing the combination of
railroads?
32. In case of personal injury to a workman arising out of his employment,
should his employer be liable for adequate compensation and be forbidden to set
up as a defence a plea of contributory negligence on the part of the workman, or
the negligence of a fellow workman?
33. Should all corporations doing an interstate business be required to take out
a Federal license?
34. Should the amount of property that can be transferred by inheritance be
limited by law?
35. Should equal compensation for equal labor, between women and men,
universally prevail?
36. Does equal suffrage tend to lessen the interest of woman in her home?
37. Should the United States take advantage of the commercial and industrial
weakness of foreign nations, brought about by the war, by trying to wrest from
them their markets in Central and South America?
38. Should teachers of small children in the public schools be selected from
among mothers?
39. Should football be restricted to colleges, for the sake of physical safety?
40. Should college students who receive compensation for playing summer baseball
be debarred from amateur standing?
41. Should daily school-hours and school vacations both be shortened?
42. Should home-study for pupils in grade schools be abolished and longer
school-hours substituted?
43. Should the honor system in examinations be adopted in public high-schools?
44. Should all colleges adopt the self-government system for its students?
45. Should colleges be classified by national law and supervision, and uniform
entrance and graduation requirements maintained by each college in a particular
class?
46. Should ministers be required to spend a term of years in some trade,
business, or profession, before becoming pastors?
47. Is the Y.M.C.A. losing its spiritual power?
48. Is the church losing its hold on thinking people?
49. Are the people of the United States more devoted to religion than ever?
50. Does the reading of magazines contribute to intellectual shallowness?
APPENDIX B
THIRTY THEMES FOR SPEECHES
With Source References for Material.
1. Kinship, a Foundation Stone of Civilization.
"The State," Woodrow Wilson.
2. Initiative and Referendum.
"The Popular Initiative and Referendum," O.M. Barnes.
3. Reciprocity with Canada.
Article in Independent, 53: 2874; article in North
American Review, 178: 205.
4. Is Mankind Progressing?
Book of same title, M.M. Ballou.
5. Moses the Peerless Leader.
Lecture by John Lord, in "Beacon Lights of History."
NOTE: This set of books contains a vast store of
material for speeches.
6. The Spoils System.
Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Henry van Dyke, reported
in the New York Tribune, February 25, 1895.
7. The Negro in Business.
Part III, Annual Report of the Secretary of Internal
Affairs, Pennsylvania, 1912.
8. Immigration and Degradation.
"Americans or Aliens?" Howard B. Grose.
9. What is the Theatre Doing for America?
"The Drama Today," Charlton Andrews.
10. Superstition.
"Curiosities of Popular Custom," William S. Walsh.
11. The Problem of Old Age.
"Old Age Deferred," Arnold Lorand.
12. Who is the Tramp?
Article in Century, 28: 41.
13. Two Men Inside.
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," R.L. Stevenson.
14. The Overthrow of Poverty.
"The Panacea for Poverty," Madison Peters.
15. Morals and Manners.
"A Christian's Habits," Robert E. Speer.
16. Jew and Christian.
"Jesus the Jew," Harold Weinstock.
17. Education and the Moving Picture.
Article by J. Berg Esenwein in "The Theatre of
Science," Robert Grau.
18. Books as Food.
"Books and Reading," R.C. Gage and Alfred
Harcourt.
19. What is a Novel?
"The Technique of the Novel," Charles F. Home.
20. Modern Fiction and Modern Life.
Article in Lippincott's, October, 1907.
21. Our Problem in Mexico.
"The Real Mexico," Hamilton Fyfe.
22. The Joy of Receiving.
Article in Woman's Home Companion, December, 1914.
23. Physical Training vs. College Athletics.
Article in Literary Digest, November 28, 1914.
24. Cheer Up.
"The Science of Happiness," Jean Finot.
25. The Square Peg in the Round Hole.
"The Job, the Man, and the Boss," Katherine
Blackford and Arthur Newcomb.
26. The Decay of Acting.
Article in Current Opinion, November, 1914.
27. The Young Man and the Church.
"A Young man's Religion," N. McGee Waters.
28. Inheriting Success.
Article in Current Opinion, November, 1914.
29. The Indian in Oklahoma.
Article in Literary Digest, November 28, 1914.
30. Hate and the Nation.
Article in Literary Digest, November 14, 1914.
APPENDIX C
SUGGESTIVE SUBJECTS FOR SPEECHES[36]
With Occasional Hints on Treatment
1. Movies and Morals.
2. The Truth About Lying.
The essence of truth-telling and lying. Lies that are not so
considered. The subtleties of distinctions required. Examples of
implied and acted lies.
3. Benefits That Follow Disasters.
Benefits that have arisen out of floods, fires, earthquakes, wars,
etc.
4. Haste for Leisure.
How the speed mania is born of a vain desire to enjoy a leisure
that never comes or, on the contrary, how the seeming haste of
the world has given men shorter hours off labor and more time for
rest, study, and pleasure.
5. St. Paul's Message to New York.
Truths from the Epistles pertinent to the great cities of today.
6. Education and Crime.
7. Loss is the Mother of Gain.
How many men have been content until, losing all, they exerted their
best efforts to regain success, and succeeded more largely than
before.
8. Egoism vs. Egotism.
9. Blunders of Young Fogyism.
10. The Waste of Middle-Men in Charity Systems.
The cost of collecting funds for, and administering help to, the
needy. The weakness of organized philanthropy as compared with
the giving that gives itself.
11. The Economy of Organized Charity.
The other side of the picture.
12. Freedom of the Press.
The true forces that hurtfully control too many newspapers are not
those of arbitrary governments but the corrupting influences of
moneyed and political interests, fear of the liquor power, and the
desire to please sensation-loving readers.
13. Helen Keller: Optimist.
14. Back to the Farm.
A study of the reasons underlying the movement.
15. It Was Ever Thus.
In ridicule of the pessimist who is never surprised at seeing failure.
16. The Vocational High School.
Value of direct training compared with the policy of laying broader
foundations for later building. How the two theories work out in
practise. Each plan can be especially applied in cases that seem to
need special treatment.
17. All Kinds of Turning Done Here.
A humorous, yet serious, discussion of the flopping, wind-mill
character.
18. The Egoistic Altruist.
Herbert Spencer's theory as discussed in "The Data of Ethics."
19. How the City Menaces the Nation.
Economic perils in massed population. Show also the other side.
Signs of the problem's being solved.
20. The Robust Note in Modern Poetry.
A comparison of the work of Galsworthy, Masefield and Kipling with
that of some earlier poets.
21. The Ideals of Socialism.
22. The Future of the Small City.
How men are coming to see the economic advantages of smaller
municipalities.
23. Censorship for the Theatre.
Its relation to morals and art. Its difficulties and its benefits.
24. For Such a Time as This.
Mordecai's expression and its application to opportunities in modern
woman's life.
25. Is the Press Venal?
26. Safety First.
27. Menes and Extremes.
28. Rubicons and Pontoons.
How great men not only made momentous decisions but created means
to carry them out. A speech full of historical examples.
29. Economy a Revenue.
30. The Patriotism of Protest Against Popular Idols.
31. Savonarola, The Divine Outcast.
32. The True Politician.
Revert to the original meaning of the word. Build the speech around
one man as the chief example.
33. Colonels and Shells.
Leadership and "cannon fodder"—a protest against war in its effect
on the common people.
34. Why is a Militant?
A dispassionate examination of the claims of the British militant
suffragette.
35. Art and Morals.
The difference between the nude and the naked in art.
36. Can my Country be Wrong?
False patriotism and true, with examples of popularly-hated patriots.
37. Government by Party.
An analysis of our present political system and the movement toward
reform.
38. The Effects of Fiction on History.
39. The Effects of History on Fiction.
40. The Influence of War on Literature.
41. Chinese Gordon.
A eulogy.
42. Taxes and Higher Education.
Should all men be compelled to contribute to the support of
universities and professional schools?
43. Prize Cattle vs. Prize Babies.
Is Eugenics a science? And is it practicable?
44. Benevolent Autocracy.
Is a strongly paternal government better for the masses than a much
larger freedom for the individual?
45. Second-Hand Opinions.
The tendency to swallow reviews instead of forming one's own views.
46. Parentage or Power?
A study of which form of aristocracy must eventually prevail, that
of blood or that of talent.
47. The Blessing of Discontent.
Based on many examples of what has been accomplished by those who
have not "let well-enough alone."
48. "Corrupt and Contented."
A study of the relation of the apathetic voter to vicious government.
49. The Moloch of Child-Labor.
50. Every Man Has a Right to Work.
51. Charity that Fosters Pauperism.
52. "Not in Our Stars but in Ourselves."
Destiny vs. choice.
53. Environment vs. Heredity.
54. The Bravery of Doubt.
Doubt not mere unbelief. True grounds for doubt. What doubt has led
to. Examples. The weakness of mere doubt. The attitude of the
wholesome doubter versus that of the wholesale doubter.
55. The Spirit of Monticello.
A message from the life of Thomas Jefferson.
56. Narrowness in Specialism.
The dangers of specializing without first possessing broad
knowledge. The eye too close to one object. Balance is a vital
prerequisite for specialization.
57. Responsibility of Labor Unions to the Law.
58. The Future of Southern Literature.
What conditions in the history, temperament and environment of our
Southern people indicate a bright literary future.
59. Woman the Hope of Idealism in America.
60. The Value of Debating Clubs.
61. An Army of Thirty Millions.
In praise of the Sunday-school.
62. The Baby.
How the ever-new baby holds mankind in unselfish courses and saves
us all from going lastingly wrong.
63. Lo, the Poor Capitalist.
His trials and problems.
64. Honey and Sting.
A lesson from the bee.
65. Ungrateful Republics.
Examples from history.
66. "Every Man has his Price."
Horace Walpole's cynical remark is not true now, nor was it true
even in his own corrupt era. Of what sort are the men who cannot
be bought? Examples.
67. The Scholar in Diplomacy.
Examples in American life.
68. Locks and Keys.
There is a key for every lock. No difficulty so great, no truth so
obscure, no problem so involved, but that there is a key to fit the
lock. The search for the right key, the struggle to adjust it, the
vigilance to retain it—these are some of the problems of success.
69. Right Makes Might.
70. Rooming With a Ghost.
Influence of the woman graduate of fifty years before on the college
girl who lives in the room once occupied by the distinguished "old grad."
71. No Fact is a Single Fact.
The importance of weighing facts relatively.
72. Is Classical Education Dead to Rise No More?
73. Invective Against Nietsche's Philosophy.
74. Why Have we Bosses?
A fair-minded examination of the uses and abuses of the political
"leader."
75. A Plea for Settlement Work.
76. Credulity vs. Faith.
77. What is Humor?
78. Use and Abuse of the Cartoon.
79. The Pulpit in Politics.
80. Are Colleges Growing too Large?
81. The Doom of Absolutism.
82. Shall Woman Help Keep House for Town, City, State, and Nation?
83. The Educational Test for Suffrage.
84. The Property Test for Suffrage.
85. The Menace of the Plutocrat.
86. The Cost of High Living.
87. The Cost of Conveniences.
88. Waste in American Life.
89. The Effect of the Photoplay on the "Legitimate" Theatre.
90. Room for the Kicker.
100. The Need for Trained Diplomats.
101. The Shadow of the Iron Chancellor.
102. The Tyranny of the Crowd.
103. Is Our Trial by Jury Satisfactory?
104. The High Cost of Securing Justice.
105. The Need for Speedier Court Trials.
106. Triumphs of the American Engineer.
107. Goethals and Gorgas.
108. Public Education Makes Service to the Public a Duty.
109. Man Owes his Life to the Common Good.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] It must be remembered that the phrasing of the subject will not necessarily
serve for the title.
APPENDIX D
SPEECHES FOR STUDY AND PRACTISE
NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS
BRAVE LITTLE BELGIUM
Delivered in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N.Y., October 18, 1914. Used by
permission.
Long ago Plato made a distinction between the occasions of war and the causes of
war. The occasions of war lie upon the surface, and are known and read of all
men, while the causes of war are embedded in racial antagonisms, in political
and economic controversies. Narrative historians portray the occasions of war;
philosophic historians, the secret and hidden causes. Thus the spark of fire
that falls is the occasion of an explosion, but the cause of the havoc is the
relation between charcoal, niter and saltpeter. The occasion of the Civil War
was the firing upon Fort Sumter. The cause was the collision between the ideals
of the Union presented by Daniel Webster and the secession taught by Calhoun.
The occasion of the American Revolution was the Stamp Tax; the cause was the
conviction on the part of our forefathers that men who had freedom in worship
carried also the capacity for self-government. The occasion of the French
Revolution was the purchase of a diamond necklace for Queen Marie Antoinette at
a time when the treasury was exhausted; the cause of the revolution was
feudalism. Not otherwise, the occasion of the great conflict that is now shaking
our earth was the assassination of an Austrian boy and girl, but the cause is
embedded in racial antagonisms and economic competition.
As for Russia, the cause of the war was her desire to obtain the Bosphorus—and
an open seaport, which is the prize offered for her attack upon Germany. As for
Austria, the cause of the war is her fear of the growing power of the Balkan
States, and the progressive slicing away of her territory. As for France, the
cause of the war is the instinct of self-preservation, that resists an invading
host. As for Germany, the cause is her deep-seated conviction that every country
has a moral right to the mouth of its greatest river; unable to compete with
England, by roundabout sea routes and a Kiel Canal, she wants to use the route
that nature digged for her through the mouth of the Rhine. As for England, the
motherland is fighting to recover her sense of security. During the Napoleonic
wars the second William Pitt explained the quadrupling of the taxes, the
increase of the navy, and the sending of an English army against France, by the
statement that justification of this proposed war is the "Preservation of
England's sense of security." Ten years ago England lost her sense of security.
Today she is not seeking to preserve, but to recover, the lost sense of
security. She proposes to do this by destroying Germany's ironclads,
demobilizing her army, wiping out her forts, and the partition of her provinces.
The occasions of the war vary, with the color of the paper—"white" and "gray"
and "blue"—but the causes of this war are embedded in racial antagonisms and
economic and political differences.
Why Little Belgium Has the Center of the Stage
Tonight our study concerns little Belgium, her people, and their part in this
conflict. Be the reasons what they may, this little land stands in the center of
the stage and holds the limelight. Once more David, armed with a sling, has gone
up against ten Goliaths. It is an amazing spectacle, this, one of the smallest
of the States, battling with the largest of the giants! Belgium has a standing
army of 42,000 men, and Germany, with three reserves, perhaps 7,000,000 or
8,000,000. Without waiting for any assistance, this little Belgium band went up
against 2,000,000. It is as if a honey bee had decided to attack an eagle come
to loot its honeycomb. It is as if an antelope had turned against a lion.
Belgium has but 11,000 square miles of land, less than the States of
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Her population is 7,500,000, less
than the single State of New York. You could put twenty-two Belgiums in our
single State of Texas. Much of her soil is thin; her handicaps are heavy, but
the industry of her people has turned the whole land into one vast flower and
vegetable garden. The soil of Minnesota and the Dakotas is new soil, and yet our
farmers there average but fifteen bushels of wheat to the acre. Belgium's soil
has been used for centuries, but it averages thirty-seven bushels of wheat to
the acre. If we grow twenty-four bushels of barley on an acre of ground, Belgium
grows fifty; she produces 300 bushels of potatoes, where the Maine farmer
harvests 90 bushels. Belgium's average population per square mile has risen to
645 people. If Americans practised intensive farming; if the population of Texas
were as dense as it is in Belgium—100,000,000 of the United States, Canada and
Central America could all move to Texas, while if our entire country was as
densely populated as Belgium's, everybody in the world could live comfortably
within the limits of our country.
The Life of the People
And yet, little Belgium has no gold or silver mines, and all the treasures of
copper and zinc and lead and anthracite and oil have been denied her. The gold
is in the heart of her people. No other land holds a race more prudent,
industrious and thrifty! It is a land where everybody works. In the winter when
the sun does not rise until half past seven, the Belgian cottages have lights in
their windows at five, and the people are ready for an eleven-hour day. As a
rule all children work after 12 years of age. The exquisite pointed lace that
has made Belgium famous, is wrought by women who fulfill the tasks of the
household fulfilled by American women, and then begins their task upon the
exquisite laces that have sent their name and fame throughout the world. Their
wages are low, their work hard, but their life is so peaceful and prosperous
that few Belgians ever emigrate to foreign countries. Of late they have made
their education compulsory, their schools free. It is doubtful whether any other
country has made a greater success of their system of transportation. You will
pay 50 cents to journey some twenty odd miles out to Roslyn, on our Long Island
railroad, but in Belgium a commuter journeys twenty miles in to the factory and
back again every night and makes the six double daily journeys at an entire cost
of 37-1/2 cents per week, less than the amount that you pay for the journey one
way for a like distance in this country. Out of this has come Belgium's
prosperity. She has the money to buy goods from other countries, and she has the
property to export to foreign lands. Last year the United States, with its
hundred millions of people, imported less than $2,000,000,000, and exported
$2,500,000,000. If our people had been as prosperous per capita as Belgium, we
would have purchased from other countries $12,000,000,000 worth of goods and
exported $10,000,000,000.
So largely have we been dependent upon Belgium that many of the engines used in
digging the Panama Canal came from the Cockerill works that produce two
thousands of these engines every year in Liege. It is often said that the
Belgians have the best courts in existence. The Supreme Court of Little Belgium
has but one Justice. Without waiting for an appeal, just as soon as a decision
has been reached by a lower Court, while the matters are still fresh in mind and
all the witnesses and facts readily obtainable, this Supreme Justice reviews all
the objections raised on either side and without a motion from anyone passes on
the decision of the inferior court. On the other hand, the lower courts are open
to an immediate settlement of disputes between the wage earners, and newsboys
and fishermen are almost daily seen going to the judge for a decision regarding
a dispute over five or ten cents. When the judge has cross-questioned both
sides, without the presence of attorneys, or the necessity of serving a process,
or raising a dollar and a quarter, as here, the poorest of the poor have their
wrongs righted. It is said that not one decision out of one hundred is appealed,
thus calling for the existence of an attorney.
To all other institutions organized in the interest of the wage earner has
been added the national savings bank system, that makes loans to men of small
means, that enables the farmer and the working man to buy a little garden and
build a house, while at the same time insuring the working man against accident
and sickness. Belgium is a poor man's country, it has been said, because
institutions have been administered in the interest of the men of small affairs.
The Great Belgium Plain in History
But the institutions of Belgium and the industrial prosperity of her people
alone are not equal to the explanation of her unique heroism. Long ago, in his
Commentaries, Julius Cæsar said that Gaul was inhabited by three tribes, the
Belgæ, the Aquitani, the Celts, "of whom the Belgæ were the bravest." History
will show that Belgians have courage as their native right, for only the brave
could have survived. The southeastern part of Belgium is a series of rock
plains, and if these plains have been her good fortune in times of peace, they
have furnished the battlefields of Western Europe for two thousand years.
Northern France and Western Germany are rough, jagged and wooded, but the
Belgian plains were ideal battlefields. For this reason the generals of Germany
and of France have usually met and struggled for the mastery on these wide
Belgian plains. On one of these grounds Julius Cæsar won the first battle that
is recorded. Then came King Clovis and the French, with their campaigns; toward
these plains also the Saracens were hurrying when assaulted by Charles Martel.
On the Belgian plains the Dutch burghers and the Spanish armies, led by Bloody
Alva, fought out their battle. Hither, too, came Napoleon, and the great mound
of Waterloo is the monument to the Duke of Wellington's victory. It was to the
Belgian plains, also, that the German general, last August, rushed his troops.
Every college and every city searches for some level spot of land where the
contest between opposing teams may be held, and for more than two thousand years
the Belgian plain has been the scene of the great battles between the warring
nations of Western Europe.
Now, out of all these collisions there has come a hardy race, inured to peril,
rich in fortitude, loyalty, patience, thrift, self-reliance and persevering
faith. For five hundred years the Belgian children and youth have been brought
up upon the deeds of noble renown, achieved by their ancestors. If Julius Cæsar
were here today he would wear Belgium's bravery like a bright sword, girded to
his thigh. And when this brave little people, with a standing army of forty-two
thousand men, single-handed defied two millions of Germans, it tells us that
Ajax has come back once more to defy the god of lightnings.
A Thrilling Chapter from Belgium's History
Perhaps one or two chapters torn from the pages of Belgium history will enable
us to understand her present-day heroism, just as one golden bough plucked from
the forest will explain the richness of the autumn. You remember that Venice was
once the financial center of the world. Then when the bankers lost confidence in
the navy of Venice they put their jewels and gold into saddle bags and moved the
financial center of the world to Nuremburg, because its walls were seven feet
thick and twenty feet high. Later, about 1500 A.D., the discovery of the New
World turned all the peoples into races of sea-going folk, and the English and
Dutch captains vied with the sailors of Spain and Portugal. No captains were
more prosperous than the mariners of Antwerp. In 1568 there were 500 marble
mansions in this city on the Meuse. Belgium became a casket filled with jewels.
Then it was that Spain turned covetous eyes northward. Sated with his pleasures,
broken by indulgence and passion, the Emperor Charles the Fifth resigned his
gold and throne to his son, King Philip. Finding his coffers depleted, Philip
sent the Duke of Alva, with 10,000 Spanish soldiers, out on a looting
expedition. Their approach filled Antwerp with consternation, for her merchants
were busy with commerce and not with war. The sack of Antwerp by the Spaniards
makes up a revolting page in history. Within three days 8,000 men, women and
children were massacred, and the Spanish soldiers, drunk with wine and blood,
hacked, drowned and burned like fiends that they were. The Belgian historian
tells us that 500 marble residences were reduced to blackened ruins. One
incident will make the event stand out. When the Spaniards approached the city a
wealthy burgher hastened the day of his son's marriage. During the ceremony the
soldiers broke down the gate of the city and crossed the threshold of the rich
man's house. When they had stripped the guests of their purses and gems,
unsatisfied, they killed the bridegroom, slew the men, and carried the bride out
into the night. The next morning a young woman, crazed and half clad, was found
in the street, searching among the dead bodies. At last she found a youth, whose
head she lifted upon her knees, over which she crooned her songs, as a young
mother soothes her babe. A Spanish officer passing by, humiliated by the
spectacle, ordered a soldier to use his dagger and put the girl out of her
misery.
The Horrors of the Inquisition
Having looted Antwerp, the treasure chest of Belgium, the Spaniards set up the
Inquisition as an organized means of securing property. It is a strange fact
that the Spaniard has excelled in cruelty as other nations have excelled in art
or science or invention. Spain's cruelty to the Moors and the rich Jews forms
one of the blackest chapters in history. Inquisitors became fiends. Moors were
starved, tortured, burned, flung in wells, Jewish bankers had their tongues
thrust through little iron rings; then the end of the tongue was seared that it
might swell, and the banker was led by a string in the ring through the streets
of the city. The women and the children were put on rafts that were pushed out
into the Mediterranean Sea. When the swollen corpses drifted ashore, the plague
broke out, and when that black plague spread over Spain it seemed like the
justice of outraged nature. The expulsion of the Moors was one of the deadliest
blows ever struck at science, commerce, art and literature. The historian tracks
Spain across the continents by a trail of blood. Wherever Spain's hand has
fallen it has paralyzed. From the days of Cortez, wherever her captains have
given a pledge, the tongue that spake has been mildewed with lies and treachery.
The wildest beasts are not in the jungle; man is the lion that rends, man is the
leopard that tears, man's hate is the serpent that poisons, and the Spaniard
entered Belgium to turn a garden into a wilderness. Within one year, 1568,
Antwerp, that began with 125,000 people, ended it with 50,000. Many multitudes
were put to death by the sword and stake, but many, many thousands fled to
England, to begin anew their lives as manufacturers and mariners; and for years
Belgium was one quaking peril, an inferno, whose torturers were Spaniards. The
visitor in Antwerp is still shown the rack upon which they stretched the
merchants that they might yield up their hidden gold. The Painted Lady may be
seen. Opening her arms, she embraces the victim. The Spaniard, with his spear,
forced the merchant into the deadly embrace. As the iron arms concealed in
velvet folded together, one spike passed through each eye, another through the
mouth, another through the heart. The Painted Lady's lips were poisoned, so that
a kiss was fatal. The dungeon whose sides were forced together by screws, so
that each day the victim saw his cell growing less and less, and knew that soon
he would be crushed to death, was another instrument of torture. Literally
thousands of innocent men and women were burned alive in the market place.
There is no more piteous tragedy in history than the story of the decline and
ruin of this superbly prosperous, literary and artistic country, and yet out of
the ashes came new courage. Burned, broken, the Belgians and the Dutch were not
beaten. Pushed at last into Holland, where they united their fortunes with the
Dutch, they cut the dykes of Holland, and let in the ocean, and clinging to the
dykes with their finger tips, fought their way back to the land; but no sooner
had the last of the Spaniards gone than out of their rags and poverty they
founded a university as a monument to the providence of God in delivering them
out of the hands of their enemies. For, the Sixteenth Century, in the form of a
brave knight, wears little Belgium and Holland like a red rose upon his heart.
The Death of Egmont
But some of you will say that the Belgian people must have been rebels and
guilty of some excess, and that had they remained quiescent, and not fomented
treason, that no such fate could have overtaken them at the hands of Spain. Very
well. I will take a youth who, at the beginning, believed in Charles the Fifth,
a man who was as true to his ideals as the needle to the pole. One day the
"Bloody Council" decreed the death of Egmont and Horn. Immediately afterward,
the Duke of Alva sent an invitation to Egmont to be the guest of honor at a
banquet in his own house. A servant from the palace that night delivered to the
Count a slip of paper, containing a warning to take the fleetest horse and flee
the city, and from that moment not to eat or sleep without pistols at his hand.
To all this Egmont responded that no monster ever lived who could, with an
invitation of hospitality, trick a patriot. Like a brave man, the Count went to
the Duke's palace. He found the guests assembled, but when he had handed his hat
and cloak to the servant, Alva gave a sign, and from behind the curtains came
Spanish musqueteers, who demanded his sword. For instead of a banquet hall, the
Count was taken to a cellar, fitted up as a dungeon. Already Egmont had all but
died for his country. He had used his ships, his trade, his gold, for righting
the people's wrongs. He was a man of a large family—a wife and eleven
children—and people loved him as to idolatry. But Alva was inexorable. He had
made up his mind that the merchants and burghers had still much hidden gold, and
if he killed their bravest and best, terror would fall upon all alike, and that
the gold he needed would be forthcoming. That all the people might witness the
scene, he took his prisoners to Brussels and decided to behead them in the
public square. In the evening Egmont received the notice that his head would be
chopped off the next day. A scaffold was erected in the public square. That
evening he wrote a letter that is a marvel of restraint.
"Sire—I have learned this evening the sentence which your majesty has been
pleased to pronounce upon me. Although I have never had a thought, and believe
myself never to have done a deed, which would tend to the prejudice of your
service, or to the detriment of true religion, nevertheless I take patience to
bear that which it has pleased the good God to permit. Therefore, I pray your
majesty to have compassion on my poor wife, my children and my servants, having
regard to my past service. In which hope I now commend myself to the mercy of
God. From Brussels, ready to die, this 5th of June, 1568.
"Lamoral D' Egmont."
Thus died a man who did as much probably for Holland as John Eliot for England,
or Lafayette for France, or Samuel Adams for this young republic.
The Woe of Belgium
And now out of all this glorious past comes the woe of Belgium. Desolation has
come like the whirlwind, and destruction like a tornado. But ninety days ago and
Belgium was a hive of industry, and in the fields were heard the harvest songs.
Suddenly, Germany struck Belgium. The whole world has but one voice, "Belgium
has innocent hands." She was led like a lamb to the slaughter. When the lover of
Germany is asked to explain Germany's breaking of her solemn treaty upon the
neutrality of Belgium, the German stands dumb and speechless. Merchants honor
their written obligations. True citizens consider their word as good as their
bond; Germany gave treaty, and in the presence of God and the civilized world,
entered into a solemn covenant with Belgium. To the end of time, the German must
expect this taunt, "as worthless as a German treaty." Scarcely less black the
two or three known examples of cruelty wrought upon nonresisting Belgians. In
Brooklyn lives a Belgian woman. She planned to return home in late July to visit
a father who had suffered paralysis, an aged mother and a sister who nursed
both. When the Germans decided to burn that village in Eastern Belgium, they did
not wish to burn alive this old and helpless man, so they bayonetted to death
the old man and woman, and the daughter that nursed them.
Let us judge not, that we be not judged. This is the one example of atrocity
that you and I might be able personally to prove. But every loyal German in the
country can make answer: "These soldiers were drunk with wine and blood. Such an
atrocity misrepresents Germany and her soldiers. The breaking of Germany's
treaty with Belgium represents the dishonor of a military ring, and not the
perfidy of 68,000,000 of people. We ask that judgment be postponed until all the
facts are in." But, meanwhile, the man who loves his fellows, at midnight in his
dreams walks across the fields of broken Belgium. All through the night air
there comes the sob of Rachel, weeping for her children, because they are not.
In moods of bitterness, of doubt and despair the heart cries out, "How could a
just God permit such cruelty upon innocent Belgium?" No man knows. "Clouds and
darkness are round about God's throne." The spirit of evil caused this war, but
the Spirit of God may bring good out of it, just as the summer can repair the
ravages of winter. Meanwhile the heart bleeds for Belgium. For Brussels, the
third most beautiful city in Europe! For Louvain, once rich with its libraries,
cathedrals, statues, paintings, missals, manuscripts—now a ruin. Alas! for the
ruined harvests and the smoking villages! Alas, for the Cathedral that is a
heap, and the library that is a ruin. Where the angel of happiness was there
stalk Famine and Death. Gone, the Land of Grotius! Perished the paintings of
Rubens! Ruined is Louvain. Where the wheat waved, now the hillsides are billowy
with graves. But let us believe that God reigns. Perchance Belgium is slain like
the Saviour, that militarism may die like Satan. Without shedding of innocent
blood there is no remission of sins through tyranny and greed. There is no wine
without the crushing of the grapes from the tree of life. Soon Liberty, God's
dear child, will stand within the scene and comfort the desolate. Falling upon
the great world's altar stairs, in this hour when wisdom is ignorance, and the
strongest man clutches at dust and straw, let us believe with faith victorious
over tears, that some time God will gather broken-hearted little Belgium into
His arms and comfort her as a Father comforteth his well-beloved child.
HENRY WATTERSON
THE NEW AMERICANISM
(Abridged)
Eight years ago tonight, there stood where I am standing now a young Georgian,
who, not without reason, recognized the "significance" of his presence here,
and, in words whose eloquence I cannot hope to recall, appealed from the New
South to New England for a united country.
He is gone now. But, short as his life was, its heaven-born mission was
fulfilled; the dream of his childhood was realized; for he had been appointed by
God to carry a message of peace on earth, good will to men, and, this done, he
vanished from the sight of mortal eyes, even as the dove from the ark.
Grady told us, and told us truly, of that typical American who, in Dr. Talmage's
mind's eye, was coming, but who, in Abraham Lincoln's actuality, had already
come. In some recent studies into the career of that man, I have encountered
many startling confirmations of this judgment; and from that rugged trunk,
drawing its sustenance from gnarled roots, interlocked with Cavalier sprays and
Puritan branches deep beneath the soil, shall spring, is springing, a shapely
tree—symmetric in all its parts—under whose sheltering boughs this nation shall
have the new birth of freedom Lincoln promised it, and mankind the refuge which
was sought by the forefathers when they fled from oppression. Thank God, the ax,
the gibbet, and the stake have had their day. They have gone, let us hope, to
keep company with the lost arts. It has been demonstrated that great wrongs may
be redressed and great reforms be achieved without the shedding of one drop of
human blood; that vengeance does not purify, but brutalizes; and that tolerance,
which in private transactions is reckoned a virtue, becomes in public affairs a
dogma of the most far-seeing statesmanship.
So I appeal from the men in silken hose who danced to music made by
slaves—and called it freedom—from the men in bell-crowned hats, who led Hester
Prynne to her shame—and called it religion—to that Americanism which reaches
forth its arms to smite wrong with reason and truth, secure in the power of
both. I appeal from the patriarchs of New England to the poets of New England;
from Endicott to Lowell; from Winthrop to Longfellow; from Norton to Holmes; and
I appeal in the name and by the rights of that common citizenship—of that common
origin—back of both the Puritan and the Cavalier—to which all of us owe our
being. Let the dead past, consecrated by the blood of its martyrs, not by its
savage hatreds—darkened alike by kingcraft and priestcraft—let the dead past
bury its dead. Let the present and the future ring with the song of the singers.
Blessed be the lessons they teach, the laws they make. Blessed be the eye to
see, the light to reveal. Blessed be Tolerance, sitting ever on the right hand
of God to guide the way with loving word, as blessed be all that brings us
nearer the goal of true religion, true Republicanism, and true patriotism,
distrust of watchwords and labels, shams and heroes, belief in our country and
ourselves. It was not Cotton Mather, but John Greenleaf Whittier, who cried:—
"Dear God and Father of us all,
Forgive our faith in cruel lies,
Forgive the blindness that denies.
"Cast down our idols—overturn
Our bloody altars—make us see
Thyself in Thy humanity!"
JOHN MORLEY
FOUNDER'S DAY ADDRESS
(Abridged)
Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pa., November 3, 1904.
What is so hard as a just estimate of the events of our own time? It is only
now, a century and a half later, that we really perceive that a writer has
something to say for himself when he calls Wolfe's exploit at Quebec the turning
point in modern history. And to-day it is hard to imagine any rational standard
that would not make the American Revolution—an insurrection of thirteen little
colonies, with a population of 3,000,000 scattered in a distant wilderness among
savages—a mightier event in many of its aspects than the volcanic convulsion in
France. Again, the upbuilding of your great West on this continent is reckoned
by some the most important world movement of the last hundred years. But is it
more important than the amazing, imposing and perhaps disquieting apparition of
Japan? One authority insists that when Russia descended into the Far East and
pushed her frontier on the Pacific to the forty-third degree of latitude that
was one of the most far-reaching facts of modern history, tho it almost escaped
the eyes of Europe—all her perceptions then monopolized by affairs in the
Levant. Who can say? Many courses of the sun were needed before men could take
the full historic measures of Luther, Calvin, Knox; the measure of Loyola, the
Council of Trent, and all the counter-reformation. The center of gravity is
forever shifting, the political axis of the world perpetually changing. But we
are now far enough off to discern how stupendous a thing was done when, after
two cycles of bitter war, one foreign, the other civil and intestine, Pitt and
Washington, within a span of less than a score of years, planted the foundations
of the American Republic.
What Forbes's stockade at Fort Pitt has grown to be you know better than I. The
huge triumphs of Pittsburg in material production—iron, steel, coke, glass, and
all the rest of it—can only be told in colossal figures that are almost as hard
to realize in our minds as the figures of astronomical distance or geologic
time. It is not quite clear that all the founders of the Commonwealth would have
surveyed the wonderful scene with the same exultation as their descendants. Some
of them would have denied that these great centers of industrial democracy
either in the Old World or in the New always stand for progress. Jefferson said,
"I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the
liberties of man. I consider the class of artificers," he went on, "as the
panders of vice, and the instrument by which the liberties of a country are
generally overthrown." In England they reckon 70 per cent. of our population as
dwellers in towns. With you, I read that only 25 per cent. of the population
live in groups so large as 4,000 persons. If Jefferson was right our outlook
would be dark. Let us hope that he was wrong, and in fact toward the end of his
time qualified his early view. Franklin, at any rate, would, I feel sure, have
reveled in it all.
That great man—a name in the forefront among the practical intelligences of
human history—once told a friend that when he dwelt upon the rapid progress that
mankind was making in politics, morals, and the arts of living, and when he
considered that each one improvement always begets another, he felt assured that
the future progress of the race was likely to be quicker than it had ever been.
He was never wearied of foretelling inventions yet to come, and he wished he
could revisit the earth at the end of a century to see how mankind was getting
on. With all my heart I share his wish. Of all the men who have built up great
States, I do believe there is not one whose alacrity of sound sense and
single-eyed beneficence of aim could be more safely trusted than Franklin to
draw light from the clouds and pierce the economic and political confusions of
our time. We can imagine the amazement and complacency of that shrewd benignant
mind if he could watch all the giant marvels of your mills and furnaces, and all
the apparatus devised by the wondrous inventive faculties of man; if he could
have foreseen that his experiments with the kite in his garden at Philadelphia,
his tubes, his Leyden jars would end in the electric appliances of to-day—the
largest electric plant in all the world on the site of Fort Duquesne; if he
could have heard of 5,000,000,000 of passengers carried in the United States by
electric motor power in a year; if he could have realized all the rest of the
magician's tale of our time.
Still more would he have been astounded and elated could he have foreseen,
beyond all advances in material production, the unbroken strength of that
political structure which he had so grand a share in rearing. Into this very
region where we are this afternoon, swept wave after wave of immigration;
English from Virginia flowed over the border, bringing English traits,
literature, habits of mind; Scots, or Scots-Irish, originally from Ulster,
flowed in from Central Pennsylvania; Catholics from Southern Ireland; new hosts
from Southern and East Central Europe. This is not the Fourth of July. But
people of every school would agree that it is no exuberance of rhetoric, it is
only sober truth to say that the persevering absorption and incorporation of all
this ceaseless torrent of heterogenous elements into one united, stable,
industrious, and pacific State is an achievement that neither the Roman Empire
nor the Roman Church, neither Byzantine Empire nor Russian, not Charles the
Great nor Charles the Fifth nor Napoleon ever rivaled or approached.
We are usually apt to excuse the slower rate of liberal progress in our Old
World by contrasting the obstructive barriers of prejudice, survival, solecism,
anachronism, convention, institution, all so obstinately rooted, even when the
branches seem bare and broken, in an old world, with the open and disengaged
ground of the new. Yet in fact your difficulties were at least as formidable as
those of the older civilizations into whose fruitful heritage you have entered.
Unique was the necessity of this gigantic task of incorporation, the
assimilation of people of divers faiths and race. A second difficulty was more
formidable still—how to erect and work a powerful and wealthy State on such a
system as to combine the centralized concert of a federal system with local
independence, and to unite collective energy with the encouragement of
individual freedom.
This last difficulty that you have so successfully up to now surmounted, at the
present hour confronts the mother country and deeply perplexes her statesmen.
Liberty and union have been called the twin ideas of America. So, too, they are
the twin ideals of all responsible men in Great Britain; altho responsible men
differ among themselves as to the safest path on which to travel toward the
common goal, and tho the dividing ocean, in other ways so much our friend,
interposes, for our case of an island State, or rather for a group of island
States, obstacles from which a continental State like yours is happily
altogether free.
Nobody believes that no difficulties remain. Some of them are obvious. But the
common-sense, the mixture of patience and determination that has conquered risks
and mischiefs in the past, may be trusted with the future.
Strange and devious are the paths of history. Broad and shining channels get
mysteriously silted up. How many a time what seemed a glorious high road proves
no more than a mule track or mere cul-de-sac. Think of Canning's flashing boast,
when he insisted on the recognition of the Spanish republics in South
America—that he had called a new world into existence to redress the balance of
the old. This is one of the sayings—of which sort many another might be
found—that make the fortune of a rhetorician, yet stand ill the wear and tear of
time and circumstance. The new world that Canning called into existence has so
far turned out a scene of singular disenchantment.
Tho not without glimpses on occasion of that heroism and courage and even wisdom
that are the attributes of man almost at the worst, the tale has been too much a
tale of anarchy and disaster, still leaving a host of perplexities for statesmen
both in America and Europe. It has left also to students of a philosophic turn
of mind one of the most interesting of all the problems to be found in the whole
field of social, ecclesiastical, religious, and racial movement. Why is it that
we do not find in the south as we find in the north of this hemisphere a
powerful federation—a great Spanish-American people stretching from the Rio
Grande to Cape Horn? To answer that question would be to shed a flood of light
upon many deep historic forces in the Old World, of which, after all, these
movements of the New are but a prolongation and more manifest extension.
What more imposing phenomenon does history present to us than the rise of
Spanish power to the pinnacle of greatness and glory in the sixteenth century?
The Mohammedans, after centuries of fierce and stubborn war, driven back; the
whole peninsula brought under a single rule with a single creed; enormous
acquisitions from the Netherlands of Naples, Sicily, the Canaries; France
humbled, England menaced, settlements made in Asia and Northern Africa—Spain in
America become possessed of a vast continent and of more than one archipelago of
splendid islands. Yet before a century was over the sovereign majesty of Spain
underwent a huge declension, the territory under her sway was contracted, the
fabulous wealth of the mines of the New World had been wasted, agriculture and
industry were ruined, her commerce passed into the hands of her rivals.
Let me digress one further moment. We have a very sensible habit in the island
whence I come, when our country misses fire, to say as little as we can, and
sink the thing in patriotic oblivion. It is rather startling to recall that less
than a century ago England twice sent a military force to seize what is now
Argentina. Pride of race and hostile creed vehemently resisting, proved too much
for us. The two expeditions ended in failure, and nothing remains for the
historian of to-day but to wonder what a difference it might have made to the
temperate region of South America if the fortune of war had gone the other way,
if the region of the Plata had become British, and a large British immigration
had followed. Do not think me guilty of the heinous crime of forgetting the
Monroe Doctrine. That momentous declaration was not made for a good many years
after our Gen. Whitelocke was repulsed at Buenos Ayres, tho Mr. Sumner and other
people have always held that it was Canning who really first started the Monroe
Doctrine, when he invited the United States to join him against European
intervention in South American affairs.
The day is at hand, we are told, when four-fifths of the human race will trace
their pedigree to English forefathers, as four-fifths of the white people in the
United States trace their pedigree to-day. By the end of this century, they say,
such nations as France and Germany, assuming that they stand apart from fresh
consolidations, will only be able to claim the same relative position in the
political world as Holland and Switzerland. These musings of the moon do not
take us far. The important thing, as we all know, is not the exact fraction of
the human race that will speak English. The important thing is that those who
speak English, whether in old lands or new, shall strive in lofty, generous and
never-ceasing emulation with peoples of other tongues and other stock for the
political, social, and intellectual primacy among mankind. In this noble strife
for the service of our race we need never fear that claimants for the prize will
be too large a multitude.
As an able scholar of your own has said, Jefferson was here using the old
vernacular of English aspirations after a free, manly, and well-ordered
political life—a vernacular rich in stately tradition and noble phrase, to be
found in a score of a thousand of champions in many camps—in Buchanan, Milton,
Hooker, Locke, Jeremy Taylor, Roger Williams, and many another humbler but not
less strenuous pioneer and confessor of freedom. Ah, do not fail to count up,
and count up often, what a different world it would have been but for that
island in the distant northern sea! These were the tributary fountains, that, as
time went on, swelled into the broad confluence of modern time. What was new in
1776 was the transformation of thought into actual polity.
What is progress? It is best to be slow in the complex arts of politics in their
widest sense, and not to hurry to define. If you want a platitude, there is
nothing for supplying it like a definition. Or shall we say that most
definitions hang between platitude and paradox? There are said, tho I have never
counted, to be 10,000 definitions of religion. There must be about as many of
poetry. There can hardly be fewer of liberty, or even of happiness.
I am not bold enough to try a definition. I will not try to gauge how far the
advance of moral forces has kept pace with that extension of material forces in
the world of which this continent, conspicuous before all others, bears such
astounding evidence. This, of course, is the question of questions, because as
an illustrious English writer—to whom, by the way, I owe my friendship with your
founder many long years ago—as Matthew Arnold said in America here, it is moral
ideas that at bottom decide the standing or falling of states and nations.
Without opening this vast discussion at large, many a sign of progress is beyond
mistake. The practise of associated action—one of the master keys of progress—is
a new force in a hundred fields, and with immeasurable diversity of forms. There
is less acquiescence in triumphant wrong. Toleration in religion has been called
the best fruit of the last four centuries, and in spite of a few bigoted
survivals, even in our United Kingdom, and some savage outbreaks of hatred, half
religious, half racial, on the Continent of Europe, this glorious gain of time
may now be taken as secured. Perhaps of all the contributions of America to
human civilization this is greatest. The reign of force is not yet over, and at
intervals it has its triumphant hours, but reason, justice, humanity fight with
success their long and steady battle for a wider sway.
Of all the points of social advance, in my country at least, during the last
generation none is more marked than the change in the position of women, in
respect of rights of property, of education, of access to new callings. As for
the improvement of material well-being, and its diffusion among those whose
labor is a prime factor in its creation, we might grow sated with the jubilant
monotony of its figures, if we did not take good care to remember, in the
excellent words of the President of Harvard, that those gains, like the
prosperous working of your institutions and the principles by which they are
sustained, are in essence moral contributions, "being principles of reason,
enterprise, courage, faith, and justice, over passion, selfishness, inertness,
timidity, and distrust." It is the moral impulses that matter. Where they are
safe, all is safe.
When this and the like is said, nobody supposes that the last word has been
spoken as to the condition of the people either in America or Europe.
Republicanism is not itself a panacea for economic difficulties. Of self it can
neither stifle nor appease the accents of social discontent. So long as it has
no root in surveyed envy, this discontent itself is a token of progress.
What, cries the skeptic, what has become of all the hopes of the time when
France stood upon the top of golden hours? Do not let us fear the challenge.
Much has come of them. And over the old hopes time has brought a stratum of new.
Liberalism is sometimes suspected of being cold to these new hopes, and you may
often hear it said that Liberalism is already superseded by Socialism. That a
change is passing over party names in Europe is plain, but you may be sure that
no change in name will extinguish these principles of society which are rooted
in the nature of things, and are accredited by their success. Twice America has
saved liberalism in Great Britain. The War for Independence in the eighteenth
century was the defeat of usurping power no less in England than here. The War
for Union in the nineteenth century gave the decisive impulse to a critical
extension of suffrage, and an era of popular reform in the mother country. Any
miscarriage of democracy here reacts against progress in Great Britain.
If you seek the real meaning of most modern disparagement of popular or
parliamentary government, it is no more than this, that no politics will suffice
of themselves to make a nation's soul. What could be more true? Who says it
will? But we may depend upon it that the soul will be best kept alive in a
nation where there is the highest proportion of those who, in the phrase of an
old worthy of the seventeenth century, think it a part of a man's religion to
see to it that his country be well governed.
Democracy, they tell us, is afflicted by mediocrity and by sterility. But has
not democracy in my country, as in yours, shown before now that it well knows
how to choose rulers neither mediocre nor sterile; men more than the equals in
unselfishness, in rectitude, in clear sight, in force, of any absolutist
statesman, that ever in times past bore the scepter? If I live a few months, or
it may be even a few weeks longer, I hope to have seen something of three
elections—one in Canada, one in the United Kingdom, and the other here. With us,
in respect of leadership, and apart from height of social prestige, the
personage corresponding to the president is, as you know, the prime minister.
Our general election this time, owing to personal accident of the passing hour,
may not determine quite exactly who shall be the prime minister, but it will
determine the party from which the prime minister shall be taken. On normal
occasions our election of a prime minister is as direct and personal as yours,
and in choosing a member of Parliament people were really for a whole generation
choosing whether Disraeli or Gladstone or Salisbury should be head of the
government.
The one central difference between your system and ours is that the American
president is in for a fixed time, whereas the British prime minister depends
upon the support of the House of Commons. If he loses that, his power may not
endure a twelvemonth; if on the other hand, he keeps it, he may hold office for
a dozen years. There are not many more interesting or important questions in
political discussion than the question whether our cabinet government or your
presidential system of government is the better. This is not the place to argue
it.
Between 1868 and now—a period of thirty-six years—we have had eight ministries.
This would give an average life of four and a half years. Of these eight
governments five lasted over five years. Broadly speaking, then, our executive
governments have lasted about the length of your fixed term. As for ministers
swept away by a gust of passion, I can only recall the overthrow of Lord
Palmerston in 1858 for being thought too subservient to France. For my own part,
I have always thought that by its free play, its comparative fluidity, its rapid
flexibility of adaptation, our cabinet system has most to say for itself.
Whether democracy will make for peace, we all have yet to see. So far democracy
has done little in Europe to protect us against the turbid whirlpools of a
military age. When the evils of rival states, antagonistic races, territorial
claims, and all the other formulas of international conflict are felt to be
unbearable and the curse becomes too great to be any longer borne, a school of
teachers will perhaps arise to pick up again the thread of the best writers and
wisest rulers on the eve of the revolution. Movement in this region of human
things has not all been progressive. If we survey the European courts from the
end of the Seven Years' War down to the French Revolution, we note the marked
growth of a distinctly international and pacific spirit. At no era in the
world's history can we find so many European statesmen after peace and the good
government of which peace is the best ally. That sentiment came to violent end
when Napoleon arose to scourge the world.
ROBERT TOOMBS
ON RESIGNING FROM THE SENATE, 1861
(Abridged)
The success of the Abolitionists and their allies, under the name of the
Republican party, has produced its logical results already. They have for long
years been sowing dragons' teeth and have finally got a crop of armed men. The
Union, sir, is dissolved. That is an accomplished fact in the path of this
discussion that men may as well heed. One of your confederates has already
wisely, bravely, boldly confronted public danger, and she is only ahead of many
of her sisters because of her greater facility for speedy action. The greater
majority of those sister States, under like circumstances, consider her cause as
their cause; and I charge you in their name to-day: "Touch not Saguntum."[37] It
is not only their cause, but it is a cause which receives the sympathy and will
receive the support of tens and hundreds of honest patriot men in the
nonslaveholding States, who have hitherto maintained constitutional rights, and
who respect their oaths, abide by compacts, and love justice.
And while this Congress, this Senate, and this House of Representatives are
debating the constitutionality and the expediency of seceding from the Union,
and while the perfidious authors of this mischief are showering down
denunciations upon a large portion of the patriotic men of this country, those
brave men are coolly and calmly voting what you call revolution—aye, sir, doing
better than that: arming to defend it. They appealed to the Constitution, they
appealed to justice, they appealed to fraternity, until the Constitution,
justice, and fraternity were no longer listened to in the legislative halls of
their country, and then, sir, they prepared for the arbitrament of the sword;
and now you see the glittering bayonet, and you hear the tramp of armed men from
your capitol to the Rio Grande. It is a sight that gladdens the eyes and cheers
the hearts of other millions ready to second them. Inasmuch, sir, as I have
labored earnestly, honestly, sincerely, with these men to avert this necessity
so long as I deemed it possible, and inasmuch as I heartily approve their
present conduct of resistance, I deem it my duty to state their case to the
Senate, to the country, and to the civilized world.
Senators, my countrymen have demanded no new government; they have demanded no
new Constitution. Look to their records at home and here from the beginning of
this national strife until its consummation in the disruption of the empire, and
they have not demanded a single thing except that you shall abide by the
Constitution of the United States; that constitutional rights shall be
respected, and that justice shall be done. Sirs, they have stood by your
Constitution; they have stood by all its requirements, they have performed all
its duties unselfishly, uncalculatingly, disinterestedly, until a party sprang
up in this country which endangered their social system—a party which they
arraign, and which they charge before the American people and all mankind with
having made proclamation of outlawry against four thousand millions of their
property in the Territories of the United States; with having put them under the
ban of the empire in all the States in which their institutions exist outside
the protection of federal laws; with having aided and abetted insurrection from
within and invasion from without with the view of subverting those institutions,
and desolating their homes and their firesides. For these causes they have taken
up arms.
I have stated that the discontented States of this Union have demanded nothing
but clear, distinct, unequivocal, well-acknowledged constitutional rights—rights
affirmed by the highest judicial tribunals of their country; rights older than
the Constitution; rights which are planted upon the immutable principles of
natural justice; rights which have been affirmed by the good and the wise of all
countries, and of all centuries. We demand no power to injure any man. We demand
no right to injure our confederate States. We demand no right to interfere with
their institutions, either by word or deed. We have no right to disturb their
peace, their tranquillity, their security. We have demanded of them simply,
solely—nothing else—to give us equality, security and tranquillity. Give us
these, and peace restores itself. Refuse them, and take what you can get.
What do the rebels demand? First, "that the people of the United States shall
have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the present or any future acquired
Territories, with whatever property they may possess (including slaves), and be
securely protected in its peaceable enjoyment until such Territory may be
admitted as a State into the Union, with or without slavery, as she may
determine, on an equality with all existing States." That is our Territorial
demand. We have fought for this Territory when blood was its price. We have paid
for it when gold was its price. We have not proposed to exclude you, tho you
have contributed very little of blood or money. I refer especially to New
England. We demand only to go into those Territories upon terms of equality with
you, as equals in this great Confederacy, to enjoy the common property of the
whole Union, and receive the protection of the common government, until the
Territory is capable of coming into the Union as a sovereign State, when it may
fix its own institutions to suit itself.
The second proposition is, "that property in slaves shall be entitled to the
same protection from the government of the United States, in all of its
departments, everywhere, which the Constitution confers the power upon it to
extend to any other property, provided nothing herein contained shall be
construed to limit or restrain the right now belonging to every State to
prohibit, abolish, or establish and protect slavery within its limits." We
demand of the common government to use its granted powers to protect our
property as well as yours. For this protection we pay as much as you do. This
very property is subject to taxation. It has been taxed by you and sold by you
for taxes.
The title to thousands and tens of thousands of slaves is derived from the
United States. We claim that the government, while the Constitution recognizes
our property for the purposes of taxation, shall give it the same protection
that it gives yours.
Ought it not to be so? You say no. Every one of you upon the committee said no.
Your senators say no. Your House of Representatives says no. Throughout the
length and breadth of your conspiracy against the Constitution there is but one
shout of no! This recognition of this right is the price of my allegiance.
Withhold it, and you do not get my obedience. This is the philosophy of the
armed men who have sprung up in this country. Do you ask me to support a
government that will tax my property: that will plunder me; that will demand my
blood, and will not protect me? I would rather see the population of my native
State laid six feet beneath her sod than they should support for one hour such a
government. Protection is the price of obedience everywhere, in all countries.
It is the only thing that makes government respectable. Deny it and you can not
have free subjects or citizens; you may have slaves.
We demand, in the next place, "that persons committing crimes against slave
property in one State, and fleeing to another, shall be delivered up in the same
manner as persons committing crimes against other property, and that the laws of
the State from which such persons flee shall be the test of criminality." That
is another one of the demands of an extremist and a rebel.
But the nonslaveholding States, treacherous to their oaths and compacts, have
steadily refused, if the criminal only stole a negro and that negro was a slave,
to deliver him up. It was refused twice on the requisition of my own State as
long as twenty-two years ago. It was refused by Kent and by Fairfield, governors
of Maine, and representing, I believe, each of the then federal parties. We
appealed then to fraternity, but we submitted; and this constitutional right has
been practically a dead letter from that day to this. The next case came up
between us and the State of New York, when the present senior senator [Mr.
Seward] was the governor of that State; and he refused it. Why? He said it was
not against the laws of New York to steal a negro, and therefore he would not
comply with the demand. He made a similar refusal to Virginia. Yet these are our
confederates; these are our sister States! There is the bargain; there is the
compact. You have sworn to it. Both these governors swore to it. The senator
from New York swore to it. The governor of Ohio swore to it when he was
inaugurated. You can not bind them by oaths. Yet they talk to us of treason; and
I suppose they expect to whip freemen into loving such brethren! They will have
a good time in doing it!
It is natural we should want this provision of the Constitution carried out. The
Constitution says slaves are property; the Supreme Court says so; the
Constitution says so. The theft of slaves is a crime; they are a subject-matter
of felonious asportation. By the text and letter of the Constitution you agreed
to give them up. You have sworn to do it, and you have broken your oaths. Of
course, those who have done so look out for pretexts. Nobody expected them to do
otherwise. I do not think I ever saw a perjurer, however bald and naked, who
could not invent some pretext to palliate his crime, or who could not, for
fifteen shillings, hire an Old Bailey lawyer to invent some for him. Yet this
requirement of the Constitution is another one of the extreme demands of an
extremist and a rebel.
The next stipulation is that fugitive slaves shall be surrendered under the
provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, without being entitled either to a
writ of habeas corpus, or trial by jury, or other similar obstructions of
legislation, in the State to which he may flee. Here is the Constitution:
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein,
be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of
the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This language is plain, and everybody understood it the same way for the first
forty years of your government. In 1793, in Washington's time, an act was passed
to carry out this provision. It was adopted unanimously in the Senate of the
United States, and nearly so in the House of Representatives. Nobody then had
invented pretexts to show that the Constitution did not mean a negro slave. It
was clear; it was plain. Not only the federal courts, but all the local courts
in all the States, decided that this was a constitutional obligation. How is it
now? The North sought to evade it; following the instincts of their natural
character, they commenced with the fraudulent fiction that fugitives were
entitled to habeas corpus, entitled to trial by jury in the State to which they
fled. They pretended to believe that our fugitive slaves were entitled to more
rights than their white citizens; perhaps they were right, they know one another
better than I do. You may charge a white man with treason, or felony, or other
crime, and you do not require any trial by jury before he is given up; there is
nothing to determine but that he is legally charged with a crime and that he
fled, and then he is to be delivered up upon demand. White people are delivered
up every day in this way; but not slaves. Slaves, black people, you say, are
entitled to trial by jury; and in this way schemes have been invented to defeat
your plain constitutional obligations.
Senators, the Constitution is a compact. It contains all our obligations and the
duties of the federal government. I am content and have ever been content to
sustain it. While I doubt its perfection, while I do not believe it was a good
compact, and while I never saw the day that I would have voted for it as a
proposition de novo, yet I am bound to it by oath and by that common prudence
which would induce men to abide by established forms rather than to rush into
unknown dangers. I have given to it, and intend to give to it, unfaltering
support and allegiance, but I choose to put that allegiance on the true ground,
not on the false idea that anybody's blood was shed for it. I say that the
Constitution is the whole compact. All the obligations, all the chains that
fetter the limbs of my people, are nominated in the bond, and they wisely
excluded any conclusion against them, by declaring that "the powers not granted
by the Constitution to the United States, or forbidden by it to the States,
belonged to the States respectively or the people."
Now I will try it by that standard; I will subject it to that test. The law of
nature, the law of justice, would say—and it is so expounded by the
publicists—that equal rights in the common property shall be enjoyed. Even in a
monarchy the king can not prevent the subjects from enjoying equality in the
disposition of the public property. Even in a despotic government this principle
is recognized. It was the blood and the money of the whole people (says the
learned Grotius, and say all the publicists) which acquired the public property,
and therefore it is not the property of the sovereign. This right of equality
being, then, according to justice and natural equity, a right belonging to all
States, when did we give it up? You say Congress has a right to pass rules and
regulations concerning the Territory and other property of the United States.
Very well. Does that exclude those whose blood and money paid for it? Does
"dispose of" mean to rob the rightful owners? You must show a better title than
that, or a better sword than we have.
What, then, will you take? You will take nothing but your own judgment; that is,
you will not only judge for yourselves, not only discard the court, discard our
construction, discard the practise of the government, but you will drive us out,
simply because you will it. Come and do it! You have sapped the foundations of
society; you have destroyed almost all hope of peace. In a compact where there
is no common arbiter, where the parties finally decide for themselves, the sword
alone at last becomes the real, if not the constitutional, arbiter. Your party
says that you will not take the decision of the Supreme Court. You said so at
Chicago; you said so in committee; every man of you in both Houses says so. What
are you going to do? You say we shall submit to your construction. We shall do
it, if you can make us; but not otherwise, or in any other manner. That is
settled. You may call it secession, or you may call it revolution; but there is
a big fact standing before you, ready to oppose you—that fact is, freemen with
arms in their hands.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
INAUGURAL ADDRESS
(1905)
MY FELLOW CITIZENS:—No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours,
and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength,
but with gratitude to the Giver of Good, Who has blessed us with the conditions
which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and happiness.
To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our national
life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to
pay few of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of
a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence
against any alien race; and yet our life has called for the vigor and effort
without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away.
Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed, and the success
which we have had in the past, the success which we confidently believe the
future will bring, should cause in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep
and abiding realization of all that life has offered us; a full acknowledgment
of the responsibility which is ours; and a fixed determination to show that
under a free government a mighty people can thrive best, alike as regard the
things of the body and the things of the soul.
Much has been given to us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have
duties to others and duties to ourselves—and we can shirk neither. We have
become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relation to the
other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such
responsibilities.
Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial
and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words but in our deeds that
we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a
spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights.
But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when
shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from
wronging others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves.
We wish peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We
wish it because we think it is right, and not because we are afraid. No weak
nation that acts rightly and justly should ever have cause to fear, and no
strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent
aggression.
Our relations with the other powers of the world are important; but still more
important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in
population, and in power, as a nation has seen during a century and a quarter of
its national life, is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in the problems
which are ever before every nation that rises to greatness. Power invariably
means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which
we have outgrown. We now face other perils the very existence of which it was
impossible that they should foresee.
Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by
the extraordinary industrial development of the half century are felt in every
fiber of our social and political being. Never before have men tried so vast and
formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a continent
under the forms of a democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our
marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our
energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, also have brought the care and
anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial centers.
Upon the success of our experiment much depends—not only as regards our own
welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free
self-government throughout the world will rock to its foundations, and therefore
our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to
the generations yet unborn.
There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason
why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of
the problems before us, nor fearing to approach these problems with the
unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.
Yet after all, tho the problems are new, tho the tasks set before us differ from
the tasks set before our fathers, who founded and preserved this Republic, the
spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our
duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that
self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of
character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the
freely expressed will of the free men who compose it.
But we have faith that we shall not prove false to memories of the men of the
mighty past. They did their work; they left us the splendid heritage we now
enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave
this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children's children.
To do so, we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs
of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and
endurance, and, above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made
great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington; which made
great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.
ON AMERICAN MOTHERHOOD[38]
(1905)
In our modern industrial civilization there are many and grave dangers to
counterbalance the splendors and the triumphs. It is not a good thing to see
cities grow at disproportionate speed relatively to the country; for the small
land owners, the men who own their little homes, and therefore to a very large
extent the men who till farms, the men of the soil, have hitherto made the
foundation of lasting national life in every State; and, if the foundation
becomes either too weak or too narrow, the superstructure, no matter how
attractive, is in imminent danger of falling.
But far more important than the question of the occupation of our citizens is
the question of how their family life is conducted. No matter what that
occupation may be, as long as there is a real home and as long as those who make
up that home do their duty to one another, to their neighbors and to the State,
it is of minor consequence whether the man's trade is plied in the country or in
the city, whether it calls for the work of the hands or for the work of the
head.
No piled-up wealth, no splendor of material growth, no brilliance of artistic
development, will permanently avail any people unless its home life is healthy,
unless the average man possesses honesty, courage, common sense, and decency,
unless he works hard and is willing at need to fight hard; and unless the
average woman is a good wife, a good mother, able and willing to perform the
first and greatest duty of womanhood, able and willing to bear, and to bring up
as they should be brought up, healthy children, sound in body, mind, and
character, and numerous enough so that the race shall increase and not decrease.
There are certain old truths which will be true as long as this world endures,
and which no amount of progress can alter. One of these is the truth that the
primary duty of the husband is to be the home-maker, the breadwinner for his
wife and children, and that the primary duty of the woman is to be the helpmate,
the housewife, and mother. The woman should have ample educational advantages;
but save in exceptional cases the man must be, and she need not be, and
generally ought not to be, trained for a lifelong career as the family
breadwinner; and, therefore, after a certain point, the training of the two must
normally be different because the duties of the two are normally different. This
does not mean inequality of function, but it does mean that normally there must
be dissimilarity of function. On the whole, I think the duty of the woman the
more important, the more difficult, and the more honorable of the two; on the
whole I respect the woman who does her duty even more than I respect the man who
does his.
No ordinary work done by a man is either as hard or as responsible as the work
of a woman who is bringing up a family of small children; for upon her time and
strength demands are made not only every hour of the day but often every hour of
the night. She may have to get up night after night to take care of a sick
child, and yet must by day continue to do all her household duties as well; and
if the family means are scant she must usually enjoy even her rare holidays
taking her whole brood of children with her. The birth pangs make all men the
debtors of all women. Above all our sympathy and regard are due to the
struggling wives among those whom Abraham Lincoln called the plain people, and
whom he so loved and trusted; for the lives of these women are often led on the
lonely heights of quiet, self-sacrificing heroism.
Just as the happiest and most honorable and most useful task that can be set any
man is to earn enough for the support of his wife and family, for the bringing
up and starting in life of his children, so the most important, the most
honorable and desirable task which can be set any woman is to be a good and wise
mother in a home marked by self-respect and mutual forbearance, by willingness
to perform duty, and by refusal to sink into self-indulgence or avoid that which
entails effort and self-sacrifice. Of course there are exceptional men and
exceptional women who can do and ought to do much more than this, who can lead
and ought to lead great careers of outside usefulness in addition to—not as
substitutes for—their home work; but I am not speaking of exceptions; I am
speaking of the primary duties, I am speaking of the average citizens, the
average men and women who make up the nation.
Inasmuch as I am speaking to an assemblage of mothers, I shall have nothing
whatever to say in praise of an easy life. Yours is the work which is never
ended. No mother has an easy time, the most mothers have very hard times; and
yet what true mother would barter her experience of joy and sorrow in exchange
for a life of cold selfishness, which insists upon perpetual amusement and the
avoidance of care, and which often finds its fit dwelling place in some flat
designed to furnish with the least possible expenditure of effort the maximum of
comfort and of luxury, but in which there is literally no place for children?
The woman who is a good wife, a good mother, is entitled to our respect as is no
one else; but she is entitled to it only because, and so long as, she is worthy
of it. Effort and self-sacrifice are the law of worthy life for the man as for
the woman; tho neither the effort nor the self-sacrifice may be the same for the
one as for the other. I do not in the least believe in the patient Griselda type
of woman, in the woman who submits to gross and long continued ill treatment,
any more than I believe in a man who tamely submits to wrongful aggression. No
wrong-doing is so abhorrent as wrong-doing by a man toward the wife and the
children who should arouse every tender feeling in his nature. Selfishness
toward them, lack of tenderness toward them, lack of consideration for them,
above all, brutality in any form toward them, should arouse the heartiest scorn
and indignation in every upright soul.
I believe in the woman keeping her self-respect just as I believe in the man
doing so. I believe in her rights just as much as I believe in the man's, and
indeed a little more; and I regard marriage as a partnership, in which each
partner is in honor bound to think of the rights of the other as well as of his
or her own. But I think that the duties are even more important than the rights;
and in the long run I think that the reward is ampler and greater for duty well
done, than for the insistence upon individual rights, necessary tho this, too,
must often be. Your duty is hard, your responsibility great; but greatest of all
is your reward. I do not pity you in the least. On the contrary, I feel respect
and admiration for you.
Into the woman's keeping is committed the destiny of the generations to come
after us. In bringing up your children you mothers must remember that while it
is essential to be loving and tender it is no less essential to be wise and
firm. Foolishness and affection must not be treated as interchangeable terms;
and besides training your sons and daughters in the softer and milder virtues,
you must seek to give them those stern and hardy qualities which in after life
they will surely need. Some children will go wrong in spite of the best
training; and some will go right even when their surroundings are most
unfortunate; nevertheless an immense amount depends upon the family training. If
you mothers through weakness bring up your sons to be selfish and to think only
of themselves, you will be responsible for much sadness among the women who are
to be their wives in the future. If you let your daughters grow up idle, perhaps
under the mistaken impression that as you yourselves have had to work hard they
shall know only enjoyment, you are preparing them to be useless to others and
burdens to themselves. Teach boys and girls alike that they are not to look
forward to lives spent in avoiding difficulties, but to lives spent in
overcoming difficulties. Teach them that work, for themselves and also for
others, is not curse but a blessing; seek to make them happy, to make them enjoy
life, but seek also to make them face life with the steadfast resolution to
wrest success from labor and adversity, and to do their whole duty before God
and to man. Surely she who can thus train her sons and her daughters is thrice
fortunate among women.
There are many good people who are denied the supreme blessing of children, and
for these we have the respect and sympathy always due to those who, from no
fault of their own, are denied any of the other great blessings of life. But the
man or woman who deliberately foregoes these blessings, whether from
viciousness, coldness, shallow-heartedness, self-indulgence, or mere failure to
appreciate aright the difference between the all-important and the
unimportant,—why, such a creature merits contempt as hearty as any visited upon
the soldier who runs away in battle, or upon the man who refuses to work for the
support of those dependent upon him, and who tho able-bodied is yet content to
eat in idleness the bread which others provide.
The existence of women of this type forms one of the most unpleasant and
unwholesome features of modern life. If any one is so dim of vision as to fail
to see what a thoroughly unlovely creature such a woman is I wish they would
read Judge Robert Grant's novel "Unleavened Bread," ponder seriously the
character of Selma, and think of the fate that would surely overcome any nation
which developed its average and typical woman along such lines. Unfortunately it
would be untrue to say that this type exists only in American novels. That it
also exists in American life is made unpleasantly evident by the statistics as
to the dwindling families in some localities. It is made evident in equally
sinister fashion by the census statistics as to divorce, which are fairly
appalling; for easy divorce is now as it ever has been, a bane to any nation, a
curse to society, a menace to the home, an incitement to married unhappiness and
to immorality, an evil thing for men and a still more hideous evil for women.
These unpleasant tendencies in our American life are made evident by articles
such as those which I actually read not long ago in a certain paper, where a
clergyman was quoted, seemingly with approval, as expressing the general
American attitude when he said that the ambition of any save a very rich man
should be to rear two children only, so as to give his children an opportunity
"to taste a few of the good things of life."
This man, whose profession and calling should have made him a moral teacher,
actually set before others the ideal, not of training children to do their duty,
not of sending them forth with stout hearts and ready minds to win triumphs for
themselves and their country, not of allowing them the opportunity, and giving
them the privilege of making their own place in the world, but, forsooth, of
keeping the number of children so limited that they might "taste a few good
things!" The way to give a child a fair chance in life is not to bring it up in
luxury, but to see that it has the kind of training that will give it strength
of character. Even apart from the vital question of national life, and regarding
only the individual interest of the children themselves, happiness in the true
sense is a hundredfold more apt to come to any given member of a healthy family
of healthy-minded children, well brought up, well educated, but taught that they
must shift for themselves, must win their own way, and by their own exertions
make their own positions of usefulness, than it is apt to come to those whose
parents themselves have acted on and have trained their children to act on, the
selfish and sordid theory that the whole end of life is to "taste a few good
things."
The intelligence of the remark is on a par with its morality; for the most
rudimentary mental process would have shown the speaker that if the average
family in which there are children contained but two children the nation as a
whole would decrease in population so rapidly that in two or three generations
it would very deservedly be on the point of extinction, so that the people who
had acted on this base and selfish doctrine would be giving place to others with
braver and more robust ideals. Nor would such a result be in any way
regrettable; for a race that practised such doctrine—that is, a race that
practised race suicide—would thereby conclusively show that it was unfit to
exist, and that it had better give place to people who had not forgotten the
primary laws of their being.
To sum up, then, the whole matter is simple enough. If either a race or an
individual prefers the pleasure of more effortless ease, of self-indulgence, to
the infinitely deeper, the infinitely higher pleasures that come to those who
know the toil and the weariness, but also the joy, of hard duty well done, why,
that race or that individual must inevitably in the end pay the penalty of
leading a life both vapid and ignoble. No man and no woman really worthy of the
name can care for the life spent solely or chiefly in the avoidance of risk and
trouble and labor. Save in exceptional cases the prizes worth having in life
must be paid for, and the life worth living must be a life of work for a worthy
end, and ordinarily of work more for others than for one's self.
The woman's task is not easy—no task worth doing is easy—but in doing it, and
when she has done it, there shall come to her the highest and holiest joy known
to mankind; and having done it, she shall have the reward prophesied in
Scripture; for her husband and her children, yes, and all people who realize
that her work lies at the foundation of all national happiness and greatness,
shall rise up and call her blessed.
ALTON B. PARKER
THE CALL TO DEMOCRATS
From a speech opening the National Democratic
Convention at Baltimore, Md., June, 1912.
It is not the wild and cruel methods of revolution and violence that are needed
to correct the abuses incident to our Government as to all things human. Neither
material nor moral progress lies that way. We have made our Government and our
complicated institutions by appeals to reason, seeking to educate all our people
that, day after day, year after year, century after century, they may see more
clearly, act more justly, become more and more attached to the fundamental ideas
that underlie our society. If we are to preserve undiminished the heritage
bequeathed us, and add to it those accretions without which society would
perish, we shall need all the powers that the school, the church, the court, the
deliberative assembly, and the quiet thought of our people can bring to bear.
We are called upon to do battle against the unfaithful guardians of our
Constitution and liberties and the hordes of ignorance which are pushing forward
only to the ruin of our social and governmental fabric.
Too long has the country endured the offenses of the leaders of a party which
once knew greatness. Too long have we been blind to the bacchanal of corruption.
Too long have we listlessly watched the assembling of the forces that threaten
our country and our firesides.
The time has come when the salvation of the country demands the restoration to
place and power of men of high ideals who will wage unceasing war against
corruption in politics, who will enforce the law against both rich and poor, and
who will treat guilt as personal and punish it accordingly.
What is our duty? To think alike as to men and measures? Impossible! Even for
our great party! There is not a reactionary among us. All Democrats are
Progressives. But it is inevitably human that we shall not all agree that in a
single highway is found the only road to progress, or each make the same man of
all our worthy candidates his first choice.
It is impossible, however, and it is our duty to put aside all selfishness, to
consent cheerfully that the majority shall speak for each of us, and to march
out of this convention shoulder to shoulder, intoning the praises of our chosen
leader—and that will be his due, whichever of the honorable and able men now
claiming our attention shall be chosen.
JOHN W. WESCOTT
NOMINATING WOODROW WILSON
At the National Democratic Convention, Baltimore,
Maryland, June, 1912.
The New Jersey delegation is commissioned to represent the great cause of
Democracy and to offer you as its militant and triumphant leader a scholar, not
a charlatan; a statesman, not a doctrinaire; a profound lawyer, not a splitter
of legal hairs; a political economist, not an egotistical theorist; a practical
politician, who constructs, modifies, restrains, without disturbance and
destruction; a resistless debater and consummate master of statement, not a mere
sophist; a humanitarian, not a defamer of characters and lives; a man whose mind
is at once cosmopolitan and composite of America; a gentleman of unpretentious
habits, with the fear of God in his heart and the love of mankind exhibited in
every act of his life; above all a public servant who has been tried to the
uttermost and never found wanting—matchless, unconquerable, the ultimate
Democrat, Woodrow Wilson.
New Jersey has reasons for her course. Let us not be deceived in our premises.
Campaigns of vilification, corruption and false pretence have lost their
usefulness. The evolution of national energy is towards a more intelligent
morality in politics and in all other relations. The situation admits of no
compromise. The temper and purpose of the American public will tolerate no other
view. The indifference of the American people to politics has disappeared. Any
platform and any candidate not conforming to this vast social and commercial
behest will go down to ignominious defeat at the polls.
Men are known by what they say and do. They are known by those who hate and
oppose them. Many years ago Woodrow Wilson said, "No man is great who thinks
himself so, and no man is good who does not try to secure the happiness and
comfort of others." This is the secret of his life. The deeds of this moral and
intellectual giant are known to all men. They accord, not with the shams and
false pretences of politics, but make national harmony with the millions of
patriots determined to correct the wrongs of plutocracy and reestablish the
maxims of American liberty in all their regnant beauty and practical
effectiveness. New Jersey loves Woodrow Wilson not for the enemies he has made.
New Jersey loves him for what he is. New Jersey argues that Woodrow Wilson is
the only candidate who can not only make Democratic success a certainty, but
secure the electoral vote of almost every State in the Union.
New Jersey will indorse his nomination by a majority of 100,000 of her liberated
citizens. We are not building for a day, or even a generation, but for all time.
New Jersey believes that there is an omniscience in national instinct. That
instinct centers in Woodrow Wilson. He has been in political life less than two
years. He has had no organization; only a practical ideal—the reestablishment of
equal opportunity. Not his deeds alone, not his immortal words alone, not his
personality alone, not his matchless powers alone, but all combined compel
national faith and confidence in him. Every crisis evolves its master. Time and
circumstance have evolved Woodrow Wilson. The North, the South, the East, and
the West unite in him. New Jersey appeals to this convention to give the nation
Woodrow Wilson, that he may open the gates of opportunity to every man, woman,
and child under our flag, by reforming abuses, and thereby teaching them, in his
matchless words, "to release their energies intelligently, that peace, justice
and prosperity may reign." New Jersey rejoices, through her freely chosen
representatives, to name for the presidency of the United States the Princeton
schoolmaster, Woodrow Wilson.
HENRY W. GRADY
THE RACE PROBLEM
Delivered at the annual banquet of the Boston Merchants'
Association, at Boston, Mass., December 12, 1889.
MR. PRESIDENT:—Bidden by your invitation to a discussion of the race
problem—forbidden by occasion to make a political speech—I appreciate, in trying
to reconcile orders with propriety, the perplexity of the little maid, who,
bidden to learn to swim, was yet adjured, "Now, go, my darling; hang your
clothes on a hickory limb, and don't go near the water."
The stoutest apostle of the Church, they say, is the missionary, and the
missionary, wherever he unfurls his flag, will never find himself in deeper need
of unction and address than I, bidden to-night to plant the standard of a
Southern Democrat in Boston's banquet hall, and to discuss the problem of the
races in the home of Phillips and of Sumner. But, Mr. President, if a purpose to
speak in perfect frankness and sincerity; if earnest understanding of the vast
interests involved; if a consecrating sense of what disaster may follow further
misunderstanding and estrangement; if these may be counted upon to steady
undisciplined speech and to strengthen an untried arm—then, sir, I shall find
the courage to proceed.
Happy am I that this mission has brought my feet at last to press New England's
historic soil and my eyes to the knowledge of her beauty and her thrift. Here
within touch of Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill—where Webster thundered and
Longfellow sang, Emerson thought and Channing preached—here, in the cradle of
American letters and almost of American liberty, I hasten to make the obeisance
that every American owes New England when first he stands uncovered in her
mighty presence. Strange apparition! This stern and unique figure—carved from
the ocean and the wilderness—its majesty kindling and growing amid the storms of
winter and of wars—until at last the gloom was broken, its beauty disclosed in
the sunshine, and the heroic workers rested at its base—while startled kings and
emperors gazed and marveled that from the rude touch of this handful cast on a
bleak and unknown shore should have come the embodied genius of human government
and the perfected model of human liberty! God bless the memory of those immortal
workers, and prosper the fortunes of their living sons—and perpetuate the
inspiration of their handiwork.
Two years ago, sir, I spoke some words in New York that caught the attention of
the North. As I stand here to reiterate, as I have done everywhere, every word I
then uttered—to declare that the sentiments I then avowed were universally
approved in the South—I realize that the confidence begotten by that speech is
largely responsible for my presence here to-night. I should dishonor myself if I
betrayed that confidence by uttering one insincere word, or by withholding one
essential element of the truth. Apropos of this last, let me confess, Mr.
President, before the praise of New England has died on my lips, that I believe
the best product of her present life is the procession of seventeen thousand
Vermont Democrats that for twenty-two years, undiminished by death, unrecruited
by birth or conversion, have marched over their rugged hills, cast their
Democratic ballots and gone back home to pray for their unregenerate neighbors,
and awake to read the record of twenty-six thousand Republican majority. May the
God of the helpless and the heroic help them, and may their sturdy tribe
increase.
Far to the South, Mr. President, separated from this section by a line—once
defined in irrepressible difference, once traced in fratricidal blood, and now,
thank God, but a vanishing shadow—lies the fairest and richest domain of this
earth. It is the home of a brave and hospitable people. There is centered all
that can please or prosper humankind. A perfect climate above a fertile soil
yields to the husbandman every product of the temperate zone. There, by night
the cotton whitens beneath the stars, and by day the wheat locks the sunshine in
its bearded sheaf. In the same field the clover steals the fragrance of the
wind, and tobacco catches the quick aroma of the rains. There are mountains
stored with exhaustless treasures; forests—vast and primeval; and rivers that,
tumbling or loitering, run wanton to the sea. Of the three essential items of
all industries—cotton, iron and wood—that region has easy control. In cotton, a
fixed monopoly—in iron, proven supremacy—in timber, the reserve supply of the
Republic. From this assured and permanent advantage, against which artificial
conditions cannot much longer prevail, has grown an amazing system of
industries. Not maintained by human contrivance of tariff or capital, afar off
from the fullest and cheapest source of supply, but resting in divine assurance,
within touch of field and mine and forest—not set amid costly farms from which
competition has driven the farmer in despair, but amid cheap and sunny lands,
rich with agriculture, to which neither season nor soil has set a limit—this
system of industries is mounting to a splendor that shall dazzle and illumine
the world. That, sir, is the picture and the promise of my home—a land better
and fairer than I have told you, and yet but fit setting in its material
excellence for the loyal and gentle quality of its citizenship. Against that,
sir, we have New England, recruiting the Republic from its sturdy loins, shaking
from its overcrowded hives new swarms of workers, and touching this land all
over with its energy and its courage. And yet—while in the Eldorado of which I
have told you but fifteen per cent of its lands are cultivated, its mines
scarcely touched, and its population so scant that, were it set equidistant, the
sound of the human voice could not be heard from Virginia to Texas—while on the
threshold of nearly every house in New England stands a son, seeking, with
troubled eyes, some new land in which to carry his modest patrimony, the strange
fact remains that in 1880 the South had fewer northern-born citizens than she
had in 1870—fewer in '70 than in '60. Why is this? Why is it, sir, though the
section line be now but a mist that the breath may dispel, fewer men of the
North have crossed it over to the South, than when it was crimson with the best
blood of the Republic, or even when the slaveholder stood guard every inch of
its way?
There can be but one answer. It is the very problem we are now to consider. The
key that opens that problem will unlock to the world the fairest half of this
Republic, and free the halted feet of thousands whose eyes are already kindling
with its beauty. Better than this, it will open the hearts of brothers for
thirty years estranged, and clasp in lasting comradeship a million hands now
withheld in doubt. Nothing, sir, but this problem and the suspicions it breeds,
hinders a clear understanding and a perfect union. Nothing else stands between
us and such love as bound Georgia and Massachusetts at Valley Forge and
Yorktown, chastened by the sacrifices of Manassas and Gettysburg, and illumined
with the coming of better work and a nobler destiny than was ever wrought with
the sword or sought at the cannon's mouth.
If this does not invite your patient hearing to-night—hear one thing more. My
people, your brothers in the South—brothers in blood, in destiny, in all that is
best in our past and future—are so beset with this problem that their very
existence depends on its right solution. Nor are they wholly to blame for its
presence. The slave-ships of the Republic sailed from your ports, the slaves
worked in our fields. You will not defend the traffic, nor I the institution.
But I do here declare that in its wise and humane administration in lifting the
slave to heights of which he had not dreamed in his savage home, and giving him
a happiness he has not yet found in freedom, our fathers left their sons a
saving and excellent heritage. In the storm of war this institution was lost. I
thank God as heartily as you do that human slavery is gone forever from American
soil. But the freedman remains. With him, a problem without precedent or
parallel. Note its appalling conditions. Two utterly dissimilar races on the
same soil—with equal political and civil rights—almost equal in numbers, but
terribly unequal in intelligence and responsibility—each pledged against
fusion—one for a century in servitude to the other, and freed at last by a
desolating war, the experiment sought by neither but approached by both with
doubt—these are the conditions. Under these, adverse at every point, we are
required to carry these two races in peace and honor to the end.
Never, sir, has such a task been given to mortal stewardship. Never before in
this Republic has the white race divided on the rights of an alien race. The red
man was cut down as a weed because he hindered the way of the American citizen.
The yellow man was shut out of this Republic because he is an alien, and
inferior. The red man was owner of the land—the yellow man was highly civilized
and assimilable—but they hindered both sections and are gone! But the black man,
affecting but one section, is clothed with every privilege of government and
pinned to the soil, and my people commanded to make good at any hazard, and at
any cost, his full and equal heirship of American privilege and prosperity. It
matters not that every other race has been routed or excluded without rhyme or
reason. It matters not that wherever the whites and the blacks have touched, in
any era or in any clime, there has been an irreconcilable violence. It matters
not that no two races, however similar, have lived anywhere, at any time, on the
same soil with equal rights in peace! In spite of these things we are commanded
to make good this change of American policy which has not perhaps changed
American prejudice—to make certain here what has elsewhere been impossible
between whites and blacks—and to reverse, under the very worst conditions, the
universal verdict of racial history. And driven, sir, to this superhuman task
with an impatience that brooks no delay—a rigor that accepts no excuse—and a
suspicion that discourages frankness and sincerity. We do not shrink from this
trial. It is so interwoven with our industrial fabric that we cannot disentangle
it if we would—so bound up in our honorable obligation to the world, that we
would not if we could. Can we solve it? The God who gave it into our hands, He
alone can know. But this the weakest and wisest of us do know: we cannot solve
it with less than your tolerant and patient sympathy—with less than the
knowledge that the blood that runs in your veins is our blood—and that, when we
have done our best, whether the issue be lost or won, we shall feel your strong
arms about us and hear the beating of your approving hearts!
The resolute, clear-headed, broad-minded men of the South—the men whose genius
made glorious every page of the first seventy years of American history—whose
courage and fortitude you tested in five years of the fiercest war—whose energy
has made bricks without straw and spread splendor amid the ashes of their
war-wasted homes—these men wear this problem in their hearts and brains, by day
and by night. They realize, as you cannot, what this problem means—what they owe
to this kindly and dependent race—the measure of their debt to the world in
whose despite they defended and maintained slavery. And though their feet are
hindered in its undergrowth, and their march cumbered with its burdens, they
have lost neither the patience from which comes clearness, nor the faith from
which comes courage. Nor, sir, when in passionate moments is disclosed to them
that vague and awful shadow, with its lurid abysses and its crimson stains, into
which I pray God they may never go, are they struck with more of apprehension
than is needed to complete their consecration!
Such is the temper of my people. But what of the problem itself? Mr. President,
we need not go one step further unless you concede right here that the people I
speak for are as honest, as sensible and as just as your people, seeking as
earnestly as you would in their place to rightly solve the problem that touches
them at every vital point. If you insist that they are ruffians, blindly
striving with bludgeon and shotgun to plunder and oppress a race, then I shall
sacrifice my self-respect and tax your patience in vain. But admit that they are
men of common sense and common honesty, wisely modifying an environment they
cannot wholly disregard—guiding and controlling as best they can the vicious and
irresponsible of either race—compensating error with frankness, and retrieving
in patience what they lost in passion—and conscious all the time that wrong
means ruin—admit this, and we may reach an understanding to-night.
The President of the United States, in his late message to Congress, discussing
the plea that the South should be left to solve this problem, asks: "Are they at
work upon it? What solution do they offer? When will the black man cast a free
ballot? When will he have the civil rights that are his?" I shall not here
protest against a partisanry that, for the first time in our history, in time of
peace, has stamped with the great seal of our government a stigma upon the
people of a great and loyal section; though I gratefully remember that the great
dead soldier, who held the helm of State for the eight stormiest years of
reconstruction, never found need for such a step; and though there is no
personal sacrifice I would not make to remove this cruel and unjust imputation
on my people from the archives of my country! But, sir, backed by a record, on
every page of which is progress, I venture to make earnest and respectful answer
to the questions that are asked. We give to the world this year a crop of
7,500,000 bales of cotton, worth $450,000,000, and its cash equivalent in grain,
grasses and fruit. This enormous crop could not have come from the hands of
sullen and discontented labor. It comes from peaceful fields, in which laughter
and gossip rise above the hum of industry, and contentment runs with the singing
plough. It is claimed that this ignorant labor is defrauded of its just hire, I
present the tax books of Georgia, which show that the negro twenty-five years
ago a slave, has in Georgia alone $10,000,000 of assessed property, worth twice
that much. Does not that record honor him and vindicate his neighbors?
What people, penniless, illiterate, has done so well? For every Afro-American
agitator, stirring the strife in which alone he prospers, I can show you a
thousand negroes, happy in their cabin homes, tilling their own land by day, and
at night taking from the lips of their children the helpful message their State
sends them from the schoolhouse door. And the schoolhouse itself bears
testimony. In Georgia we added last year $250,000 to the school fund, making a
total of more than $1,000,000—and this in the face of prejudice not yet
conquered—of the fact that the whites are assessed for $368,000,000, the blacks
for $10,000,000, and yet forty-nine per cent of the beneficiaries are black
children; and in the doubt of many wise men if education helps, or can help, our
problem. Charleston, with her taxable values cut half in two since 1860, pays
more in proportion for public schools than Boston. Although it is easier to give
much out of much than little out of little, the South, with one-seventh of the
taxable property of the country, with relatively larger debt, having received
only one-twelfth as much of public lands, and having back of its tax books none
of the $500,000,000 of bonds that enrich the North—and though it pays annually
$26,000,000 to your section as pensions—yet gives nearly one-sixth to the public
school fund. The South since 1865 has spent $122,000,000 in education, and this
year is pledged to $32,000,000 more for State and city schools, although the
blacks, paying one-thirtieth of the taxes, get nearly one-half of the fund. Go
into our fields and see whites and blacks working side by side. On our buildings
in the same squad. In our shops at the same forge. Often the blacks crowd the
whites from work, or lower wages by their greater need and simpler habits, and
yet are permitted, because we want to bar them from no avenue in which their
feet are fitted to tread. They could not there be elected orators of white
universities, as they have been here, but they do enter there a hundred useful
trades that are closed against them here. We hold it better and wiser to tend
the weeds in the garden than to water the exotic in the window.
In the South there are negro lawyers, teachers, editors, dentists, doctors,
preachers, multiplying with the increasing ability of their race to support
them. In villages and towns they have their military companies equipped from the
armories of the State, their churches and societies built and supported largely
by their neighbors. What is the testimony of the courts? In penal legislation we
have steadily reduced felonies to misdemeanors, and have led the world in
mitigating punishment for crime, that we might save, as far as possible, this
dependent race from its own weakness. In our penitentiary record sixty per cent
of the prosecutors are negroes, and in every court the negro criminal strikes
the colored juror, that white men may judge his case.
In the North, one negro in every 185 is in jail—in the South, only one in 446.
In the North the percentage of negro prisoners is six times as great as that of
native whites; in the South, only four times as great. If prejudice wrongs him
in Southern courts, the record shows it to be deeper in Northern courts. I
assert here, and a bar as intelligent and upright as the bar of Massachusetts
will solemnly indorse my assertion, that in the Southern courts, from highest to
lowest, pleading for life, liberty or property, the negro has distinct advantage
because he is a negro, apt to be overreached, oppressed—and that this advantage
reaches from the juror in making his verdict to the judge in measuring his
sentence.
Now, Mr. President, can it be seriously maintained that we are terrorizing the
people from whose willing hands comes every year $1,000,000,000 of farm crops?
Or have robbed a people who, twenty-five years from unrewarded slavery, have
amassed in one State $20,000,000 of property? Or that we intend to oppress the
people we are arming every day? Or deceive them, when we are educating them to
the utmost limit of our ability? Or outlaw them, when we work side by side with
them? Or re-enslave them under legal forms, when for their benefit we have even
imprudently narrowed the limit of felonies and mitigated the severity of law? My
fellow-countrymen, as you yourselves may sometimes have to appeal at the bar of
human judgment for justice and for right, give to my people to-night the fair
and unanswerable conclusion of these incontestable facts.
But it is claimed that under this fair seeming there is disorder and violence.
This I admit. And there will be until there is one ideal community on earth
after which we may pattern. But how widely is it misjudged! It is hard to
measure with exactness whatever touches the negro. His helplessness, his
isolation, his century of servitude,—these dispose us to emphasize and magnify
his wrongs. This disposition, inflamed by prejudice and partisanry, has led to
injustice and delusion. Lawless men may ravage a county in Iowa and it is
accepted as an incident—in the South, a drunken row is declared to be the fixed
habit of the community. Regulators may whip vagabonds in Indiana by platoons and
it scarcely arrests attention—a chance collision in the South among relatively
the same classes is gravely accepted as evidence that one race is destroying the
other. We might as well claim that the Union was ungrateful to the colored
soldier who followed its flag because a Grand Army post in Connecticut closed
its doors to a negro veteran as for you to give racial significance to every
incident in the South, or to accept exceptional grounds as the rule of our
society. I am not one of those who becloud American honor with the parade of the
outrages of either section, and belie American character by declaring them to be
significant and representative. I prefer to maintain that they are neither, and
stand for nothing but the passion and sin of our poor fallen humanity. If
society, like a machine, were no stronger than its weakest part, I should
despair of both sections. But, knowing that society, sentient and responsible in
every fiber, can mend and repair until the whole has the strength of the best, I
despair of neither. These gentlemen who come with me here, knit into Georgia's
busy life as they are, never saw, I dare assert, an outrage committed on a
negro! And if they did, no one of you would be swifter to prevent or punish. It
is through them, and the men and women who think with them—making nine-tenths of
every Southern community—that these two races have been carried thus far with
less of violence than would have been possible anywhere else on earth. And in
their fairness and courage and steadfastness—more than in all the laws that can
be passed, or all the bayonets that can be mustered—is the hope of our future.
When will the blacks cast a free ballot? When ignorance anywhere is not
dominated by the will of the intelligent; when the laborer anywhere casts a vote
unhindered by his boss; when the vote of the poor anywhere is not influenced by
the power of the rich; when the strong and the steadfast do not everywhere
control the suffrage of the weak and shiftless—then, and not till then, will the
ballot of the negro be free. The white people of the South are banded, Mr.
President, not in prejudice against the blacks—not in sectional estrangement—not
in the hope of political dominion—but in a deep and abiding necessity. Here is
this vast ignorant and purchasable vote—clannish, credulous, impulsive, and
passionate—tempting every art of the demagogue, but insensible to the appeal of
the stateman. Wrongly started, in that it was led into alienation from its
neighbor and taught to rely on the protection of an outside force, it cannot be
merged and lost in the two great parties through logical currents, for it lacks
political conviction and even that information on which conviction must be
based. It must remain a faction—strong enough in every community to control on
the slightest division of the whites. Under that division it becomes the prey of
the cunning and unscrupulous of both parties. Its credulity is imposed upon, its
patience inflamed, its cupidity tempted, its impulses misdirected—and even its
superstition made to play its part in a campaign in which every interest of
society is jeopardized and every approach to the ballot-box debauched. It is
against such campaigns as this—the folly and the bitterness and the danger of
which every Southern community has drunk deeply—that the white people of the
South are banded together. Just as you in Massachusetts would be banded if
300,000 men, not one in a hundred able to read his ballot—banded in race
instinct, holding against you the memory of a century of slavery, taught by your
late conquerors to distrust and oppose you, had already travestied legislation
from your State House, and in every species of folly or villainy had wasted your
substance and exhausted your credit.
But admitting the right of the whites to unite against this tremendous menace,
we are challenged with the smallness of our vote. This has long been flippantly
charged to be evidence and has now been solemnly and officially declared to be
proof of political turpitude and baseness on our part. Let us see. Virginia—a
state now under fierce assault for this alleged crime—cast in 1888 seventy-five
per cent of her vote; Massachusetts, the State in which I speak, sixty per cent
of her vote. Was it suppression in Virginia and natural causes in Massachusetts?
Last month Virginia cast sixty-nine per cent of her vote; and Massachusetts,
fighting in every district, cast only forty-nine per cent of hers. If Virginia
is condemned because thirty-one per cent of her vote was silent, how shall this
State escape, in which fifty-one per cent was dumb? Let us enlarge this
comparison. The sixteen Southern States in '88 cast sixty-seven per cent of
their total vote—the six New England States but sixty-three per cent of theirs.
By what fair rule shall the stigma be put upon one section while the other
escapes? A congressional election in New York last week, with the polling place
in touch of every voter, brought out only 6,000 votes of 28,000—and the lack of
opposition is assigned as the natural cause. In a district in my State, in which
an opposition speech has not been heard in ten years and the polling places are
miles apart—under the unfair reasoning of which my section has been a constant
victim—the small vote is charged to be proof of forcible suppression. In
Virginia an average majority of 12,000, unless hopeless division of the
minority, was raised to 42,000; in Iowa, in the same election, a majority of
32,000 was wiped out and an opposition majority of 8,000 was established. The
change of 40,000 votes in Iowa is accepted as political revolution—in Virginia
an increase of 30,000 on a safe majority is declared to be proof of political
fraud.
It is deplorable, sir, that in both sections a larger percentage of the vote is
not regularly cast, but more inexplicable that this should be so in New England
than in the South. What invites the negro to the ballot-box? He knows that of
all men it has promised him most and yielded him least. His first appeal to
suffrage was the promise of "forty acres and a mule;" his second, the threat
that Democratic success meant his re-enslavement. Both have been proved false in
his experience. He looked for a home, and he got the Freedman's Bank. He fought
under promise of the loaf, and in victory was denied the crumbs. Discouraged and
deceived, he has realized at last that his best friends are his neighbors with
whom his lot is cast, and whose prosperity is bound up in his—and that he has
gained nothing in politics to compensate the loss of their confidence and
sympathy, that is at last his best and enduring hope. And so, without leaders or
organization—and lacking the resolute heroism of my party friends in Vermont
that make their hopeless march over the hills a high and inspiring pilgrimage—he
shrewdly measures the occasional agitator, balances his little account with
politics, touches up his mule, and jogs down the furrow, letting the mad world
wag as it will!
The negro voter can never control in the South, and it would be well if
partisans at the North would understand this. I have seen the white people of a
State set about by black hosts until their fate seemed sealed. But, sir, some
brave men, banding them together, would rise as Elisha rose in beleaguered
Samaria, and, touching their eyes with faith, bid them look abroad to see the
very air "filled with the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof." If there
is any human force that cannot be withstood, it is the power of the banded
intelligence and responsibility of a free community. Against it, numbers and
corruption cannot prevail. It cannot be forbidden in the law, or divorced in
force. It is the inalienable right of every free community—the just and
righteous safeguard against an ignorant or corrupt suffrage. It is on this, sir,
that we rely in the South. Not the cowardly menace of mask or shotgun, but the
peaceful majesty of intelligence and responsibility, massed and unified for the
protection of its homes and the preservation of its liberty. That, sir, is our
reliance and our hope, and against it all the powers of earth shall not prevail.
It is just as certain that Virginia would come back to the unchallenged control
of her white race—that before the moral and material power of her people once
more unified, opposition would crumble until its last desperate leader was left
alone, vainly striving to rally his disordered hosts—as that night should fade
in the kindling glory of the sun. You may pass force bills, but they will not
avail. You may surrender your own liberties to federal election law; you may
submit, in fear of a necessity that does not exist, that the very form of this
government may be changed; you may invite federal interference with the New
England town meeting, that has been for a hundred years the guarantee of local
government in America; this old State—which holds in its charter the boast that
it "is a free and independent commonwealth"—may deliver its election machinery
into the hands of the government it helped to create—but never, sir, will a
single State of this Union, North or South, be delivered again to the control of
an ignorant and inferior race. We wrested our state governments from negro
supremacy when the Federal drumbeat rolled closer to the ballot-box, and Federal
bayonets hedged it deeper about than will ever again be permitted in this free
government. But, sir, though the cannon of this Republic thundered in every
voting district in the South, we still should find in the mercy of God the means
and the courage to prevent its reestablishment.
I regret, sir, that my section, hindered with this problem, stands in seeming
estrangement to the North. If, sir, any man will point out to me a path down
which the white people of the South, divided, may walk in peace and honor, I
will take that path, though I take it alone—for at its end, and nowhere else, I
fear, is to be found the full prosperity of my section and the full restoration
of this Union. But, sir, if the negro had not been enfranchised the South would
have been divided and the Republic united. His enfranchisement—against which I
enter no protest—holds the South united and compact. What solution, then, can we
offer for the problem? Time alone can disclose it to us. We simply report
progress, and ask your patience. If the problem be solved at all—and I firmly
believe it will, though nowhere else has it been—it will be solved by the people
most deeply bound in interest, most deeply pledged in honor to its solution. I
had rather see my people render back this question rightly solved than to see
them gather all the spoils over which faction has contended since Cataline
conspired and Cæsar fought. Meantime we treat the negro fairly, measuring to him
justice in the fulness the strong should give to the weak, and leading him in
the steadfast ways of citizenship, that he may no longer be the prey of the
unscrupulous and the sport of the thoughtless. We open to him every pursuit in
which he can prosper, and seek to broaden his training and capacity. We seek to
hold his confidence and friendship—and to pin him to the soil with ownership,
that he may catch in the fire of his own hearthstone that sense of
responsibility the shiftless can never know. And we gather him into that
alliance of intelligence and responsibility that, though it now runs close to
racial lines, welcomes the responsible and intelligent of any race. By this
course, confirmed in our judgment, and justified in the progress already made,
we hope to progress slowly but surely to the end.
The love we feel for that race, you cannot measure nor comprehend. As I attest
it here, the spirit of my old black mammy, from her home up there, looks down to
bless, and through the tumult of this night steals the sweet music of her
croonings as thirty years ago she held me in her black arms and led me smiling
to sleep. This scene vanishes as I speak, and I catch a vision of an old
Southern home with its lofty pillars and its white pigeons fluttering down
through the golden air. I see women with strained and anxious faces, and
children alert yet helpless. I see night come down with its dangers and its
apprehensions, and in a big homely room I feel on my tired head the touch of
loving hands—now worn and wrinkled, but fairer to me yet than the hands of
mortal woman, and stronger yet to lead me than the hands of mortal man—as they
lay a mother's blessing there, while at her knees—the truest altar I yet have
found—I thank God that she is safe in her sanctuary, because her slaves,
sentinel in the silent cabin, or guard at her chamber door, put a black man's
loyalty between her and danger.
I catch another vision. The crisis of battle—a soldier, struck, staggering,
fallen. I see a slave, scuffing through the smoke, winding his black arms about
the fallen form, reckless of hurtling death—bending his trusty face to catch the
words that tremble on the stricken lips, so wrestling meantime with agony that
he would lay down his life in his master's stead. I see him by the weary
bedside, ministering with uncomplaining patience, praying with all his humble
heart that God will lift his master up, until death comes in mercy and in honor
to still the soldier's agony and seal the soldier's life. I see him by the open
grave—mute, motionless, uncovered, suffering for the death of him who in life
fought against his freedom. I see him, when the mold is heaped and the great
drama of his life is closed, turn away and with downcast eyes and uncertain step
start out into new and strange fields, faltering, struggling, but moving on,
until his shambling figure is lost in the light of this better and brighter day.
And from the grave comes a voice, saying, "Follow him! put your arms about him
in his need, even as he put his about me. Be his friend as he was mine." And out
into this new world—strange to me as to him, dazzling, bewildering both—I
follow! And may God forget my people—when they forget these!
Whatever the future may hold for them, whether they plod along in the servitude
from which they have never been lifted since the Cyrenian was laid hold upon by
the Roman soldiers, and made to bear the cross of the fainting Christ—whether
they find homes again in Africa, and thus hasten the prophecy of the psalmist,
who said, "And suddenly Ethiopia shall hold out her hands unto God"—whether
forever dislocated and separate, they remain a weak people, beset by stronger,
and exist, as the Turk, who lives in the jealousy rather than in the conscience
of Europe—or whether in this miraculous Republic they break through the caste of
twenty centuries and, belying universal history, reach the full stature of
citizenship, and in peace maintain it—we shall give them uttermost justice and
abiding friendship. And whatever we do, into whatever seeming estrangement we
may be driven, nothing shall disturb the love we bear this Republic, or mitigate
our consecration to its service. I stand here, Mr. President, to profess no new
loyalty. When General Lee, whose heart was the temple of our hopes, and whose
arm was clothed with our strength, renewed his allegiance to this Government at
Appomattox, he spoke from a heart too great to be false, and he spoke for every
honest man from Maryland to Texas. From that day to this Hamilcar has nowhere in
the South sworn young Hannibal to hatred and vengeance, but everywhere to
loyalty and to love. Witness the veteran standing at the base of a Confederate
monument, above the graves of his comrades, his empty sleeve tossing in the
April wind, adjuring the young men about him to serve as earnest and loyal
citizens the Government against which their fathers fought. This message,
delivered from that sacred presence, has gone home to the hearts of my fellows!
And, sir, I declare here, if physical courage be always equal to human
aspiration, that they would die, sir, if need be, to restore this Republic their
fathers fought to dissolve.
Such, Mr. President, is this problem as we see it, such is the temper in which
we approach it, such the progress made. What do we ask of you? First, patience;
out of this alone can come perfect work. Second, confidence; in this alone can
you judge fairly. Third, sympathy; in this you can help us best. Fourth, give us
your sons as hostages. When you plant your capital in millions, send your sons
that they may know how true are our hearts and may help to swell the Caucasian
current until it can carry without danger this black infusion. Fifth, loyalty to
the Republic—for there is sectionalism in loyalty as in estrangement. This hour
little needs the loyalty that is loyal to one section and yet holds the other in
enduring suspicion and estrangement. Give us the broad and perfect loyalty that
loves and trusts Georgia alike with Massachusetts—that knows no South, no North,
no East, no West, but endears with equal and patriotic love every foot of our
soil, every State of our Union.
A mighty duty, sir, and a mighty inspiration impels every one of us to-night to
lose in patriotic consecration whatever estranges, whatever divides. We, sir,
are Americans—and we stand for human liberty! The uplifting force of the
American idea is under every throne on earth. France, Brazil—these are our
victories. To redeem the earth from kingcraft and oppression—this is our
mission! And we shall not fail. God has sown in our soil the seed of His
millennial harvest, and He will not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until
His full and perfect day has come. Our history, sir, has been a constant and
expanding miracle, from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, all the way—aye, even from
the hour when from the voiceless and traceless ocean a new world rose to the
sight of the inspired sailor. As we approach the fourth centennial of that
stupendous day—when the old world will come to marvel and to learn amid our
gathered treasures—let us resolve to crown the miracles of our past with the
spectacle of a Republic, compact, united, indissoluble in the bonds of
love—loving from the Lakes to the Gulf—the wounds of war healed in every heart
as on every hill, serene and resplendent at the summit of human achievement and
earthly glory, blazing out the path and making clear the way up which all the
nations of the earth must come in God's appointed time!
WILLIAM McKINLEY
LAST SPEECH
Delivered at the World's Fair, Buffalo, N.Y., on
September 5, 1901, the day before he was assassinated.
I am glad again to be in the city of Buffalo and exchange greetings with her
people, to whose generous hospitality I am not a stranger, and with whose good
will I have been repeatedly and signally honored. To-day I have additional
satisfaction in meeting and giving welcome to the foreign representatives
assembled here, whose presence and participation in this Exposition have
contributed in so marked a degree to its interest and success. To the
commissioners of the Dominion of Canada and the British Colonies, the French
Colonies, the Republics of Mexico and of Central and South America, and the
commissioners of Cuba and Porto Rico, who share with us in this undertaking, we
give the hand of fellowship and felicitate with them upon the triumphs of art,
science, education and manufacture which the old has bequeathed to the new
century.
Expositions are the timekeepers of progress. They record the world's
advancement. They stimulate the energy, enterprise and intellect of the people,
and quicken human genius. They go into the home. They broaden and brighten the
daily life of the people. They open mighty storehouses of information to the
student. Every exposition, great or small, has helped to some onward step.
Comparison of ideas is always educational and, as such, instructs the brain and
hand of man. Friendly rivalry follows, which is the spur to industrial
improvement, the inspiration to useful invention and to high endeavor in all
departments of human activity. It exacts a study of the wants, comforts, and
even the whims of the people, and recognizes the efficacy of high quality and
low prices to win their favor. The quest for trade is an incentive to men of
business to devise, invent, improve and economize in the cost of production.
Business life, whether among ourselves, or with other peoples, is ever a sharp
struggle for success. It will be none the less in the future.
Without competition we would be clinging to the clumsy and antiquated process of
farming and manufacture and the methods of business of long ago, and the
twentieth would be no further advanced than the eighteenth century. But tho
commercial competitors we are, commercial enemies we must not be. The
Pan-American Exposition has done its work thoroughly, presenting in its exhibits
evidences of the highest skill and illustrating the progress of the human family
in the Western Hemisphere. This portion of the earth has no cause for
humiliation for the part it has performed in the march of civilization. It has
not accomplished everything; far from it. It has simply done its best, and
without vanity or boastfulness, and recognizing the manifold achievements of
others it invites the friendly rivalry of all the powers in the peaceful
pursuits of trade and commerce, and will cooperate with all in advancing the
highest and best interests of humanity. The wisdom and energy of all the nations
are none too great for the world work. The success of art, science, industry and
invention is an international asset and a common glory.
After all, how near one to the other is every part of the world. Modern
inventions have brought into close relation widely separated peoples and make
them better acquainted. Geographic and political divisions will continue to
exist, but distances have been effaced. Swift ships and fast trains are becoming
cosmopolitan. They invade fields which a few years ago were impenetrable. The
world's products are exchanged as never before and with increasing
transportation facilities come increasing knowledge and larger trade. Prices are
fixed with mathematical precision by supply and demand. The world's selling
prices are regulated by market and crop reports. We travel greater distances in
a shorter space of time and with more ease than was ever dreamed of by the
fathers. Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. The same important news
is read, tho in different languages, the same day in all Christendom.
The telegraph keeps us advised of what is occurring everywhere, and the Press
foreshadows, with more or less accuracy, the plans and purposes of the nations.
Market prices of products and of securities are hourly known in every commercial
mart, and the investments of the people extend beyond their own national
boundaries into the remotest parts of the earth. Vast transactions are conducted
and international exchanges are made by the tick of the cable. Every event of
interest is immediately bulletined. The quick gathering and transmission of
news, like rapid transit, are of recent origin, and are only made possible by
the genius of the inventor and the courage of the investor. It took a special
messenger of the government, with every facility known at the time for rapid
travel, nineteen days to go from the City of Washington to New Orleans with a
message to General Jackson that the war with England had ceased and a treaty of
peace had been signed. How different now! We reached General Miles, in Porto
Rico, and he was able through the military telegraph to stop his army on the
firing line with the message that the United States and Spain had signed a
protocol suspending hostilities. We knew almost instanter of the first shots
fired at Santiago, and the subsequent surrender of the Spanish forces was known
at Washington within less than an hour of its consummation. The first ship of
Cervera's fleet had hardly emerged from that historic harbor when the fact was
flashed to our Capitol, and the swift destruction that followed was announced
immediately through the wonderful medium of telegraphy.
So accustomed are we to safe and easy communication with distant lands that its
temporary interruption, even in ordinary times, results in loss and
inconvenience. We shall never forget the days of anxious waiting and suspense
when no information was permitted to be sent from Pekin, and the diplomatic
representatives of the nations in China, cut off from all communication, inside
and outside of the walled capital, were surrounded by an angry and misguided mob
that threatened their lives; nor the joy that thrilled the world when a single
message from the government of the United States brought through our minister
the first news of the safety of the besieged diplomats.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was not a mile of steam
railroad on the globe; now there are enough miles to make its circuit many
times. Then there was not a line of electric telegraph; now we have a vast
mileage traversing all lands and seas. God and man have linked the nations
together. No nation can longer be indifferent to any other. And as we are
brought more and more in touch with each other, the less occasion is there for
misunderstandings, and the stronger the disposition, when we have differences,
to adjust them in the court of arbitration, which is the noblest forum for the
settlement of international disputes.
My fellow citizens, trade statistics indicate that this country is in a state of
unexampled prosperity. The figures are almost appalling. They show that we are
utilizing our fields and forests and mines, and that we are furnishing
profitable employment to the millions of workingmen throughout the United
States, bringing comfort and happiness to their homes, and making it possible to
lay by savings for old age and disability. That all the people are participating
in this great prosperity is seen in every American community and shown by the
enormous and unprecedented deposits in our savings banks. Our duty in the care
and security of these deposits and their safe investment demands the highest
integrity and the best business capacity of those in charge of these
depositories of the people's earnings.
We have a vast and intricate business, built up through years of toil and
struggle in which every part of the country has its stake, which will not permit
of either neglect or of undue selfishness. No narrow, sordid policy will
subserve it. The greatest skill and wisdom on the part of manufacturers and
producers will be required to hold and increase it. Our industrial enterprises,
which have grown to such great proportions, affect the homes and occupations of
the people and the welfare of the country. Our capacity to produce has developed
so enormously and our products have so multiplied that the problem of more
markets requires our urgent and immediate attention. Only a broad and
enlightened policy will keep what we have. No other policy will get more. In
these times of marvelous business energy and gain we ought to be looking to the
future, strengthening the weak places in our industrial and commercial systems,
that we may be ready for any storm or strain.
By sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our home production we
shall extend the outlets for our increasing surplus. A system which provides a
mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly essential to the continued and
healthful growth of our export trade. We must not repose in the fancied security
that we can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. If such a thing
were possible it would not be best for us or for those with whom we deal. We
should take from our customers such of their products as we can use without harm
to our industries and labor. Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our
wonderful industrial development under the domestic policy now firmly
established.
What we produce beyond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad. The
excess must be relieved through a foreign outlet, and we should sell everywhere
we can and buy wherever the buying will enlarge our sales and productions, and
thereby make a greater demand for home labor.
The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and commerce is
the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of good will
and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in
harmony with the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation are not. If,
perchance, some of our tariffs are no longer needed for revenue or to encourage
and protect our industries at home, why should they not be employed to extend
and promote our markets abroad? Then, too, we have inadequate steamship service.
New lines of steamships have already been put in commission between the Pacific
coast ports of the United States and those on the western coasts of Mexico and
Central and South America. These should be followed up with direct steamship
lines between the western coast of the United States and South American ports.
One of the needs of the times is direct commercial lines from our vast fields of
production to the fields of consumption that we have but barely touched. Next in
advantage to having the thing to sell is to have the conveyance to carry it to
the buyer. We must encourage our merchant marine. We must have more ships. They
must be under the American flag; built and manned and owned by Americans. These
will not only be profitable in a commercial sense; they will be messengers of
peace and amity wherever they go.
We must build the Isthmian canal, which will unite the two oceans and give a
straight line of water communication with the western coasts of Central and
South America and Mexico. The construction of a Pacific cable can not be longer
postponed. In the furtherance of these objects of national interest and concern
you are performing an important part. This Exposition would have touched the
heart of that American statesman whose mind was ever alert and thought ever
constant for a larger commerce and a truer fraternity of the republics of the
New World. His broad American spirit is felt and manifested here. He needs no
identification to an assemblage of Americans anywhere, for the name of Blaine is
inseparably associated with the Pan-American movement which finds here practical
and substantial expression, and which we all hope will be firmly advanced by the
Pan-American Congress that assembles this autumn in the capital of Mexico. The
good work will go on. It can not be stopped. Those buildings will disappear;
this creation of art and beauty and industry will perish from sight, but their
influence will remain to "make it live beyond its too short living with praises
and thanksgiving." Who can tell the new thoughts that have been awakened, the
ambitions fired and the high achievements that will be wrought through this
Exposition?
Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not conflict;
and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war. We
hope that all who are represented here may be moved to higher and nobler efforts
for their own and the world's good, and that out of this city may come not only
greater commerce and trade for us all, but, more essential than these, relations
of mutual respect, confidence and friendship which will deepen and endure. Our
earnest prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness and
peace to all our neighbors, and like blessings to all the peoples and powers of
earth.
JOHN HAY
TRIBUTE TO MCKINLEY
From his memorial address at a joint session of the Senate
and House of Representatives on February 27, 1903.
For the third time the Congress of the United States are assembled to
commemorate the life and the death of a president slain by the hand of an
assassin. The attention of the future historian will be attracted to the
features which reappear with startling sameness in all three of these awful
crimes: the uselessness, the utter lack of consequence of the act; the
obscurity, the insignificance of the criminal; the blamelessness—so far as in
our sphere of existence the best of men may be held blameless—of the victim. Not
one of our murdered presidents had an enemy in the world; they were all of such
preeminent purity of life that no pretext could be given for the attack of
passional crime; they were all men of democratic instincts, who could never have
offended the most jealous advocates of equity; they were of kindly and generous
nature, to whom wrong or injustice was impossible; of moderate fortune, whose
slender means nobody could envy. They were men of austere virtue, of tender
heart, of eminent abilities, which they had devoted with single minds to the
good of the Republic. If ever men walked before God and man without blame, it
was these three rulers of our people. The only temptation to attack their lives
offered was their gentle radiance—to eyes hating the light, that was offense
enough.
The stupid uselessness of such an infamy affronts the common sense of the world.
One can conceive how the death of a dictator may change the political conditions
of an empire; how the extinction of a narrowing line of kings may bring in an
alien dynasty. But in a well-ordered Republic like ours the ruler may fall, but
the State feels no tremor. Our beloved and revered leader is gone—but the
natural process of our laws provides us a successor, identical in purpose and
ideals, nourished by the same teachings, inspired by the same principles,
pledged by tender affection as well as by high loyalty to carry to completion
the immense task committed to his hands, and to smite with iron severity every
manifestation of that hideous crime which his mild predecessor, with his dying
breath, forgave. The sayings of celestial wisdom have no date; the words that
reach us, over two thousand years, out of the darkest hour of gloom the world
has ever known, are true to life to-day: "They know not what they do." The blow
struck at our dear friend and ruler was as deadly as blind hate could make it;
but the blow struck at anarchy was deadlier still.
How many countries can join with us in the community of a kindred sorrow! I will
not speak of those distant regions where assassination enters into the daily
life of government. But among the nations bound to us by the ties of familiar
intercourse—who can forget that wise and mild autocrat who had earned the proud
title of the liberator? that enlightened and magnanimous citizen whom France
still mourns? that brave and chivalrous king of Italy who only lived for his
people? and, saddest of all, that lovely and sorrowing empress, whose harmless
life could hardly have excited the animosity of a demon? Against that devilish
spirit nothing avails,—neither virtue nor patriotism, nor age nor youth, nor
conscience nor pity. We can not even say that education is a sufficient
safeguard against this baleful evil,—for most of the wretches whose crimes have
so shocked humanity in recent years were men not unlettered, who have gone from
the common schools, through murder to the scaffold.
The life of William McKinley was, from his birth to his death, typically
American. There is no environment, I should say, anywhere else in the world
which could produce just such a character. He was born into that way of life
which elsewhere is called the middle class, but which in this country is so
nearly universal as to make of other classes an almost negligible quantity. He
was neither rich nor poor, neither proud nor humble; he knew no hunger he was
not sure of satisfying, no luxury which could enervate mind or body. His parents
were sober, God-fearing people; intelligent and upright, without pretension and
without humility. He grew up in the company of boys like himself, wholesome,
honest, self-respecting. They looked down on nobody; they never felt it possible
they could be looked down upon. Their houses were the homes of probity, piety,
patriotism. They learned in the admirable school readers of fifty years ago the
lessons of heroic and splendid life which have come down from the past. They
read in their weekly newspapers the story of the world's progress, in which they
were eager to take part, and of the sins and wrongs of civilization with which
they burned to do battle. It was a serious and thoughtful time. The boys of that
day felt dimly, but deeply, that days of sharp struggle and high achievement
were before them. They looked at life with the wondering yet resolute eyes of a
young esquire in his vigil of arms. They felt a time was coming when to them
should be addressed the stern admonition of the Apostle, "Quit you like men; be
strong."
The men who are living to-day and were young in 1860 will never forget the glory
and glamour that filled the earth and the sky when the long twilight of doubt
and uncertainty was ending and the time for action had come. A speech by Abraham
Lincoln was an event not only of high moral significance, but of far-reaching
importance; the drilling of a militia company by Ellsworth attracted national
attention; the fluttering of the flag in the clear sky drew tears from the eyes
of young men. Patriotism, which had been a rhetorical expression, became a
passionate emotion, in which instinct, logic and feeling were fused. The country
was worth saving; it could be saved only by fire; no sacrifice was too great;
the young men of the country were ready for the sacrifice; come weal, come woe,
they were ready.
At seventeen years of age William McKinley heard this summons of his country. He
was the sort of youth to whom a military life in ordinary times would possess no
attractions. His nature was far different from that of the ordinary soldier. He
had other dreams of life, its prizes and pleasures, than that of marches and
battles. But to his mind there was no choice or question. The banner floating in
the morning breeze was the beckoning gesture of his country. The thrilling notes
of the trumpet called him—him and none other—into the ranks. His portrait in his
first uniform is familiar to you all—the short, stocky figure; the quiet,
thoughtful face; the deep, dark eyes. It is the face of a lad who could not stay
at home when he thought he was needed in the field. He was of the stuff of which
good soldiers are made. Had he been ten years older he would have entered at the
head of a company and come out at the head of a division. But he did what he
could. He enlisted as a private; he learned to obey. His serious, sensible ways,
his prompt, alert efficiency soon attracted the attention of his superiors. He
was so faithful in little things that they gave him more and more to do. He was
untiring in camp and on the march; swift, cool and fearless in fight. He left
the army with field rank when the war ended, brevetted by President Lincoln for
gallantry in battle.
In coming years when men seek to draw the moral of our great Civil War, nothing
will seem to them so admirable in all the history of our two magnificent armies
as the way in which the war came to a close. When the Confederate army saw the
time had come, they acknowledged the pitiless logic of facts and ceased
fighting. When the army of the Union saw it was no longer needed, without a
murmur or question, making no terms, asking no return, in the flush of victory
and fulness of might, it laid down its arms and melted back into the mass of
peaceful citizens. There is no event since the nation was born which has so
proved its solid capacity for self-government. Both sections share equally in
that crown of glory. They had held a debate of incomparable importance and had
fought it out with equal energy. A conclusion had been reached—and it is to the
everlasting honor of both sides that they each knew when the war was over and
the hour of a lasting peace had struck. We may admire the desperate daring of
others who prefer annihilation to compromise, but the palm of common sense, and,
I will say, of enlightened patriotism, belongs to the men like Grant and Lee,
who knew when they had fought enough for honor and for country.
So it came naturally about that in 1876—the beginning of the second century
of the Republic—he began, by an election to Congress, his political career.
Thereafter for fourteen years this chamber was his home. I use the word
advisedly. Nowhere in the world was he so in harmony with his environment as
here; nowhere else did his mind work with such full consciousness of its powers.
The air of debate was native to him; here he drank delight of battle with his
peers. In after days, when he drove by this stately pile, or when on rare
occasions his duty called him here, he greeted his old haunts with the
affectionate zest of a child of the house; during all the last ten years of his
life, filled as they were with activity and glory, he never ceased to be
homesick for this hall. When he came to the presidency, there was not a day when
his congressional service was not of use to him. Probably no other president has
been in such full and cordial communion with Congress, if we may except Lincoln
alone. McKinley knew the legislative body thoroughly, its composition, its
methods, its habit of thought. He had the profoundest respect for its authority
and an inflexible belief in the ultimate rectitude of its purposes. Our history
shows how surely an executive courts disaster and ruin by assuming an attitude
of hostility or distrust to the Legislature; and, on the other hand, McKinley's
frank and sincere trust and confidence in Congress were repaid by prompt and
loyal support and coöperation. During his entire term of office this mutual
trust and regard—so essential to the public welfare—was never shadowed by a
single cloud.
When he came to the presidency he confronted a situation of the utmost
difficulty, which might well have appalled a man of less serene and tranquil
self-confidence. There had been a state of profound commercial and industrial
depression from which his friends had said his election would relieve the
country. Our relations with the outside world left much to be desired. The
feeling between the Northern and Southern sections of the Union was lacking in
the cordiality which was necessary to the welfare of both. Hawaii had asked for
annexation and had been rejected by the preceding administration. There was a
state of things in the Caribbean which could not permanently endure. Our
neighbor's house was on fire, and there were grave doubts as to our rights and
duties in the premises. A man either weak or rash, either irresolute or
headstrong, might have brought ruin on himself and incalculable harm to the
country.
The least desirable form of glory to a man of his habitual mood and temper—that
of successful war—was nevertheless conferred upon him by uncontrollable events.
He felt it must come; he deplored its necessity; he strained almost to breaking
his relations with his friends, in order, first to prevent and then to postpone
it to the latest possible moment. But when the die was cast, he labored with the
utmost energy and ardor, and with an intelligence in military matters which
showed how much of the soldier still survived in the mature statesman, to push
forward the war to a decisive close. War was an anguish to him; he wanted it
short and conclusive. His merciful zeal communicated itself to his subordinates,
and the war, so long dreaded, whose consequences were so momentous, ended in a
hundred days.
Mr. McKinley was reelected by an overwhelming majority. There had been little
doubt of the result among well-informed people, but when it was known, a
profound feeling of relief and renewal of trust were evident among the leaders
of capital and industry, not only in this country, but everywhere. They felt
that the immediate future was secure, and that trade and commerce might safely
push forward in every field of effort and enterprise.
He felt that the harvest time was come, to garner in the fruits of so much
planting and culture, and he was determined that nothing he might do or say
should be liable to the reproach of a personal interest. Let us say frankly he
was a party man; he believed the policies advocated by him and his friends
counted for much in the country's progress and prosperity. He hoped in his
second term to accomplish substantial results in the development and affirmation
of those policies. I spent a day with him shortly before he started on his
fateful journey to Buffalo. Never had I seen him higher in hope and patriotic
confidence. He was gratified to the heart that we had arranged a treaty which
gave us a free hand in the Isthmus. In fancy he saw the canal already built and
the argosies of the world passing through it in peace and amity. He saw in the
immense evolution of American trade the fulfilment of all his dreams, the reward
of all his labors. He was, I need not say, an ardent protectionist, never more
sincere and devoted than during those last days of his life. He regarded
reciprocity as the bulwark of protection—not a breach, but a fulfilment of the
law. The treaties which for four years had been preparing under his personal
supervision he regarded as ancillary to the general scheme. He was opposed to
any revolutionary plan of change in the existing legislation; he was careful to
point out that everything he had done was in faithful compliance with the law
itself.
In that mood of high hope, of generous expectation, he went to Buffalo, and
there, on the threshold of eternity, he delivered that memorable speech, worthy
for its loftiness of tone, its blameless morality, its breadth of view, to be
regarded as his testament to the nation. Through all his pride of country and
his joy of its success runs the note of solemn warning, as in Kipling's noble
hymn, "Lest We Forget."
The next day sped the bolt of doom, and for a week after—in an agony of dread,
broken by illusive glimpses of hope that our prayers might be answered—the
nation waited for the end. Nothing in the glorious life we saw gradually waning
was more admirable and exemplary than its close. The gentle humanity of his
words when he saw his assailant in danger of summary vengeance, "Do not let them
hurt him;" his chivalrous care that the news should be broken gently to his
wife; the fine courtesy with which he apologized for the damage which his death
would bring to the great Exhibition; and the heroic resignation of his final
words, "It is God's way; His will, not ours, be done," were all the instinctive
expressions of a nature so lofty and so pure that pride in its nobility at once
softened and enhanced the nation's sense of loss. The Republic grieved over such
a son,—but is proud forever of having produced him. After all, in spite of its
tragic ending, his life was extraordinarily happy. He had, all his days, troops
of friends, the cheer of fame and fruitful labor; and he became at last,
"On fortune's crowning slope,
The pillar of a people's hope,
The center of a world's desire."
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
THE PRINCE OF PEACE[39]
(1894)
I offer no apology for speaking upon a religious theme, for it is the most
universal of all themes. I am interested in the science of government, but I am
interested more in religion than in government. I enjoy making a political
speech—I have made a good many and shall make more—but I would rather speak on
religion than on politics. I commenced speaking on the stump when I was only
twenty, but I commenced speaking in the church six years earlier—and I shall be
in the church even after I am put of politics. I feel sure of my ground when I
make a political speech, but I feel even more certain of my ground when I make a
religious speech. If I addrest you upon the subject of law I might interest the
lawyers; if I discust the science of medicine I might interest the physicians;
in like manner merchants might be interested in comments on commerce, and
farmers in matters pertaining to agriculture; but no one of these subjects
appeals to all. Even the science of government, tho broader than any profession
or occupation, does not embrace the whole sum of life, and those who think upon
it differ so among themselves that I could not speak upon the subject so as to
please a part of the audience without displeasing others. While to me the
science of government is intensely absorbing, I recognize that the most
important things in life lie outside of the realm of government and that more
depends upon what the individual does for himself than upon what the government
does or can do for him. Men can be miserable under the best government and they
can be happy under the worst government.
Government affects but a part of the life which we live here and does not deal
at all with the life beyond, while religion touches the infinite circle of
existence as well as the small arc of that circle which we spend on earth. No
greater theme, therefore, can engage our attention. If I discuss questions of
government I must secure the coöperation of a majority before I can put my ideas
into practise, but if, in speaking on religion, I can touch one human heart for
good, I have not spoken in vain no matter how large the majority may be against
me.
Man is a religious being; the heart instinctively seeks for a God. Whether he
worships on the banks of the Ganges, prays with his face upturned to the sun,
kneels toward Mecca or, regarding all space as a temple, communes with the
Heavenly Father according to the Christian creed, man is essentially devout.
There are honest doubters whose sincerity we recognize and respect, but
occasionally I find young men who think it smart to be skeptical; they talk as
if it were an evidence of larger intelligence to scoff at creeds and to refuse
to connect themselves with churches. They call themselves "Liberal," as if a
Christian were narrow minded. Some go so far as to assert that the "advanced
thought of the world" has discarded the idea that there is a God. To these young
men I desire to address myself.
Even some older people profess to regard religion as a superstition, pardonable
in the ignorant but unworthy of the educated. Those who hold this view look down
with mild contempt upon such as give to religion a definite place in their
thoughts and lives. They assume an intellectual superiority and often take
little pains to conceal the assumption. Tolstoy administers to the "cultured
crowd" (the words quoted are his) a severe rebuke when he declares that the
religious sentiment rests not upon a superstitious fear of the invisible forces
of nature, but upon man's consciousness of his finiteness amid an infinite
universe and of his sinfulness; and this consciousness, the great philosopher
adds, man can never outgrow. Tolstoy is right; man recognizes how limited are
his own powers and how vast is the universe, and he leans upon the arm that is
stronger than his. Man feels the weight of his sins and looks for One who is
sinless.
Religion has been defined by Tolstoy as the relation which man fixes between
himself and his God, and morality as the outward manifestation of this inward
relation. Every one, by the time he reaches maturity, has fixt some relation
between himself and God and no material change in this relation can take place
without a revolution in the man, for this relation is the most potent influence
that acts upon a human life.
Religion is the foundation of morality in the individual and in the group of
individuals. Materialists have attempted to build up a system of morality upon
the basis of enlightened self-interest. They would have man figure out by
mathematics that it pays him to abstain from wrong-doing; they would even inject
an element of selfishness into altruism, but the moral system elaborated by the
materialists has several defects. First, its virtues are borrowed from moral
systems based upon religion. All those who are intelligent enough to discuss a
system of morality are so saturated with the morals derived from systems resting
upon religion that they cannot frame a system resting upon reason alone. Second,
as it rests upon argument rather than upon authority, the young are not in a
position to accept or reject. Our laws do not permit a young man to dispose of
real estate until he is twenty-one. Why this restraint? Because his reason is
not mature; and yet a man's life is largely moulded by the environment of his
youth. Third, one never knows just how much of his decision is due to reason and
how much is due to passion or to selfish interest. Passion can dethrone the
reason—we recognize this in our criminal laws. We also recognize the bias of
self-interest when we exclude from the jury every man, no matter how reasonable
or upright he may be, who has a pecuniary interest in the result of the trial.
And, fourth, one whose morality rests upon a nice calculation of benefits to be
secured spends time figuring that he should spend in action. Those who keep a
book account of their good deeds seldom do enough good to justify keeping books.
A noble life cannot be built upon an arithmetic; it must be rather like the
spring that pours forth constantly of that which refreshes and invigorates.
Morality is the power of endurance in man; and a religion which teaches personal
responsibility to God gives strength to morality. There is a powerful
restraining influence in the belief that an all-seeing eye scrutinizes every
thought and word and act of the individual.
There is wide difference between the man who is trying to conform his life to a
standard of morality about him and the man who seeks to make his life
approximate to a divine standard. The former attempts to live up to the
standard, if it is above him, and down to it, if it is below him—and if he is
doing right only when others are looking he is sure to find a time when he
thinks he is unobserved, and then he takes a vacation and falls. One needs the
inner strength which comes with the conscious presence of a personal God. If
those who are thus fortified sometimes yield to temptation, how helpless and
hopeless must those be who rely upon their own strength alone!
There are difficulties to be encountered in religion, but there are difficulties
to be encountered everywhere. If Christians sometimes have doubts and fears,
unbelievers have more doubts and greater fears. I passed through a period of
skepticism when I was in college and I have been glad ever since that I became a
member of the church before I left home for college, for it helped me during
those trying days. And the college days cover the dangerous period in the young
man's life; he is just coming into possession of his powers, and feels stronger
than he ever feels afterward—and he thinks he knows more than he ever does know.
It was at this period that I became confused by the different theories of
creation. But I examined these theories and found that they all assumed
something to begin with. You can test this for yourselves. The nebular
hypothesis, for instance, assumes that matter and force existed—matter in
particles infinitely fine and each particle separated from every other particle
by space infinitely great. Beginning with this assumption, force working on
matter—according to this hypothesis—created a universe. Well, I have a right to
assume, and I prefer to assume, a Designer back of the design—a Creator back of
the creation; and no matter how long you draw out the process of creation, so
long as God stands back of it you cannot shake my faith in Jehovah. In Genesis
it is written that, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and
I can stand on that proposition until I find some theory of creation that goes
farther back than "the beginning." We must begin with something—we must start
somewhere—and the Christian begins with God.
I do not carry the doctrine of evolution as far as some do; I am not yet
convinced that man is a lineal descendant of the lower animals. I do not mean to
find fault with you if you want to accept the theory; all I mean to say is that
while you may trace your ancestry back to the monkey if you find pleasure or
pride in doing so, you shall not connect me with your family tree without more
evidence than has yet been produced. I object to the theory for several reasons.
First, it is a dangerous theory. If a man links himself in generations with the
monkey, it then becomes an important question whether he is going toward him or
coming from him—and I have seen them going in both directions. I do not know of
any argument that can be used to prove that man is an improved monkey that may
not be used just as well to prove that the monkey is a degenerate man, and the
latter theory is more plausible than the former.
It is true that man, in some physical characteristics resembles the beast, but
man has a mind as well as a body, and a soul as well as a mind. The mind is
greater than the body and the soul is greater than the mind, and I object to
having man's pedigree traced on one-third of him only—and that the lowest third.
Fairbairn, in his "Philosophy of Christianity," lays down a sound proposition
when he says that it is not sufficient to explain man as an animal; that it is
necessary to explain man in history—and the Darwinian theory does not do this.
The ape, according to this theory, is older than man and yet the ape is still an
ape while man is the author of the marvelous civilization which we see about us.
One does not escape from mystery, however, by accepting this theory, for it does
not explain the origin of life. When the follower of Darwin has traced the germ
of life back to the lowest form in which it appears—and to follow him one must
exercise more faith than religion calls for—he finds that scientists differ.
Those who reject the idea of creation are divided into two schools, some
believing that the first germ of life came from another planet and others
holding that it was the result of spontaneous generation. Each school answers
the arguments advanced by the other, and as they cannot agree with each other, I
am not compelled to agree with either.
If I were compelled to accept one of these theories I would prefer the first,
for if we can chase the germ of life off this planet and get it out into space
we can guess the rest of the way and no one can contradict us, but if we accept
the doctrine of spontaneous generation we cannot explain why spontaneous
generation ceased to act after the first germ was created.
Go back as far as we may, we cannot escape from the creative act, and it is just
as easy for me to believe that God created man as he is as to believe that,
millions of years ago, He created a germ of life and endowed it with power to
develop into all that we see to-day. I object to the Darwinian theory, until
more conclusive proof is produced, because I fear we shall lose the
consciousness of God's presence in our daily life, if we must accept the theory
that through all the ages no spiritual force has touched the life of man or
shaped the destiny of nations.
But there is another objection. The Darwinian theory represents man as reaching
his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate—the merciless law by
which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak. If this is the law of our
development then, if there is any logic that can bind the human mind, we shall
turn backward toward the beast in proportion as we substitute the law of love. I
prefer to believe that love rather than hatred is the law of development. How
can hatred be the law of development when nations have advanced in proportion as
they have departed from that law and adopted the law of love?
But, I repeat, while I do not accept the Darwinian theory I shall not quarrel
with you about it; I only refer to it to remind you that it does not solve the
mystery of life or explain human progress. I fear that some have accepted it in
the hope of escaping from the miracle, but why should the miracle frighten us?
And yet I am inclined to think that it is one of the test questions with the
Christian.
Christ cannot be separated from the miraculous; His birth, His ministrations,
and His resurrection, all involve the miraculous, and the change which His
religion works in the human heart is a continuing miracle. Eliminate the
miracles and Christ becomes merely a human being and His gospel is stript of
divine authority.
The miracle raises two questions: "Can God perform a miracle?" and, "Would He
want to?" The first is easy to answer. A God who can make a world can do
anything He wants to do with it. The power to perform miracles is necessarily
implied in the power to create. But would God want to perform a miracle?—this is
the question which has given most of the trouble. The more I have considered it
the less inclined I am to answer in the negative. To say that God would not
perform a miracle is to assume a more intimate knowledge of God's plans and
purposes than I can claim to have. I will not deny that God does perform a
miracle or may perform one merely because I do not know how or why He does it. I
find it so difficult to decide each day what God wants done now that I am not
presumptuous enough to attempt to declare what God might have wanted to do
thousands of years ago. The fact that we are constantly learning of the
existence of new forces suggests the possibility that God may operate through
forces yet unknown to us, and the mysteries with which we deal every day warn me
that faith is as necessary as sight. Who would have credited a century ago the
stories that are now told of the wonder-working electricity? For ages man had
known the lightning, but only to fear it; now, this invisible current is
generated by a man-made machine, imprisoned in a man-made wire and made to do
the bidding of man. We are even able to dispense with the wire and hurl words
through space, and the X-ray has enabled us to look through substances which
were supposed, until recently, to exclude all light. The miracle is not more
mysterious than many of the things with which man now deals—it is simply
different. The miraculous birth of Christ is not more mysterious than any other
conception—it is simply unlike it; nor is the resurrection of Christ more
mysterious than the myriad resurrections which mark each annual seed-time.
It is sometimes said that God could not suspend one of His laws without stopping
the universe, but do we not suspend or overcome the law of gravitation every
day? Every time we move a foot or lift a weight we temporarily overcome one of
the most universal of natural laws and yet the world is not disturbed.
Science has taught us so many things that we are tempted to conclude that we
know everything, but there is really a great unknown which is still unexplored
and that which we have learned ought to increase our reverence rather than our
egotism. Science has disclosed some of the machinery of the universe, but
science has not yet revealed to us the great secret—the secret of life. It is to
be found in every blade of grass, in every insect, in every bird and in every
animal, as well as in man. Six thousand years of recorded history and yet we
know no more about the secret of life than they knew in the beginning. We live,
we plan; we have our hopes, our fears; and yet in a moment a change may come
over anyone of us and this body will become a mass of lifeless clay. What is it
that, having, we live, and having not, we are as the clod? The progress of the
race and the civilization which we now behold are the work of men and women who
have not yet solved the mystery of their own lives.
And our food, must we understand it before we eat it? If we refused to eat
anything until we could understand the mystery of its growth, we would die of
starvation. But mystery does not bother us in the dining-room; it is only in the
church that it is a stumbling block.
I was eating a piece of watermelon some months ago and was struck with its
beauty. I took some of the seeds and dried them and weighed them, and found that
it would require some five thousand seeds to weigh a pound; and then I applied
mathematics to that forty-pound melon. One of these seeds, put into the ground,
when warmed by the sun and moistened by the rain, takes off its coat and goes to
work; it gathers from somewhere two hundred thousand times its own weight, and
forcing this raw material through a tiny stem, constructs a watermelon. It
ornaments the outside with a covering of green; inside the green it puts a layer
of white, and within the white a core of red, and all through the red it
scatters seeds, each one capable of continuing the work of reproduction. Where
does that little seed get its tremendous power? Where does it find its coloring
matter? How does it collect its flavoring extract? How does it build a
watermelon? Until you can explain a watermelon, do not be too sure that you can
set limits to the power of the Almighty and say just what He would do or how He
would do it. I cannot explain the watermelon, but I eat it and enjoy it.
The egg is the most universal of foods and its use dates from the beginning, but
what is more mysterious than an egg? When an egg is fresh it is an important
article of merchandise; a hen can destroy its market value in a week's time, but
in two weeks more she can bring forth from it what man could not find in it. We
eat eggs, but we cannot explain an egg.
Water has been used from the birth of man; we learned after it had been used for
ages that it is merely a mixture of gases, but it is far more important that we
have water to drink than that we know that it is not water.
Everything that grows tells a like story of infinite power. Why should I deny
that a divine hand fed a multitude with a few loaves and fishes when I see
hundreds of millions fed every year by a hand which converts the seeds scattered
over the field into an abundant harvest? We know that food can be multiplied in
a few months' time; shall we deny the power of the Creator to eliminate the
element of time, when we have gone so far in eliminating the element of space?
Who am I that I should attempt to measure the arm of the Almighty with my puny
arm, or to measure the brain of the Infinite with my finite mind? Who am I that
I should attempt to put metes and bounds to the power of the Creator?
But there is something even more wonderful still—the mysterious change that
takes place in the human heart when the man begins to hate the things he loved
and to love the things he hated—the marvelous transformation that takes place in
the man who, before the change, would have sacrificed a world for his own
advancement but who, after the change, would give his life for a principle and
esteem it a privilege to make sacrifice for his convictions! What greater
miracle than this, that converts a selfish, self-centered human being into a
center from which good influences flow out in every direction! And yet this
miracle has been wrought in the heart of each one of us—or may be wrought—and we
have seen it wrought in the hearts and lives of those about us. No, living a
life that is a mystery, and living in the midst of mystery and miracles, I shall
not allow either to deprive me of the benefits of the Christian religion. If you
ask me if I understand everything in the Bible, I answer, no, but if we will try
to live up to what we do understand, we will be kept so busy doing good that we
will not have time to worry about the passages which we do not understand.
Some of those who question the miracle also question the theory of atonement;
they assert that it does not accord with their idea of justice for one to die
for all. Let each one bear his own sins and the punishments due for them, they
say. The doctrine of vicarious suffering is not a new one; it is as old as the
race. That one should suffer for others is one of the most familiar of
principles and we see the principle illustrated every day of our lives. Take the
family, for instance; from the day the mother's first child is born, for twenty
or thirty years her children are scarcely out of her waking thoughts. Her life
trembles in the balance at each child's birth; she sacrifices for them, she
surrenders herself to them. Is it because she expects them to pay her back?
Fortunate for the parent and fortunate for the child if the latter has an
opportunity to repay in part the debt it owes. But no child can compensate a
parent for a parent's care. In the course of nature the debt is paid, not to the
parent, but to the next generation, and the next—each generation suffering,
sacrificing for and surrendering itself to the generation that follows. This is
the law of our lives.
Nor is this confined to the family. Every step in civilization has been made
possible by those who have been willing to sacrifice for posterity. Freedom of
speech, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience and free government have all
been won for the world by those who were willing to labor unselfishly for their
fellows. So well established is this doctrine that we do not regard anyone as
great unless he recognizes how unimportant his life is in comparison with the
problems with which he deals.
I find proof that man was made in the image of his Creator in the fact that,
throughout the centuries, man has been willing to die, if necessary, that
blessings denied to him might be enjoyed by his children, his children's
children and the world.
The seeming paradox: "He that saveth his life shall lose it and he that loseth
his life for my sake shall find it," has an application wider than that usually
given to it; it is an epitome of history. Those who live only for themselves
live little lives, but those who stand ready to give themselves for the
advancement of things greater than themselves find a larger life than the one
they would have surrendered. Wendell Phillips gave expression to the same idea
when he said, "What imprudent men the benefactors of the race have been. How
prudently most men sink into nameless graves, while now and then a few forget
themselves into immortality." We win immortality, not by remembering ourselves,
but by forgetting ourselves in devotion to things larger than ourselves.
Instead of being an unnatural plan, the plan of salvation is in perfect harmony
with human nature as we understand it. Sacrifice is the language of love, and
Christ, in suffering for the world, adopted the only means of reaching the
heart. This can be demonstrated not only by theory but by experience, for the
story of His life, His teachings, His sufferings and His death has been
translated into every language and everywhere it has touched the heart.
But if I were going to present an argument in favor of the divinity of Christ, I
would not begin with miracles or mystery or with the theory of atonement. I
would begin as Carnegie Simpson does in his book entitled, "The Fact of Christ."
Commencing with the undisputed fact that Christ lived, he points out that one
cannot contemplate this fact without feeling that in some way it is related to
those now living. He says that one can read of Alexander, of Cæsar or of
Napoleon, and not feel that it is a matter of personal concern; but that when
one reads that Christ lived, and how He lived and how He died, he feels that
somehow there is a cord that stretches from that life to his. As he studies the
character of Christ he becomes conscious of certain virtues which stand out in
bold relief—His purity, His forgiving spirit, and His unfathomable love. The
author is correct, Christ presents an example of purity in thought and life, and
man, conscious of his own imperfections and grieved over his shortcomings, finds
inspiration in the fact that He was tempted in all points like as we are, and
yet without sin. I am not sure but that each can find just here a way of
determining for himself whether he possesses the true spirit of a Christian. If
the sinlessness of Christ inspires within him an earnest desire to conform his
life more nearly to the perfect example, he is indeed a follower; if, on the
other hand, he resents the reproof which the purity of Christ offers, and
refuses to mend his ways, he has yet to be born again.
The most difficult of all the virtues to cultivate is the forgiving spirit.
Revenge seems to be natural with man; it is human to want to get even with an
enemy. It has even been popular to boast of vindictiveness; it was once
inscribed on a man's monument that he had repaid both friends and enemies more
than he had received. This was not the spirit of Christ. He taught forgiveness
and in that incomparable prayer which He left as model for our petitions, He
made our willingness to forgive the measure by which we may claim forgiveness.
He not only taught forgiveness but He exemplified His teachings in His life.
When those who persecuted Him brought Him to the most disgraceful of all deaths,
His spirit of forgiveness rose above His sufferings and He prayed, "Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do!"
But love is the foundation of Christ's creed. The world had known love before;
parents had loved their children, and children their parents; husbands had loved
their wives, and wives their husbands; and friend had loved friend; but Jesus
gave a new definition of love. His love was as wide as the sea; its limits were
so far-flung that even an enemy could not travel beyond its bounds. Other
teachers sought to regulate the lives of their followers by rule and formula,
but Christ's plan was to purify the heart and then to leave love to direct the
footsteps.
What conclusion is to be drawn from the life, the teachings and the death of
this historic figure? Reared in a carpenter shop; with no knowledge of
literature, save Bible literature; with no acquaintance with philosophers living
or with the writings of sages dead, when only about thirty years old He gathered
disciples about Him, promulgated a higher code of morals than the world had ever
known before, and proclaimed Himself the Messiah. He taught and performed
miracles for a few brief months and then was crucified; His disciples were
scattered and many of them put to death; His claims were disputed, His
resurrection denied and His followers persecuted; and yet from this beginning
His religion spread until hundreds of millions have taken His name with
reverence upon their lips and millions have been willing to die rather than
surrender the faith which He put into their hearts. How shall we account for
Him? Here is the greatest fact of history; here is One who has with increasing
power, for nineteen hundred years, moulded the hearts, the thoughts and the
lives of men, and He exerts more influence to-day than ever before. "What think
ye of Christ?" It is easier to believe Him divine than to explain in any other
way what he said and did and was. And I have greater faith, even than before,
since I have visited the Orient and witnessed the successful contest which
Christianity is waging against the religions and philosophies of the East.
I was thinking a few years ago of the Christmas which was then approaching and
of Him in whose honor the day is celebrated. I recalled the message, "Peace on
earth, good will to men," and then my thoughts ran back to the prophecy uttered
centuries before His birth, in which He was described as the Prince of Peace. To
reinforce my memory I re-read the prophecy and I found immediately following a
verse which I had forgotten—a verse which declares that of the increase of His
peace and government there shall be no end, And, Isaiah adds, that He shall
judge His people with justice and with judgment. I had been reading of the rise
and fall of nations, and occasionally I had met a gloomy philosopher who
preached the doctrine that nations, like individuals, must of necessity have
their birth, their infancy, their maturity and finally their decay and death.
But here I read of a government that is to be perpetual—a government of
increasing peace and blessedness—the government of the Prince of Peace—and it is
to rest on justice. I have thought of this prophecy many times during the last
few years, and I have selected this theme that I might present some of the
reasons which lead me to believe that Christ has fully earned the right to be
called The Prince of Peace—a title that will in the years to come be more and
more applied to Him. If he can bring peace to each individual heart, and if His
creed when applied will bring peace throughout the earth, who will deny His
right to be called the Prince of Peace?
All the world is in search of peace; every heart that ever beat has sought for
peace, and many have been the methods employed to secure it. Some have thought
to purchase it with riches and have labored to secure wealth, hoping to find
peace when they were able to go where they pleased and buy what they liked. Of
those who have endeavored to purchase peace with money, the large majority have
failed to secure the money. But what has been the experience of those who have
been eminently successful in finance? They all tell the same story, viz., that
they spent the first half of their lives trying to get money from others and the
last half trying to keep others from getting their money, and that they found
peace in neither half. Some have even reached the point where they find
difficulty in getting people to accept their money; and I know of no better
indication of the ethical awakening in this country than the increasing tendency
to scrutinize the methods of money-making. I am sanguine enough to believe that
the time will yet come when respectability will no longer be sold to great
criminals by helping them to spend their ill-gotten gains. A long step in
advance will have been taken when religious, educational and charitable
institutions refuse to condone conscienceless methods in business and leave the
possessor of illegitimate accumulations to learn how lonely life is when one
prefers money to morals.
Some have sought peace in social distinction, but whether they have been within
the charmed circle and fearful lest they might fall out, or outside, and hopeful
that they might get in, they have not found peace. Some have thought, vain
thought, to find peace in political prominence; but whether office comes by
birth, as in monarchies, or by election, as in republics, it does not bring
peace. An office is not considered a high one if all can occupy it. Only when
few in a generation can hope to enjoy an honor do we call it a great honor. I am
glad that our Heavenly Father did not make the peace of the human heart to
depend upon our ability to buy it with money, secure it in society, or win it at
the polls, for in either case but few could have obtained it, but when He made
peace the reward of a conscience void of offense toward God and man, He put it
within the reach of all. The poor can secure it as easily as the rich, the
social outcasts as freely as the leader of society, and the humblest citizen
equally with those who wield political power.
To those who have grown gray in the Church, I need not speak of the peace to be
found in faith in God and trust in an overruling Providence. Christ taught that
our lives are precious in the sight of God, and poets have taken up the thought
and woven it into immortal verse. No uninspired writer has exprest it more
beautifully than William Cullen Bryant in his Ode to a Waterfowl. After
following the wanderings of the bird of passage as it seeks first its southern
and then its northern home, he concludes:
Thou art gone; the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form, but on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
Christ promoted peace by giving us assurance that a line of communication can
be established between the Father above and the child below. And who will
measure the consolations of the hour of prayer?
And immortality! Who will estimate the peace which a belief in a future life
has brought to the sorrowing hearts of the sons of men? You may talk to the
young about death ending all, for life is full and hope is strong, but preach
not this doctrine to the mother who stands by the death-bed of her babe or to
one who is within the shadow of a great affliction. When I was a young man I
wrote to Colonel Ingersoll and asked him for his views on God and immortality.
His secretary answered that the great infidel was not at home, but enclosed a
copy of a speech of Col. Ingersoll's which covered my question. I scanned it
with eagerness and found that he had exprest himself about as follows: "I do not
say that there is no God, I simply say I do not know. I do not say that there is
no life beyond the grave, I simply say I do not know." And from that day to this
I have asked myself the question and have been unable to answer it to my own
satisfaction, how could anyone find pleasure in taking from a human heart a
living faith and substituting therefor the cold and cheerless doctrine, "I do
not know."
Christ gave us proof of immortality and it was a welcome assurance, altho it
would hardly seem necessary that one should rise from the dead to convince us
that the grave is not the end. To every created thing God has given a tongue
that proclaims a future life.
If the Father deigns to touch with divine power the cold and pulseless heart of
the buried acorn and to make it burst forth from its prison walls, will he leave
neglected in the earth the soul of man, made in the image of his Creator? If he
stoops to give to the rose bush, whose withered blossoms float upon the autumn
breeze, the sweet assurance of another springtime, will He refuse the words of
hope to the sons of men when the frosts of winter come? If matter, mute and
inanimate, tho changed by the forces of nature into a multitude of forms, can
never die, will the imperial spirit of man suffer annihilation when it has paid
a brief visit like a royal guest to this tenement of clay? No, I am sure that He
who, notwithstanding his apparent prodigality, created nothing without a
purpose, and wasted not a single atom in all his creation, has made provision
for a future life in which man's universal longing for immortality will find its
realization. I am as sure that we live again as I am sure that we live to-day.
In Cairo I secured a few grains of wheat that had slumbered for more than thirty
centuries in an Egyptian tomb. As I looked at them this thought came into my
mind: If one of those grains had been planted on the banks of the Nile the year
after it grew, and all its lineal descendants had been planted and replanted
from that time until now, its progeny would to-day be sufficiently numerous to
feed the teeming millions of the world. An unbroken chain of life connects the
earliest grains of wheat with the grains that we sow and reap. There is in the
grain of wheat an invisible something which has power to discard the body that
we see, and from earth and air fashion a new body so much like the old one that
we cannot tell the one from the other. If this invisible germ of life in the
grain of wheat can thus pass unimpaired through three thousand resurrections, I
shall not doubt that my soul has power to clothe itself with a body suited to
its new existence when this earthly frame has crumbled into dust.
A belief in immortality not only consoles the individual, but it exerts a
powerful influence in bringing peace between individuals. If one actually thinks
that man dies as the brute dies, he will yield more easily to the temptation to
do injustice to his neighbor when the circumstances are such as to promise
security from detection. But if one really expects to meet again, and live
eternally with, those whom he knows to-day, he is restrained from evil deeds by
the fear of endless remorse. We do not know what rewards are in store for us or
what punishments may be reserved, but if there were no other it would be some
punishment for one who deliberately and consciously wrongs another to have to
live forever in the company of the person wronged and have his littleness and
selfishness laid bare. I repeat, a belief in immortality must exert a powerful
influence in establishing justice between men and thus laying the foundation for
peace.
Again, Christ deserves to be called The Prince of Peace because He has given us
a measure of greatness which promotes peace. When His disciples quarreled among
themselves as to which should be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, He rebuked
them and said: "Let him who would be chiefest among you be the servant of all."
Service is the measure of greatness; it always has been true; it is true to-day,
and it always will be true, that he is greatest who does the most of good. And
how this old world will be transformed when this standard of greatness becomes
the standard of every life! Nearly all of our controversies and combats grow out
of the fact that we are trying to get something from each other—there will be
peace when our aim is to do something for each other. Our enmities and
animosities arise largely from our efforts to get as much as possible out of the
world—there will be peace when our endeavor is to put as much as possible into
the world. The human measure of a human life is its income; the divine measure
of a life is its outgo, its overflow—its contribution to the welfare of all.
Christ also led the way to peace by giving us a formula for the propagation of
truth. Not all of those who have really desired to do good have employed the
Christian method—not all Christians even. In the history of the human race but
two methods have been used. The first is the forcible method, and it has been
employed most frequently. A man has an idea which he thinks is good; he tells
his neighbors about it and they do not like it. This makes him angry; he thinks
it would be so much better for them if they would like it, and, seizing a club,
he attempts to make them like it. But one trouble about this rule is that it
works both ways; when a man starts out to compel his neighbors to think as he
does, he generally finds them willing to accept the challenge and they spend so
much time in trying to coerce each other that they have no time left to do each
other good.
The other is the Bible plan—"Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with
good." And there is no other way of overcoming evil. I am not much of a farmer—I
get more credit for my farming than I deserve, and my little farm receives more
advertising than it is entitled to. But I am farmer enough to know that if I cut
down weeds they will spring up again; and farmer enough to know that if I plant
something there which has more vitality than the weeds I shall not only get rid
of the constant cutting, but have the benefit of the crop besides.
In order that there might be no mistake in His plan of propagating the truth,
Christ went into detail and laid emphasis upon the value of example—"So live
that others seeing your good works may be constrained to glorify your Father
which is in Heaven." There is no human influence so potent for good as that
which goes out from an upright life. A sermon may be answered; the arguments
presented in a speech may be disputed, but no one can answer a Christian life—it
is the unanswerable argument in favor of our religion.
It may be a slow process—this conversion of the world by the silent influence of
a noble example—but it is the only sure one, and the doctrine applies to nations
as well as to individuals. The Gospel of the Prince of Peace gives us the only
hope that the world has—and it is an increasing hope—of the substitution of
reason for the arbitrament of force in the settlement of international disputes.
And our nation ought not to wait for other nations—it ought to take the lead and
prove its faith in the omnipotence of truth.
But Christ has given us a platform so fundamental that it can be applied
successfully to all controversies. We are interested in platforms; we attend
conventions, sometimes traveling long distances; we have wordy wars over the
phraseology of various planks, and then we wage earnest campaigns to secure the
endorsement of these platforms at the polls. The platform given to the world by
The Prince of Peace is more far-reaching and more comprehensive than any
platform ever written by the convention of any party in any country. When He
condensed into one commandment those of the ten which relate to man's duty
toward his fellows and enjoined upon us the rule, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself," He presented a plan for the solution of all the problems that now
vex society or may hereafter arise. Other remedies may palliate or postpone the
day of settlement, but this is all-sufficient and the reconciliation which it
effects is a permanent one.
My faith in the future—and I have faith—and my optimism—for I am an optimist—my
faith and my optimism rest upon the belief that Christ's teachings are being
more studied to-day than ever before, and that with this larger study will come
a larger application of those teachings to the everyday life of the world, and
to the questions with which we deal. In former times when men read that Christ
came "to bring life and immortality to light," they placed the emphasis upon
immortality; now they are studying Christ's relation to human life. People used
to read the Bible to find out what it said of Heaven; now they read it more to
find what light it throws upon the pathway of to-day. In former years many
thought to prepare themselves for future bliss by a life of seclusion here; we
are learning that to follow in the footsteps of the Master we must go about
doing good. Christ declared that He came that we might have life and have it
more abundantly. The world is learning that Christ came not to narrow life, but
to enlarge it—not to rob it of its joy, but to fill it to overflowing with
purpose, earnestness and happiness.
But this Prince of Peace promises not only peace but strength. Some have thought
His teachings fit only for the weak and the timid and unsuited to men of vigor,
energy and ambition. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Only the man of
faith can be courageous. Confident that he fights on the side of Jehovah, he
doubts not the success of his cause. What matters it whether he shares in the
shouts of triumph? If every word spoken in behalf of truth has its influence and
every deed done for the right weighs in the final account, it is immaterial to
the Christian whether his eyes behold victory or whether he dies in the midst of
the conflict.
"Yea, tho thou lie upon the dust,
When they who helped thee flee in fear,
Die full of hope and manly trust,
Like those who fell in battle here.
Another hand thy sword shall wield,
Another hand the standard wave,
Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed,
The blast of triumph o'er thy grave."
Only those who believe attempt the seemingly impossible, and, by attempting,
prove that one, with God, can chase a thousand and that two can put ten thousand
to flight. I can imagine that the early Christians who were carried into the
coliseum to make a spectacle for those more savage than the beasts, were
entreated by their doubting companions not to endanger their lives. But,
kneeling in the center of the arena, they prayed and sang until they were
devoured. How helpless they seemed, and, measured by every human rule, how
hopeless was their cause! And yet within a few decades the power which they
invoked proved mightier than the legions of the emperor and the faith in which
they died was triumphant o'er all the land. It is said that those who went to
mock at their sufferings returned asking themselves, "What is it that can enter
into the heart of man and make him die as these die?" They were greater
conquerors in their death than they could have been had they purchased life by a
surrender of their faith.
What would have been the fate of the church if the early Christians had had as
little faith as many of our Christians of to-day? And if the Christians of
to-day had the faith of the martyrs, how long would it be before the fulfilment
of the prophecy that "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess?"
I am glad that He, who is called the Prince of Peace—who can bring peace to
every troubled heart and whose teachings, exemplified in life, will bring peace
between man and man, between community and community, between State and State,
between nation and nation throughout the world—I am glad that He brings courage
as well as peace so that those who follow Him may take up and each day bravely
do the duties that to that day fall.
As the Christian grows older he appreciates more and more the completeness with
which Christ satisfies the longings of the heart, and, grateful for the peace
which he enjoys and for the strength which he has received, he repeats the words
of the great scholar, Sir William Jones:
"Before thy mystic altar, heavenly truth,
I kneel in manhood, as I knelt in youth,
Thus let me kneel, till this dull form decay,
And life's last shade be brightened by thy ray."
RUFUS CHOATE
EULOGY OF WEBSTER
Delivered at Dartmouth College, July 27, 1853.
Webster possessed the element of an impressive character, inspiring regard,
trust and admiration, not unmingled with love. It had, I think, intrinsically a
charm such as belongs only to a good, noble, and beautiful nature. In its
combination with so much fame, so much force of will, and so much intellect, it
filled and fascinated the imagination and heart. It was affectionate in
childhood and youth, and it was more than ever so in the few last months of his
long life. It is the universal testimony that he gave to his parents, in largest
measure, honor, love, obedience; that he eagerly appropriated the first means
which he could command to relieve the father from the debts contracted to
educate his brother and himself; that he selected his first place of
professional practice that he might soothe the coming on of his old age.
Equally beautiful was his love of all his kindred and of all his friends. When I
hear him accused of selfishness, and a cold, bad nature, I recall him lying
sleepless all night, not without tears of boyhood, conferring with Ezekiel how
the darling desire of both hearts should be compassed, and he, too, admitted to
the precious privileges of education; courageously pleading the cause of both
brothers in the morning; prevailing by the wise and discerning affection of the
mother; suspending his studies of the law, and registering deeds and teaching
school to earn the means, for both, of availing themselves of the opportunity
which the parental self-sacrifice had placed within their reach; loving him
through life, mourning him when dead, with a love and a sorrow very wonderful,
passing the sorrow of woman; I recall the husband, the father of the living and
of the early departed, the friend, the counselor of many years, and my heart
grows too full and liquid for the refutation of words.
His affectionate nature, craving ever friendship, as well as the presence of
kindred blood, diffused itself through all his private life, gave sincerity to
all his hospitalities, kindness to his eye, warmth to the pressure of his hand,
made his greatness and genius unbend themselves to the playfulness of childhood,
flowed out in graceful memories indulged of the past or the dead, of incidents
when life was young and promised to be happy,—gave generous sketches of his
rivals,—the high contention now hidden by the handful of earth,—hours passed
fifty years ago with great authors, recalled for the vernal emotions which then
they made to live and revel in the soul. And from these conversations of
friendship, no man—no man, old or young—went away to remember one word of
profaneness, one allusion of indelicacy, one impure thought, one unbelieving
suggestion, one doubt cast on the reality of virtue, of patriotism, of
enthusiasm, of the progress of man,—one doubt cast on righteousness, or
temperance, or judgment to come.
I have learned by evidence the most direct and satisfactory that in the last
months of his life, the whole affectionateness of his nature—his consideration
of others, his gentleness, his desire to make them happy and to see them
happy—seemed to come out in more and more beautiful and habitual expressions
than ever before. The long day's public tasks were felt to be done; the cares,
the uncertainties, the mental conflicts of high place, were ended; and he came
home to recover himself for the few years which he might still expect would be
his before he should go hence to be here no more. And there, I am assured and
duly believe, no unbecoming regrets pursued him; no discontent, as for injustice
suffered or expectations unfulfilled; no self-reproach for anything done or
anything omitted by himself; no irritation, no peevishness unworthy of his noble
nature; but instead, love and hope for his country, when she became the subject
of conversation, and for all around him, the dearest and most indifferent, for
all breathing things about him, the overflow of the kindest heart growing in
gentleness and benevolence—paternal, patriarchal affections, seeming to become
more natural, warm, and communicative every hour. Softer and yet brighter grew
the tints on the sky of parting day; and the last lingering rays, more even than
the glories of noon, announced how divine was the source from which they
proceeded; how incapable to be quenched; how certain to rise on a morning which
no night should follow.
Such a character was made to be loved. It was loved. Those who knew and saw it
in its hour of calm—those who could repose on that soft green—loved him. His
plain neighbors loved him; and one said, when he was laid in his grave, "How
lonesome the world seems!" Educated young men loved him. The ministers of the
gospel, the general intelligence of the country, the masses afar oft, loved him.
True, they had not found in his speeches, read by millions, so much adulation of
the people; so much of the music which robs the public reason of itself; so many
phrases of humanity and philanthropy; and some had told them he was lofty and
cold—solitary in his greatness; but every year they came nearer and nearer to
him, and as they came nearer, they loved him better; they heard how tender the
son had been, the husband, the brother, the father, the friend, and neighbor;
that he was plain, simple, natural, generous, hospitable—the heart larger than
the brain; that he loved little children and reverenced God, the Scriptures, the
Sabbath-day, the Constitution, and the law—and their hearts clave unto him. More
truly of him than even of the great naval darling of England might it be said
that "his presence would set the church bells ringing, and give schoolboys a
holiday, would bring children from school and old men from the chimney-corner,
to gaze on him ere he died." The great and unavailing lamentations first
revealed the deep place he had in the hearts of his countrymen.
You are now to add to this his extraordinary power of influencing the
convictions of others by speech, and you have completed the survey of the means
of his greatness. And here, again I begin by admiring an aggregate made up of
excellences and triumphs, ordinarily deemed incompatible. He spoke with
consummate ability to the bench, and yet exactly as, according to every sound
canon of taste and ethics, the bench ought to be addressed. He spoke with
consummate ability to the jury, and yet exactly as, according to every sound
canon, that totally different tribunal ought to be addressed. In the halls of
Congress, before the people assembled for political discussion in masses, before
audiences smaller and more select, assembled for some solemn commemoration of
the past or of the dead—in each of these, again, his speech, of the first form
of ability, was exactly adapted, also, to the critical properties of the place;
each achieved, when delivered, the most instant and specific success of
eloquence—some of them in a splendid and remarkable degree; and yet, stranger
still, when reduced to writing, as they fell from his lips, they compose a body
of reading in many volumes—solid, clear, rich, and full of harmony—a classical
and permanent political literature.
And yet all these modes of his eloquence, exactly adapted each to its stage and
its end, were stamped with his image and superscription, identified by
characteristics incapable to be counterfeited and impossible to be mistaken. The
same high power of reason, intent in every one to explore and display some
truth; some truth of judicial, or historical, or biographical fact; some truth
of law, deduced by construction, perhaps, or by illation; some truth of policy,
for want whereof a nation, generations, may be the worse—reason seeking and
unfolding truth; the same tone, in all, of deep earnestness, expressive of
strong desire that what he felt to be important should be accepted as true, and
spring up to action; the same transparent, plain, forcible, and direct speech,
conveying his exact thought to the mind—not something less or more; the same
sovereignty of form, of brow, and eye, and tone, and manner—everywhere the
intellectual king of men, standing before you—that same marvelousness of
qualities and results, residing, I know not where, in words, in pictures, in the
ordering of ideas, infelicities indescribable, by means whereof, coming from his
tongue, all things seemed mended—truth seemed more true, probability more
plausible, greatness more grand, goodness more awful, every affection more
tender than when coming from other tongues—these are, in all, his eloquence.
But sometimes it became individualized and discriminated even from itself;
sometimes place and circumstances, great interests at stake, a stage, an
audience fitted for the highest historic action, a crisis, personal or national,
upon him, stirred the depths of that emotional nature, as the anger of the
goddess stirs the sea on which the great epic is beginning; strong passions
themselves kindled to intensity, quickened every faculty to a new life; the
stimulated associations of ideas brought all treasures of thought and knowledge
within command; the spell, which often held his imagination fast, dissolved, and
she arose and gave him to choose of her urn of gold; earnestness became
vehemence, the simple, perspicuous, measured and direct language became a
headlong, full, and burning tide of speech; the discourse of reason, wisdom,
gravity, and beauty changed to that superhuman, that rarest consummate
eloquence—grand, rapid, pathetic, terrible; the aliquid immensum infinitumque
that Cicero might have recognized; the master triumph of man in the rarest
opportunity of his noble power.
Such elevation above himself, in congressional debate, was most uncommon. Some
such there were in the great discussions of executive power following the
removal of the deposits, which they who heard them will never forget, and some
which rest in the tradition of hearers only. But there were other fields of
oratory on which, under the influence of more uncommon springs of inspiration,
he exemplified, in still other forms, an eloquence in which I do not know that
he has had a superior among men. Addressing masses by tens of thousands in the
open air, on the urgent political questions of the day, or designed to lead the
meditations of an hour devoted to the remembrance of some national era, or of
some incident marking the progress of the nation, and lifting him up to a view
of what is, and what is past, and some indistinct revelation of the glory that
lies in the future, or of some great historical name, just borne by the nation
to his tomb—we have learned that then and there, at the base of Bunker Hill,
before the corner-stone was laid, and again when from the finished column the
centuries looked on him; in Faneuil Hall, mourning for those with whose spoken
or written eloquence of freedom its arches had so often resounded; on the Rock
of Plymouth; before the Capitol, of which there shall not be one stone left on
another before his memory shall have ceased to live—in such scenes, unfettered
by the laws of forensic or parliamentary debate, multitudes uncounted lifting up
their eyes to him; some great historical scenes of America around; all symbols
of her glory and art and power and fortune there; voices of the past, not
unheard; shapes beckoning from the future, not unseen—sometimes that mighty
intellect, borne upward to a height and kindled to an illumination which we
shall see no more, wrought out, as it were, in an instant a picture of vision,
warning, prediction; the progress of the nation; the contrasts of its eras; the
heroic deaths; the motives to patriotism; the maxims and arts imperial by which
the glory has been gathered and may be heightened—wrought out, in an instant, a
picture to fade only when all record of our mind shall die.
In looking over the public remains of his oratory, it is striking to remark how,
even in that most sober and massive understanding and nature, you see gathered
and expressed the characteristic sentiments and the passing time of our America.
It is the strong old oak which ascends before you; yet our soil, our heaven, are
attested in it as perfectly as if it were a flower that could grow in no other
climate and in no other hour of the year or day. Let me instance in one thing
only. It is a peculiarity of some schools of eloquence that they embody and
utter, not merely the individual genius and character of the speaker, but a
national consciousness—a national era, a mood, a hope, a dread, a despair—in
which you listen to the spoken history of the time. There is an eloquence of an
expiring nation, such as seems to sadden the glorious speech of Demosthenes;
such as breathes grand and gloomy from visions of the prophets of the last days
of Israel and Judah; such as gave a spell to the expression of Grattan and of
Kossuth—the sweetest, most mournful, most awful of the words which man may
utter, or which man may hear—the eloquence of a perishing nation.
There is another eloquence, in which the national consciousness of a young or
renewed and vast strength, of trust in a dazzling certain and limitless future,
an inward glorying in victories yet to be won, sounds out as by voice of
clarion, challenging to contest for the highest prize of earth; such as that in
which the leader of Israel in its first days holds up to the new nation the Land
of Promise; such as that which in the well-imagined speeches scattered by Livy
over the history of the "majestic series of victories" speaks the Roman
consciousness of growing aggrandizement which should subject the world; such as
that through which, at the tribunes of her revolution, in the bulletins of her
rising soldiers, France told to the world her dream of glory.
And of this kind somewhat is ours—cheerful, hopeful, trusting, as befits youth
and spring; the eloquence of a state beginning to ascend to the first class of
power, eminence, and consideration, and conscious of itself. It is to no purpose
that they tell you it is in bad taste; that it partakes of arrogance and vanity;
that a true national good breeding would not know, or seem to know, whether the
nation is old or young; whether the tides of being are in their flow or ebb;
whether these coursers of the sun are sinking slowly to rest, wearied with a
journey of a thousand years, or just bounding from the Orient unbreathed. Higher
laws than those of taste determine the consciousness of nations. Higher laws
than those of taste determine the general forms of the expression of that
consciousness. Let the downward age of America find its orators and poets and
artists to erect its spirit, or grace and soothe its dying; be it ours to go up
with Webster to the Rock, the Monument, the Capitol, and bid "the distant
generations hail!"
Until the seventh day of March, 1850, I think it would have been accorded to him
by an almost universal acclaim, as general and as expressive of profound and
intelligent conviction and of enthusiasm, love, and trust, as ever saluted
conspicuous statesmanship, tried by many crises of affairs in a great nation,
agitated ever by parties, and wholly free.
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
PASS PROSPERITY AROUND
Delivered as Temporary Chairman of Progressive
National Convention, Chicago, Ill., June, 1911.
We stand for a nobler America. We stand for an undivided Nation. We stand for a
broader liberty, a fuller justice. We stand for a social brotherhood as against
savage individualism. We stand for an intelligent coöperation instead of a
reckless competition. We stand for mutual helpfulness instead of mutual hatred.
We stand for equal rights as a fact of life instead of a catch-word of politics.
We stand for the rule of the people as a practical truth instead of a
meaningless pretense. We stand for a representative government that represents
the people. We battle for the actual rights of man.
To carry out our principles we have a plain program of constructive reform. We
mean to tear down only that which is wrong and out of date; and where we tear
down we mean to build what is right and fitted to the times. We harken to the
call of the present. We mean to make laws fit conditions as they are and meet
the needs of the people who are on earth to-day. That we may do this we found a
party through which all who believe with us can work with us; or, rather, we
declare our allegiance to the party which the people themselves have founded.
For this party comes from the grass roots. It has grown from the soil of the
people's hard necessities. It has the vitality of the people's strong
convictions. The people have work to be done and our party is here to do that
work. Abuse will only strengthen it, ridicule only hasten its growth, falsehood
only speed its victory. For years this party has been forming. Parties exist for
the people; not the people for parties. Yet for years the politicians have made
the people do the work of the parties instead of the parties doing the work of
the people—and the politicians own the parties. The people vote for one party
and find their hopes turned to ashes on their lips; and then to punish that
party, they vote for the other party. So it is that partisan victories have come
to be merely the people's vengeance; and always the secret powers have played
their game.
Like other free people, most of us Americans are progressive or reactionary,
liberal or conservative. The neutrals do not count. Yet to-day neither of the
old parties is either wholly progressive or wholly reactionary. Democratic
politicians and office seekers say to reactionary Democratic voters that the
Democratic party is reactionary enough to express reactionary views; and they
say to progressive Democrats that the Democratic party is progressive enough to
express progressive views. At the same time, Republican politicians and office
seekers say the same thing about the Republican party to progressive and
reactionary Republican voters.
Sometimes in both Democratic and Republican States the progressives get control
of the party locally and then the reactionaries recapture the same party in the
same State; or this process is reversed. So there is no nation-wide unity of
principle in either party, no stability of purpose, no clear-cut and sincere
program of one party at frank and open war with an equally clear-cut and sincere
program of an opposing party.
This unintelligent tangle is seen in Congress. Republican and Democratic
Senators and Representatives, believing alike on broad measures affecting the
whole Republic, find it hard to vote together because of the nominal difference
of their party membership. When, sometimes, under resistless conviction, they do
vote together, we have this foolish spectacle: legislators calling themselves
Republicans and Democrats support the same policy, the Democratic legislators
declaring that that policy is Democratic and Republican legislators declaring
that it is Republican; and at the very same time other Democratic and Republican
legislators oppose that very same policy, each of them declaring that it is not
Democratic or not Republican.
The condition makes it impossible most of the time, and hard at any time, for
the people's legislators who believe in the same broad policies to enact them
into logical, comprehensive laws. It confuses the public mind. It breeds
suspicion and distrust. It enables such special interests as seek unjust gain at
the public expense to get what they want. It creates and fosters the degrading
boss system in American politics through which these special interests work.
This boss system is unknown and impossible under any other free government in
the world. In its very nature it is hostile to general welfare. Yet it has grown
until it now is a controlling influence in American public affairs. At the
present moment notorious bosses are in the saddle of both old parties in various
important States which must be carried to elect a President. This Black Horse
Cavalry is the most important force in the practical work of the Democratic and
Republican parties in the present campaign. Neither of the old parties' nominees
for President can escape obligation to these old-party bosses or shake their
practical hold on many and powerful members of the National Legislature.
Under this boss system, no matter which party wins, the people seldom win; but
the bosses almost always win. And they never work for the people. They do not
even work for the party to which they belong. They work only for those
anti-public interests whose political employees they are. It is these interests
that are the real victors in the end.
These special interests which suck the people's substance are bi-partisan.
They use both parties. They are the invisible government behind our visible
government. Democratic and Republican bosses alike are brother officers of this
hidden power. No matter how fiercely they pretend to fight one another before
election, they work together after election. And, acting so, this political
conspiracy is able to delay, mutilate or defeat sound and needed laws for the
people's welfare and the prosperity of honest business and even to enact bad
laws, hurtful to the people's welfare and oppressive to honest business.
It is this invisible government which is the real danger to American
institutions. Its crude work at Chicago in June, which the people were able to
see, was no more wicked than its skillful work everywhere and always which the
people are not able to see.
But an even more serious condition results from the unnatural alignment of the
old parties. To-day we Americans are politically shattered by sectionalism.
Through the two old parties the tragedy of our history is continued; and one
great geographical part of the Republic is separated from other parts of the
Republic by an illogical partisan solidarity.
The South has men and women as genuinely progressive and others as genuinely
reactionary as those in other parts of our country. Yet, for well-known reasons,
these sincere and honest southern progressives and reactionaries vote together
in a single party, which is neither progressive nor reactionary. They vote a
dead tradition and a local fear, not a living conviction and a national faith.
They vote not for the Democratic party, but against the Republican party. They
want to be free from this condition; they can be free from it through the
National Progressive party.
For the problems which America faces to-day are economic and national. They have
to do with a more just distribution of prosperity. They concern the living of
the people; and therefore the more direct government of the people by
themselves.
They affect the South exactly as they affect the North, the East or the West. It
is an artificial and dangerous condition that prevents the southern man and
woman from acting with the northern man and woman who believe the same thing.
Yet just that is what the old parties do prevent.
Not only does this out-of-date partisanship cut our Nation into two geographical
sections; it also robs the Nation of a priceless asset of thought in working out
our national destiny. The South once was famous for brilliant and constructive
thinking on national problems, and to-day the South has minds as brilliant and
constructive as of old. But southern intellect cannot freely and fully aid, in
terms of politics, the solving of the Nation's problems. This is so because of a
partisan sectionalism which has nothing to do with those problems. Yet these
problems can be solved only in terms of politics.
The root of the wrongs which hurt the people is the fact that the people's
government has been taken away from them—the invisible government has usurped
the people's government. Their government must be given back to the people. And
so the first purpose of the Progressive party is to make sure the rule of the
people. The rule of the people means that the people themselves shall nominate,
as well as elect, all candidates for office, including Senators and Presidents
of the United States. What profiteth it the people if they do only the electing
while the invisible government does the nominating?
The rule of the people means that when the people's legislators make a law which
hurts the people, the people themselves may reject it. The rule of the people
means that when the people's legislators refuse to pass a law which the people
need, the people themselves may pass it. The rule of the people means that when
the people's employees do not do the people's work well and honestly, the people
may discharge them exactly as a business man discharges employees who do not do
their work well and honestly. The people's officials are the people's servants,
not the people's masters.
We progressives believe in this rule of the people that the people themselves
may deal with their own destiny. Who knows the people's needs so well as the
people themselves? Who so patient as the people? Who so long suffering, who so
just? Who so wise to solve their own problems?
Today these problems concern the living of the people. Yet in the present stage
of American development these problems should not exist in this country. For, in
all the world there is no land so rich as ours. Our fields can feed hundreds of
millions. We have more minerals than the whole of Europe. Invention has made
easy the turning of this vast natural wealth into supplies for all the needs of
man. One worker today can produce more than twenty workers could produce a
century ago.
The people living in this land of gold are the most daring and resourceful on
the globe. Coming from the hardiest stock of every nation of the old world their
very history in the new world has made Americans a peculiar people in courage,
initiative, love of justice and all the elements of independent character.
And, compared with other peoples, we are very few in numbers. There are only
ninety millions of us, scattered over a continent. Germany has sixty-five
millions packed in a country very much smaller than Texas. The population of
Great Britain and Ireland could be set down in California and still have more
than enough room for the population of Holland. If this country were as thickly
peopled as Belgium there would be more than twelve hundred million instead of
only ninety million persons within our borders.
So we have more than enough to supply every human being beneath the flag. There
ought not to be in this Republic a single day of bad business, a single
unemployed workingman, a single unfed child. American business men should never
know an hour of uncertainty, discouragement or fear; American workingmen never a
day of low wages, idleness or want. Hunger should never walk in these thinly
peopled gardens of plenty.
And yet in spite of all these favors which providence has showered upon us, the
living of the people is the problem of the hour. Hundreds of thousands of
hard-working Americans find it difficult to get enough to live on. The average
income of an American laborer is less than $500 a year. With this he must
furnish food, shelter and clothing for a family.
Women, whose nourishing and protection should be the first care of the State,
not only are driven into the mighty army of wage-earners, but are forced to work
under unfair and degrading conditions. The right of a child to grow into a
normal human being is sacred; and yet, while small and poor countries, packed
with people, have abolished child labor, American mills, mines, factories and
sweat-shops are destroying hundreds of thousands of American children in body,
mind and soul.
At the same time men have grasped fortunes in this country so great that the
human mind cannot comprehend their magnitude. These mountains of wealth are far
larger than even that lavish reward which no one would deny to business risk or
genius.
On the other hand, American business is uncertain and unsteady compared with the
business of other nations. American business men are the best and bravest in the
world, and yet our business conditions hamper their energies and chill their
courage. We have no permanency in business affairs, no sure outlook upon the
business future. This unsettled state of American business prevents it from
realizing for the people that great and continuous prosperity which our
country's location, vast wealth and small population justifies.
We mean to remedy these conditions. We mean not only to make prosperity steady,
but to give to the many who earn it a just share of that prosperity instead of
helping the few who do not earn it to take an unjust share. The progressive
motto is "Pass prosperity around." To make human living easier, to free the
hands of honest business, to make trade and commerce sound and steady, to
protect womanhood, save childhood and restore the dignity of manhood—these are
the tasks we must do.
What, then, is the progressive answer to these questions? We are able to give it
specifically and concretely. The first work before us is the revival of honest
business. For business is nothing but the industrial and trade activities of all
the people. Men grow the products of the field, cut ripe timber from the forest,
dig metal from the mine, fashion all for human use, carry them to the market
place and exchange them according to their mutual needs—and this is business.
With our vast advantages, contrasted with the vast disadvantages of other
nations, American business all the time should be the best and steadiest in the
world. But it is not. Germany, with shallow soil, no mines, only a window on the
seas and a population more than ten times as dense as ours, yet has a sounder
business, a steadier prosperity, a more contented because better cared for
people.
What, then, must we do to make American business better? We must do what poorer
nations have done. We must end the abuses of business by striking down those
abuses instead of striking down business itself. We must try to make little
business big and all business honest instead of striving to make big business
little and yet letting it remain dishonest.
Present-day business is as unlike old-time business as the old-time ox-cart is
unlike the present-day locomotive. Invention has made the whole world over
again. The railroad, telegraph, telephone have bound the people of modern
nations into families. To do the business of these closely knit millions in
every modern country great business concerns came into being. What we call big
business is the child of the economic progress of mankind. So warfare to destroy
big business is foolish because it can not succeed and wicked because it ought
not to succeed. Warfare to destroy big business does not hurt big business,
which always comes out on top, so much as it hurts all other business which, in
such a warfare, never comes out on top.
With the growth of big business came business evils just as great. It is these
evils of big business that hurt the people and injure all other business. One of
these wrongs is over capitalization which taxes the people's very living.
Another is the manipulation of prices to the unsettlement of all normal business
and to the people's damage. Another is interference in the making of the
people's laws and the running of the people's government in the unjust interest
of evil business. Getting laws that enable particular interests to rob the
people, and even to gather criminal riches from human health and life is still
another.
An example of such laws is the infamous tobacco legislation of 1902, which
authorized the Tobacco Trust to continue to collect from the people the Spanish
War tax, amounting to a score of millions of dollars, but to keep that tax
instead of turning it over to the government, as it had been doing. Another
example is the shameful meat legislation, by which the Beef Trust had the meat
it sent abroad inspected by the government so that foreign countries would take
its product and yet was permitted to sell diseased meat to our own people. It is
incredible that laws like these could ever get on the Nation's statute books.
The invisible government put them there; and only the universal wrath of an
enraged people corrected them when, after years, the people discovered the
outrages.
It is to get just such laws as these and to prevent the passage of laws to
correct them, as well as to keep off the statute books general laws which will
end the general abuses of big business that these few criminal interests corrupt
our politics, invest in public officials and keep in power in both parties that
type of politicians and party managers who debase American politics.
Behind rotten laws and preventing sound laws, stands the corrupt boss; behind
the corrupt boss stands the robber interest; and commanding these powers of
pillage stands bloated human greed. It is this conspiracy of evil we must
overthrow if we would get the honest laws we need. It is this invisible
government we must destroy if we would save American institutions.
Other nations have ended the very same business evils from which we suffer by
clearly defining business wrong-doing and then making it a criminal offense,
punishable by imprisonment. Yet these foreign nations encourage big business
itself and foster all honest business. But they do not tolerate dishonest
business, little or big.
What, then, shall we Americans do? Common sense and the experience of the world
says that we ought to keep the good big business does for us and stop the wrongs
that big business does to us. Yet we have done just the other thing. We have
struck at big business itself and have not even aimed to strike at the evils of
big business. Nearly twenty-five years ago Congress passed a law to govern
American business in the present time which Parliament passed in the reign of
King James to govern English business in that time.
For a quarter of a century the courts have tried to make this law work. Yet
during this very time trusts grew greater in number and power than in the whole
history of the world before; and their evils flourished unhindered and
unchecked. These great business concerns grew because natural laws made them
grow and artificial law at war with natural law could not stop their growth. But
their evils grew faster than the trusts themselves because avarice nourished
those evils and no law of any kind stopped avarice from nourishing them.
Nor is this the worst. Under the shifting interpretation of the Sherman law,
uncertainty and fear is chilling the energies of the great body of honest
American business men. As the Sherman law now stands, no two business men can
arrange their mutual affairs and be sure that they are not law-breakers. This is
the main hindrance to the immediate and permanent revival of American business.
If German or English business men, with all their disadvantages compared with
our advantages, were manacled by our Sherman law, as it stands, they soon would
be bankrupt. Indeed, foreign business men declare that, if their countries had
such a law, so administered, they could not do business at all.
Even this is not all. By the decrees of our courts, under the Sherman law, the
two mightiest trusts on earth have actually been licensed, in the practical
outcome, to go on doing every wrong they ever committed. Under the decrees of
the courts the Oil and Tobacco Trusts still can raise prices unjustly and
already have done so. They still can issue watered stock and surely will do so.
They still can throttle other business men and the United Cigar Stores Company
now is doing so. They still can corrupt our politics and this moment are
indulging in that practice.
The people are tired of this mock battle with criminal capital. They do not want
to hurt business, but they do want to get something done about the trust
question that amounts to something. What good does it do any man to read in his
morning paper that the courts have "dissolved" the Oil Trust, and then read in
his evening paper that he must thereafter pay a higher price for his oil than
ever before? What good does it do the laborer who smokes his pipe to be told
that the courts have "dissolved" the Tobacco Trust and yet find that he must pay
the same or a higher price for the same short-weight package of tobacco? Yet all
this is the practical result of the suits against these two greatest trusts in
the world.
Such business chaos and legal paradoxes as American business suffers from can be
found nowhere else in the world. Rival nations do not fasten legal ball and
chain upon their business—no, they put wings on its flying feet. Rival nations
do not tell their business men that if they go forward with legitimate
enterprise the penitentiary may be their goal. No! Rival nations tell their
business men that so long as they do honest business their governments will not
hinder but will help them.
But these rival nations do tell their business men that if they do any evil that
our business men do, prison bars await them. These rival nations do tell their
business men that if they issue watered stock or cheat the people in any way,
prison cells will be their homes.
Just this is what all honest American business wants; just this is what
dishonest American business does not want; just this is what the American people
propose to have; just this the national Republican platform of 1908 pledged the
people that we would give them; and just this important pledge the
administration, elected on that platform, repudiated as it repudiated the more
immediate tariff pledge.
Both these reforms, so vital to honest American business, the Progressive party
will accomplish. Neither evil interests nor reckless demagogues can swerve us
from our purpose; for we are free from both and fear neither.
We mean to put new business laws on our statute books which will tell
American business men what they can do and what they cannot do. We mean to make
our business laws clear instead of foggy—to make them plainly state just what
things are criminal and what are lawful. And we mean that the penalty for things
criminal shall be prison sentences that actually punish the real offender,
instead of money fines that hurt nobody but the people, who must pay them in the
end.
And then we mean to send the message forth to hundreds of thousands of brilliant
minds and brave hearts engaged in honest business, that they are not criminals
but honorable men in their work to make good business in this Republic. Sure of
victory, we even now say, "Go forward, American business men, and know that
behind you, supporting you, encouraging you, are the power and approval of the
greatest people under the sun. Go forward, American business men, and feed full
the fires beneath American furnaces; and give employment to every American
laborer who asks for work. Go forward, American business men, and capture the
markets of the world for American trade; and know that on the wings of your
commerce you carry liberty throughout the world and to every inhabitant thereof.
Go forward, American business men, and realize that in the time to come it shall
be said of you, as it is said of the hand that rounded Peter's Dome, 'he builded
better than he knew.'"
The next great business reform we must have to steadily increase American
prosperity is to change the method of building our tariffs. The tariff must be
taken out of politics and treated as a business question instead of as a
political question. Heretofore, we have done just the other thing. That is why
American business is upset every few years by unnecessary tariff upheavals and
is weakened by uncertainty in the periods between. The greatest need of business
is certainty; but the only thing certain about our tariff is uncertainty.
What, then, shall we do to make our tariff changes strengthen business instead
of weakening business? Rival protective tariff nations have answered that
question. Common sense has answered it. Next to our need to make the Sherman law
modern, understandable and just, our greatest fiscal need is a genuine,
permanent, non-partisan tariff commission.
Five years ago, when the fight for this great business measure was begun in the
Senate the bosses of both parties were against it. So, when the last revision of
the tariff was on and a tariff commission might have been written into the
tariff law, the administration would not aid this reform. When two years later
the administration supported it weakly, the bi-partisan boss system killed it.
There has not been and will not be any sincere and honest effort by the old
parties to get a tariff commission. There has not been and will not be any
sincere and honest purpose by those parties to take the tariff out of politics.
For the tariff in politics is the excuse for those sham political battles which
give the spoilers their opportunity. The tariff in politics is one of the
invisible government's methods of wringing tribute from the people. Through the
tariff in politics the beneficiaries of tariff excesses are cared for, no matter
which party is "revising."
Who has forgotten the tariff scandals that made President Cleveland denounce the
Wilson-Gorman bill as "a perfidy and a dishonor?" Who ever can forget the brazen
robberies forced into the Payne-Aldrich bill which Mr. Taft defended as "the
best ever made?" If everyone else forgets these things the interests that
profited by them never will forget them. The bosses and lobbyists that grew rich
by putting them through never will forget them. That is why the invisible
government and its agents want to keep the old method of tariff building. For,
though such tariff "revisions" may make lean years for the people, they make fat
years for the powers of pillage and their agents.
So neither of the old parties can honestly carry out any tariff policies which
they pledge the people to carry out. But even if they could and even if they
were sincere, the old party platforms are in error on tariff policy. The
Democratic platform declares for free trade; but free trade is wrong and
ruinous. The Republican platform permits extortion; but tariff extortion is
robbery by law. The Progressive party is for honest protection; and honest
protection is right and a condition of American prosperity.
A tariff high enough to give American producers the American market when they
make honest goods and sell them at honest prices but low enough that when they
sell dishonest goods at dishonest prices, foreign competition can correct both
evils; a tariff high enough to enable American producers to pay our workingmen
American wages and so arranged that the workingmen will get such wages; a
business tariff whose changes will be so made as to reassure business instead of
disturbing it—this is the tariff and the method of its making in which the
Progressive party believes, for which it does battle and which it proposes to
write into the laws of the land.
The Payne-Aldrich tariff law must be revised immediately in accordance to these
principles. At the same time a genuine, permanent, non-partisan tariff
commission must be fixed in the law as firmly as the Interstate Commerce
Commission. Neither of the old parties can do this work. For neither of the old
parties believes in such a tariff; and, what is more serious, special privilege
is too thoroughly woven into the fiber of both old parties to allow them to make
such a tariff. The Progressive party only is free from these influences. The
Progressive party only believes in the sincere enactment of a sound tariff
policy. The Progressive party only can change the tariff as it must be changed.
These are samples of the reforms in the laws of business that we intend to put
on the Nation's statute books. But there are other questions as important and
pressing that we mean to answer by sound and humane laws. Child labor in
factories, mills, mines and sweat-shops must be ended throughout the Republic.
Such labor is a crime against childhood because it prevents the growth of normal
manhood and womanhood. It is a crime against the Nation because it prevents the
growth of a host of children into strong, patriotic and intelligent citizens.
Only the Nation can stop this industrial vice. The States cannot stop it. The
States never stopped any national wrong—and child labor is a national wrong. To
leave it to the State alone is unjust to business; for if some States stop it
and other States do not, business men of the former are at a disadvantage with
the business men of the latter, because they must sell in the same market goods
made by manhood labor at manhood wages in competition with goods made by
childhood labor at childhood wages. To leave it to the States is unjust to
manhood labor; for childhood labor in any State lowers manhood labor in every
State, because the product of childhood labor in any State competes with the
product of manhood labor in every State. Children workers at the looms in South
Carolina means bayonets at the breasts of men and women workers in Massachusetts
who strike for living wages. Let the States do what they can, and more power to
their arm; but let the Nation do what it should and cleanse our flag from this
stain.
Modern industrialism has changed the status of women. Women now are wage earners
in factories, stores and other places of toil. In hours of labor and all the
physical conditions of industrial effort they must compete with men. And they
must do it at lower wages than men receive—wages which, in most cases, are not
enough for these women workers to live on.
This is inhuman and indecent. It is unsocial and uneconomic. It is immoral and
unpatriotic. Toward women the Progressive party proclaims the chivalry of the
State. We propose to protect women wage-earners by suitable laws, an example of
which is the minimum wage for women workers—a wage which shall be high enough to
at least buy clothing, food and shelter for the woman toiler.
The care of the aged is one of the most perplexing problems of modern life. How
is the workingman with less than five hundred dollars a year, and with earning
power waning as his own years advance, to provide for aged parents or other
relatives in addition to furnishing food, shelter and clothing for his wife and
children? What is to become of the family of the laboring man whose strength has
been sapped by excessive toil and who has been thrown upon the industrial scrap
heap? It is questions like these we must answer if we are to justify free
institutions. They are questions to which the masses of people are chained as to
a body of death. And they are questions which other and poorer nations are
answering.
We progressives mean that America shall answer them. The Progressive party is
the helping hand to those whom a vicious industrialism has maimed and crippled.
We are for the conservation of our natural resources; but even more we are for
the conservation of human life. Our forests, water power and minerals are
valuable and must be saved from the spoilers; but men, women and children are
more valuable and they, too, must be saved from the spoilers.
Because women, as much as men, are a part of our economic and social life,
women, as much as men, should have the voting power to solve all economic and
social problems. Votes for women are theirs as a matter of natural right alone;
votes for women should be theirs as a matter of political wisdom also. As
wage-earners, they should help to solve the labor problem; as property owners
they should help to solve the tax problem; as wives and mothers they should help
to solve all the problems that concern the home. And that means all national
problems; for the Nation abides at the fireside.
If it is said that women cannot help defend the Nation in time of war and
therefore that they should not help to determine the Nation's destinies in time
of peace, the answer is that women suffer and serve in time of conflict as much
as men who carry muskets. And the deeper answer is that those who bear the
Nation's soldiers are as much the Nation's defenders as their sons.
Public spokesmen for the invisible government say that many of our reforms are
unconstitutional. The same kind of men said the same thing of every effort the
Nation has made to end national abuses. But in every case, whether in the
courts, at the ballot box, or on the battlefield, the vitality of the
Constitution was vindicated.
The Progressive party believes that the Constitution is a living thing, growing
with the people's growth, strengthening with the people's strength, aiding the
people in their struggle for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
permitting the people to meet all their needs as conditions change. The
opposition believes that the Constitution is a dead form, holding back the
people's growth, shackling the people's strength but giving a free hand to
malign powers that prey upon the people. The first words of the Constitution are
"We the people," and they declare that the Constitution's purpose is "to form a
perfect Union and to promote the general welfare." To do just that is the very
heart of the progressive cause.
The Progressive party asserts anew the vitality of the Constitution. We
believe in the true doctrine of states' rights, which forbids the Nation from
interfering with states' affairs, and also forbids the states from interfering
with national affairs. The combined intelligence and composite conscience of the
American people is as irresistible as it is righteous; and the Constitution does
not prevent that force from working out the general welfare.
From certain sources we hear preachments about the danger of our reforms to
American institutions. What is the purpose of American institutions? Why was
this Republic established? What does the flag stand for? What do these things
mean?
They mean that the people shall be free to correct human abuses.
They mean that men, women and children shall not be denied the opportunity to
grow stronger and nobler.
They mean that the people shall have the power to make our land each day a
better place to live in.
They mean the realities of liberty and not the academics of theory.
They mean the actual progress of the race in tangible items of daily living and
not the theoretics of barren disputation.
If they do not mean these things they are as sounding brass and tinkling
cymbals.
A Nation of strong, upright men and women; a Nation of wholesome homes,
realizing the best ideals; a Nation whose power is glorified by its justice and
whose justice is the conscience of scores of millions of God-fearing people—that
is the Nation the people need and want. And that is the Nation they shall have.
For never doubt that we Americans will make good the real meaning of our
institutions. Never doubt that we will solve, in righteousness and wisdom, every
vexing problem. Never doubt that in the end, the hand from above that leads us
upward will prevail over the hand from below that drags us downward. Never doubt
that we are indeed a Nation whose God is the Lord.
And, so, never doubt that a braver, fairer, cleaner America surely will come;
that a better and brighter life for all beneath the flag surely will be
achieved. Those who now scoff soon will pray. Those who now doubt soon will
believe.
Soon the night will pass; and when, to the Sentinel on the ramparts of Liberty
the anxious ask: "Watchman, what of the night?" his answer will be "Lo, the morn
appeareth."
Knowing the price we must pay, the sacrifice we must make, the burdens we must
carry, the assaults we must endure—knowing full well the cost—yet we enlist, and
we enlist for the war. For we know the justice of our cause, and we know, too,
its certain triumph.
Not reluctantly then, but eagerly, not with faint hearts but strong, do we
now advance upon the enemies of the people. For the call that comes to us is the
call that came to our fathers. As they responded so shall we.
"He hath sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call retreat,
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat.
Oh, be swift our souls to answer Him, be jubilant our feet,
Our God is marching on."
RUSSELL CONWELL
ACRES OF DIAMONDS[40]
I am astonished that so many people should care to hear this story over again.
Indeed, this lecture has become a study in psychology; it often breaks all rules
of oratory, departs from the precepts of rhetoric, and yet remains the most
popular of any lecture I have delivered in the forty-four years of my public
life. I have sometimes studied for a year upon a lecture and made careful
research, and then presented the lecture just once—never delivered it again. I
put too much work on it. But this had no work on it—thrown together perfectly at
random, spoken offhand without any special preparation, and it succeeds when the
thing we study, work over, adjust to a plan, is an entire failure.
The "Acres of Diamonds" which I have mentioned through so many years are to be
found in Philadelphia, and you are to find them. Many have found them. And what
man has done, man can do. I could not find anything better to illustrate my
thought than a story I have told over and over again, and which is now found in
books in nearly every library.
In 1870 we went down the Tigris River. We hired a guide at Bagdad to show us
Persepolis, Nineveh and Babylon, and the ancient countries of Assyria as far as
the Arabian Gulf. He was well acquainted with the land, but he was one of those
guides who love to entertain their patrons; he was like a barber that tells you
many stories in order to keep your mind off the scratching and the scraping. He
told me so many stories that I grew tired of his telling them and I refused to
listen—looked away whenever he commenced; that made the guide quite angry. I
remember that toward evening he took his Turkish cap off his head and swung it
around in the air. The gesture I did not understand and I did not dare look at
him for fear I should become the victim of another story. But, although I am not
a woman, I did look, and the instant I turned my eyes upon that worthy guide he
was off again. Said he, "I will tell you a story now which reserve for my
particular friends!" So then, counting myself a particular friend, I listened,
and I have always been glad I did.
He said there once lived not far from the River Indus an ancient Persian by the
name of Al Hafed. He said that Al Hafed owned a very large farm with orchards,
grain fields and gardens. He was a contented and wealthy man—contented because
he was wealthy, and wealthy because he was contented. One day there visited this
old farmer one of those ancient Buddhist priests, and he sat down by Al Hafed's
fire and told that old farmer how this world of ours was made. He said that this
world was once a mere bank of fog, which is scientifically true, and he said
that the Almighty thrust his finger into the bank of fog and then began slowly
to move his finger around and gradually to increase the speed of his finger
until at last he whirled that bank of fog into a solid ball of fire, and it went
rolling through the universe, burning its way through other cosmic banks of fog,
until it condensed the moisture without, and fell in floods of rain upon the
heated surface and cooled the outward crust. Then the internal flames burst
through the cooling crust and threw up the mountains and made the hills of the
valley of this wonderful world of ours. If this internal melted mass burst out
and copied very quickly it became granite; that which cooled less quickly became
silver; and less quickly, gold; and after gold diamonds were made. Said the old
priest, "A diamond is a congealed drop of sunlight."
This is a scientific truth also. You all know that a diamond is pure carbon,
actually deposited sunlight—and he said another thing I would not forget: he
declared that a diamond is the last and highest of God's mineral creations, as a
woman is the last and highest of God's animal creations. I suppose that is the
reason why the two have such a liking for each other. And the old priest told Al
Hafed that if he had a handful of diamonds he could purchase a whole country,
and with a mine of diamonds he could place his children upon thrones through the
influence of their great wealth. Al Hafed heard all about diamonds and how much
they were worth, and went to his bed that night a poor man—not that he had lost
anything, but poor because he was discontented and discontented because he
thought he was poor. He said: "I want a mine of diamonds!" So he lay awake all
night, and early in the morning sought out the priest. Now I know from
experience that a priest when awakened early in the morning is cross. He awoke
that priest out of his dreams and said to him, "Will you tell me where I can
find diamonds?" The priest said, "Diamonds? What do you want with diamonds?" "I
want to be immensely rich," said Al Hafed, "but I don't know where to go."
"Well," said the priest, "if you will find a river that runs over white sand
between high mountains, in those sands you will always see diamonds." "Do you
really believe that there is such a river?" "Plenty of them, plenty of them; all
you have to do is just go and find them, then you have them." Al Hafed said, "I
will go." So he sold his farm, collected his money at interest, left his family
in charge of a neighbor, and away he went in search of diamonds. He began very
properly, to my mind, at the Mountains of the Moon. Afterwards he went around
into Palestine, then wandered on into Europe, and at last when his money was all
spent, and he was in rags, wretchedness and poverty, he stood on the shore of
that bay in Barcelona, Spain, when a tidal wave came rolling through the Pillars
of Hercules and the poor afflicted, suffering man could not resist the awful
temptation to cast himself into that incoming tide, and he sank beneath its
foaming crest, never to rise in this life again.
When that old guide had told me that very sad story, he stopped the camel I was
riding and went back to fix the baggage on one of the other camels, and I
remember thinking to myself, "Why did he reserve that for his particular
friends?" There seemed to be no beginning, middle or end—nothing to it. That was
the first story I ever heard told or read in which the hero was killed in the
first chapter. I had but one chapter of that story and the hero was dead. When
the guide came back and took up the halter of my camel again, he went right on
with the same story. He said that Al Hafed's successor led his camel out into
the garden to drink, and as that camel put its nose down into the clear water of
the garden brook Al Hafed's successor noticed a curious flash of light from the
sands of the shallow stream, and reaching in he pulled out a black stone having
an eye of light that reflected all the colors of the rainbow, and he took that
curious pebble into the house and left it on the mantel, then went on his way
and forgot all about it. A few days after that, this same old priest who told Al
Hafed how diamonds were made, came in to visit his successor, when he saw that
flash of light from the mantel. He rushed up and said, "Here is a diamond—here
is a diamond! Has Al Hafed returned?" "No, no; Al Hafed has not returned and
that is not a diamond; that is nothing but a stone; we found it right out here
in our garden." "But I know a diamond when I see it," said he; "that is a
diamond!"
Then together they rushed to the garden and stirred up the white sands with
their fingers and found others more beautiful, more valuable diamonds than the
first, and thus, said the guide to me, were discovered the diamond mines of
Golconda, the most magnificent diamond mines in all the history of mankind,
exceeding the Kimberley in its value. The great Kohinoor diamond in England's
crown jewels and the largest crown diamond on earth in Russia's crown jewels,
which I had often hoped she would have to sell before they had peace with Japan,
came from that mine, and when the old guide had called my attention to that
wonderful discovery he took his Turkish cap off his head again and swung it
around in the air to call my attention to the moral. Those Arab guides have a
moral to each story, though the stories are not always moral. He said, had Al
Hafed remained at home and dug in his own cellar or in his own garden, instead
of wretchedness, starvation, poverty and death in a strange land, he would have
had "acres of diamonds"—for every acre, yes, every shovelful of that old farm
afterwards revealed the gems which since have decorated the crowns of monarchs.
When he had given the moral to his story, I saw why he had reserved this story
for his "particular friends." I didn't tell him I could see it; I was not going
to tell that old Arab that I could see it. For it was that mean old Arab's way
of going around a thing, like a lawyer, and saying indirectly what he did not
dare say directly, that there was a certain young man that day traveling down
the Tigris River that might better be at home in America. I didn't tell him I
could see it.
I told him his story reminded me of one, and I told it to him quick. I told him
about that man out in California, who, in 1847, owned a ranch out there. He read
that gold had been discovered in Southern California, and he sold his ranch to
Colonel Sutter and started off to hunt for gold. Colonel Sutter put a mill on
the little stream in that farm and one day his little girl brought some wet sand
from the raceway of the mill into the house and placed it before the fire to
dry, and as that sand was falling through the little girl's fingers a visitor
saw the first shining scales of real gold that were ever discovered in
California; and the man who wanted the gold had sold this ranch and gone away,
never to return. I delivered this lecture two years ago in California, in the
city that stands near that farm, and they told me that the mine is not exhausted
yet, and that a one-third owner of that farm has been getting during these
recent years twenty dollars of gold every fifteen minutes of his life, sleeping
or waking. Why, you and I would enjoy an income like that!
But the best illustration that I have now of this thought was found here in
Pennsylvania. There was a man living in Pennsylvania who owned a farm here and
he did what I should do if I had a farm in Pennsylvania—he sold it. But before
he sold it he concluded to secure employment collecting coal oil for his cousin
in Canada. They first discovered coal oil there. So this farmer in Pennsylvania
decided that he would apply for a position with his cousin in Canada. Now, you
see, this farmer was not altogether a foolish man. He did not leave his farm
until he had something else to do. Of all the simpletons the stars shine on
there is none more foolish than a man who leaves one job before he has obtained
another. And that has especial reference to gentlemen of my profession, and has
no reference to a man seeking a divorce. So I say this old farmer did not leave
one job until he had obtained another. He wrote to Canada, but his cousin
replied that he could not engage him because he did not know anything about the
oil business. "Well, then," said he, "I will understand it." So he set himself
at the study of the whole subject. He began at the second day of the creation,
he studied the subject from the primitive vegetation to the coal oil stage,
until he knew all about it. Then he wrote to his cousin and said, "Now I
understand the oil business." And his cousin replied to him, "All right, then,
come on."
That man, by the record of the county, sold his farm for eight hundred and
thirty-three dollars—even money, "no cents." He had scarcely gone from that farm
before the man who purchased it went out to arrange for the watering the cattle
and he found that the previous owner had arranged the matter very nicely. There
is a stream running down the hillside there, and the previous owner had gone out
and put a plank across that stream at an angle, extending across the brook and
down edgewise a few inches under the surface of the water. The purpose of the
plank across that brook was to throw over to the other bank a dreadful-looking
scum through which the cattle would not put their noses to drink above the
plank, although they would drink the water on one side below it. Thus that man
who had gone to Canada had been himself damming back for twenty-three years a
flow of coal oil which the State Geologist of Pennsylvania declared officially,
as early as 1870, was then worth to our State a hundred millions of dollars. The
city of Titusville now stands on that farm and those Pleasantville wells flow
on, and that farmer who had studied all about the formation of oil since the
second day of God's creation clear down to the present time, sold that farm for
$833, no cents—again I say, "no sense."
But I need another illustration, and I found that in Massachusetts, and I am
sorry I did, because that is my old State. This young man I mention went out of
the State to study—went down to Yale College and studied Mines and Mining. They
paid him fifteen dollars a week during his last year for training students who
were behind their classes in mineralogy, out of hours, of course, while pursuing
his own studies. But when he graduated they raised his pay from fifteen dollars
to forty-five dollars and offered him a professorship. Then he went straight
home to his mother and said, "Mother, I won't work for forty-five dollars a
week. What is forty-five dollars a week for a man with a brain like mine!
Mother, let's go out to California and stake out gold claims and be immensely
rich." "Now," said his mother, "it is just as well to be happy as it is to be
rich."
But as he was the only son he had his way—they always do; and they sold out in
Massachusetts and went to Wisconsin, where he went into the employ of the
Superior Copper Mining Company, and he was lost from sight in the employ of that
company at fifteen dollars a week again. He was also to have an interest in any
mines that he should discover for that company. But I do not believe that he has
ever discovered a mine—I do not know anything about it, but I do not believe he
has. I know he had scarcely gone from the old homestead before the farmer who
had bought the homestead went out to dig potatoes, and as he was bringing them
in in a large basket through the front gateway, the ends of the stone wall came
so near together at the gate that the basket hugged very tight. So he set the
basket on the ground and pulled, first on one side and then on the other side.
Our farms in Massachusetts are mostly stone walls, and the farmers have to be
economical with their gateways in order to have some place to put the stones.
That basket hugged so tight there that as he was hauling it through he noticed
in the upper stone next the gate a block of native silver, eight inches square;
and this professor of mines and mining and mineralogy, who would not work for
forty-five dollars a week, when he sold that homestead in Massachusetts, sat
right on that stone to make the bargain. He was brought up there; he had gone
back and forth by that piece of silver, rubbed it with his sleeve, and it seemed
to say, "Come now, now, now, here is a hundred thousand dollars. Why not take
me?" But he would not take it. There was no silver in Newburyport; it was all
away off—well, I don't know where; he didn't, but somewhere else—and he was a
professor of mineralogy.
I do not know of anything I would enjoy better than to take the whole time
to-night telling of blunders like that I have heard professors make. Yet I wish
I knew what that man is doing out there in Wisconsin. I can imagine him out
there, as he sits by his fireside, and he is saying to his friends, "Do you know
that man Conwell that lives in Philadelphia?" "Oh, yes, I have heard of him."
"And do you know that man Jones that lives in that city?" "Yes, I have heard of
him." And then he begins to laugh and laugh and says to his friends, "They have
done the same thing I did, precisely." And that spoils the whole joke, because
you and I have done it.
Ninety out of every hundred people here have made that mistake this very day. I
say you ought to be rich; you have no right to be poor. To live in Philadelphia
and not be rich is a misfortune, and it is doubly a misfortune, because you
could have been rich just as well as be poor. Philadelphia furnishes so many
opportunities. You ought to be rich. But persons with certain religious
prejudice will ask, "How can you spend your time advising the rising generation
to give their time to getting money—dollars and cents—the commercial spirit?"
Yet I must say that you ought to spend time getting rich. You and I know
there are some things more valuable than money; of course, we do. Ah, yes! By a
heart made unspeakably sad by a grave on which the autumn leaves now fall, I
know there are some things higher and grander and sublimer than money. Well does
the man know, who has suffered, that there are some things sweeter and holier
and more sacred than gold. Nevertheless, the man of common sense also knows that
there is not any one of those things that is not greatly enhanced by the use of
money. Money is power. Love is the grandest thing on God's earth, but fortunate
the lover who has plenty of money. Money is power; money has powers; and for a
man to say, "I do not want money," is to say, "I do not wish to do any good to
my fellowmen." It is absurd thus to talk. It is absurd to disconnect them. This
is a wonderfully great life, and you ought to spend your time getting money,
because of the power there is in money. And yet this religious prejudice is so
great that some people think it is a great honor to be one of God's poor. I am
looking in the faces of people who think just that way. I heard a man once say
in a prayer meeting that he was thankful that he was one of God's poor, and then
I silently wondered what his wife would say to that speech, as she took in
washing to support the man while he sat and smoked on the veranda. I don't want
to see any more of that land of God's poor. Now, when a man could have been rich
just as well, and he is now weak because he is poor, he has done some great
wrong; he has been untruthful to himself; he has been unkind to his fellowmen.
We ought to get rich if we can by honorable and Christian methods, and these are
the only methods that sweep us quickly toward the goal of riches.
I remember, not many years ago a young theological student who came into my
office and said to me that he thought it was his duty to come in and "labor with
me." I asked him what had happened, and he said: "I feel it is my duty to come
in and speak to you, sir, and say that the Holy Scriptures declare that money is
the root of all evil." I asked him where he found that saying, and he said he
found it in the Bible. I asked him whether he had made a new Bible, and he said,
no, he had not gotten a new Bible, that it was in the old Bible. "Well," I said,
"if it is in my Bible, I never saw it. Will you please get the text-book and let
me see it?" He left the room and soon came stalking in with his Bible open, with
all the bigoted pride of the narrow sectarian, who founds his creed on some
misinterpretation of Scripture, and he put the Bible down on the table before me
and fairly squealed into my ear, "There it is. You can read it for yourself." I
said to him, "Young man, you will learn, when you get a little older, that you
cannot trust another denomination to read the Bible for you." I said, "Now, you
belong to another denomination. Please read it to me, and remember that you are
taught in a school where emphasis is exegesis." So he took the Bible and read
it: "The love of money is the root of all evil." Then he had it right. The Great
Book has come back into the esteem and love of the people, and into the respect
of the greatest minds of earth, and now you can quote it and rest your life and
your death on it without more fear. So, when he quoted right from the Scriptures
he quoted the truth. "The love of money is the root of all evil." Oh, that is
it. It is the worship of the means instead of the end, though you cannot reach
the end without the means. When a man makes an idol of the money instead of the
purposes for which it may be used, when he squeezes the dollar until the eagle
squeals, then it is made the root of all evil. Think, if you only had the money,
what you could do for your wife, your child, and for your home and your city.
Think how soon you could endow the Temple College yonder if you only had the
money and the disposition to give it; and yet, my friend, people say you and I
should not spend the time getting rich. How inconsistent the whole thing is. We
ought to be rich, because money has power. I think the best thing for me to do
is to illustrate this, for if I say you ought to get rich, I ought, at least, to
suggest how it is done. We get a prejudice against rich men because of the lies
that are told about them. The lies that are told about Mr. Rockefeller because
he has two hundred million dollars—so many believe them; yet how false is the
representation of that man to the world. How little we can tell what is true
nowadays when newspapers try to sell their papers entirely on some sensation!
The way they lie about the rich men is something terrible, and I do not know
that there is anything to illustrate this better than what the newspapers now
say about the city of Philadelphia. A young man came to me the other day and
said, "If Mr. Rockefeller, as you think, is a good man, why is it that everybody
says so much against him?" It is because he has gotten ahead of us; that is the
whole of it—just gotten ahead of us. Why is it Mr. Carnegie is criticised so
sharply by an envious world? Because he has gotten more than we have. If a man
knows more than I know, don't I incline to criticise somewhat his learning? Let
a man stand in a pulpit and preach to thousands, and if I have fifteen people in
my church, and they're all asleep, don't I criticise him? We always do that to
the man who gets ahead of us. Why, the man you are criticising has one hundred
millions, and you have fifty cents, and both of you have just what you are
worth. One of the richest men in this country came into my home and sat down in
my parlor and said: "Did you see all those lies about my family in the paper?"
"Certainly I did; I knew they were lies when I saw them." "Why do they lie about
me the way they do?" "Well," I said to him, "if you will give me your check for
one hundred millions, I will take all the lies along with it." "Well," said he,
"I don't see any sense in their thus talking about my family and myself.
Conwell, tell me frankly, what do you think the American people think of me?"
"Well," said I, "they think you are the blackest-hearted villain that ever trod
the soil!" "But what can I do about it?" There is nothing he can do about it,
and yet he is one of the sweetest Christian men I ever knew. If you get a
hundred millions you will have the lies; you will be lied about, and you can
judge your success in any line by the lies that are told about you. I say that
you ought to be rich. But there are ever coming to me young men who say, "I
would like to go into business, but I cannot." "Why not?" "Because I have no
capital to begin on." Capital, capital to begin on! What! young man! Living in
Philadelphia and looking at this wealthy generation, all of whom began as poor
boys, and you want capital to begin on? It is fortunate for you that you have no
capital. I am glad you have no money. I pity a rich man's son. A rich man's son
in these days of ours occupies a very difficult position. They are to be pitied.
A rich man's son cannot know the very best things in human life. He cannot. The
statistics of Massachusetts show us that not one out of seventeen rich men's
sons ever die rich. They are raised in luxury, they die in poverty. Even if a
rich man's son retains his father's money even then he cannot know the best
things of life.
A young man in our college yonder asked me to formulate for him what I thought
was the happiest hour in a man's history, and I studied it long and came back
convinced that the happiest hour that any man ever sees in any earthly matter is
when a young man takes his bride over the threshold of the door, for the first
time, of the house he himself has earned and built, when he turns to his bride
and with an eloquence greater than any language of mine, he sayeth to his wife,
"My loved one, I earned this home myself; I earned it all. It is all mine, and I
divide it with thee." That is the grandest moment a human heart may ever see.
But a rich man's son cannot know that. He goes into a finer mansion, it may be,
but he is obliged to go through the house and say, "Mother gave me this, mother
gave me that, my mother gave me that, my mother gave me that," until his wife
wishes she had married his mother. Oh, I pity a rich man's son. I do. Until he
gets so far along in his dudeism that he gets his arms up like that and can't
get them down. Didn't you ever see any of them astray at Atlantic City? I saw
one of these scarecrows once and I never tire thinking about it. I was at
Niagara Falls lecturing, and after the lecture I went to the hotel, and when I
went up to the desk there stood there a millionaire's son from New York. He was
an indescribable specimen of anthropologic potency. He carried a gold-headed
cane under his arm—more in its head than he had in his. I do not believe I could
describe the young man if I should try. But still I must say that he wore an
eye-glass he could not see through; patent leather shoes he could not walk in,
and pants he could not sit down in—dressed like a grasshopper! Well, this human
cricket came up to the clerk's desk just as I came in. He adjusted his unseeing
eye-glass in this wise and lisped to the clerk, because it's "Hinglish, you
know," to lisp: "Thir, thir, will you have the kindness to fuhnish me with thome
papah and thome envelopehs!" The clerk measured that man quick, and he pulled
out a drawer and took some envelopes and paper and cast them across the counter
and turned away to his books. You should have seen that specimen of humanity
when the paper and envelopes came across the counter—he whose wants had always
been anticipated by servants. He adjusted his unseeing eye-glass and he yelled
after that clerk: "Come back here, thir, come right back here. Now, thir, will
you order a thervant to take that papah and thothe envelopes and carry them to
yondah dethk." Oh, the poor miserable, contemptible American monkey! He couldn't
carry paper and envelopes twenty feet. I suppose he could not get his arms down.
I have no pity for such travesties of human nature. If you have no capital, I am
glad of it. You don't need capital; you need common sense, not copper cents.
A.T. Stewart, the great princely merchant of New York, the richest man in
America in his time, was a poor boy; he had a dollar and a half and went into
the mercantile business. But he lost eighty-seven and a half cents of his first
dollar and a half because he bought some needles and thread and buttons to sell,
which people didn't want.
Are you poor? It is because you are not wanted and are left on your own hands.
There was the great lesson. Apply it whichever way you will it comes to every
single person's life, young or old. He did not know what people needed, and
consequently bought something they didn't want and had the goods left on his
hands a dead loss. A.T. Stewart learned there the great lesson of his mercantile
life and said, "I will never buy anything more until I first learn what the
people want; then I'll make the purchase." He went around to the doors and asked
them what they did want, and when he found out what they wanted, he invested his
sixty-two and a half cents and began to supply "a known demand." I care not what
your profession or occupation in life may be; I care not whether you are a
lawyer, a doctor, a housekeeper, teacher or whatever else, the principle is
precisely the same. We must know what the world needs first and then invest
ourselves to supply that need, and success is almost certain. A.T. Stewart went
on until he was worth forty millions. "Well," you will say, "a man can do that
in New York, but cannot do it here in Philadelphia." The statistics very
carefully gathered in New York in 1889 showed one hundred and seven millionaires
in the city worth over ten millions apiece. It was remarkable and people think
they must go there to get rich. Out of that one hundred and seven millionaires
only seven of them made their money in New York, and the others moved to New
York after their fortunes were made, and sixty-seven out of the remaining
hundred made their fortunes in towns of less than six thousand people, and the
richest man in the country at that time lived in a town of thirty-five hundred
inhabitants, and always lived there and never moved away. It is not so much
where you are as what you are. But at the same time if the largeness of the city
comes into the problem, then remember it is the smaller city that furnishes the
great opportunity to make the millions of money. The best illustration that I
can give is in reference to John Jacob Astor, who was a poor boy and who made
all the money of the Astor family. He made more than his successors have ever
earned, and yet he once held a mortgage on a millinery store in New York, and
because the people could not make enough money to pay the interest and the rent,
he foreclosed the mortgage and took possession of the store and went into
partnership with the man who had failed. He kept the same stock, did not give
them a dollar capital, and he left them alone and went out and sat down upon a
bench in the park. Out there on that bench in the park he had the most
important, and to my mind, the pleasantest part of that partnership business. He
was watching the ladies as they went by; and where is the man that wouldn't get
rich at that business? But when John Jacob Astor saw a lady pass, with her
shoulders back and her head up, as if she did not care if the whole world looked
on her, he studied her bonnet; and before that bonnet was out of sight he knew
the shape of the frame and the color of the trimmings, the curl of the—something
on a bonnet. Sometimes I try to describe a woman's bonnet, but it is of little
use, for it would be out of style to-morrow night. So John Jacob Astor went to
the store and said: "Now, put in the show window just such a bonnet as I
describe to you because," said he, "I have just seen a lady who likes just such
a bonnet. Do not make up any more till I come back." And he went out again and
sat on that bench in the park, and another lady of a different form and
complexion passed him with a bonnet of different shape and color, of course.
"Now," said he, "put such a bonnet as that in the show window." He didn't fill
his show window with hats and bonnets which drive people away and then sit in
the back of the store and bawl because the people go somewhere else to trade. He
didn't put a hat or bonnet in that show window the like of which he had not seen
before it was made up.
In our city especially there are great opportunities for manufacturing, and the
time has come when the line is drawn very sharply between the stockholders of
the factory and their employés. Now, friends, there has also come a discouraging
gloom upon this country and the laboring men are beginning to feel that they are
being held down by a crust over their heads through which they find it
impossible to break, and the aristocratic money-owner himself is so far above
that he will never descend to their assistance. That is the thought that is in
the minds of our people. But, friends, never in the history of our country was
there an opportunity so great for the poor man to get rich as there is now in
the city of Philadelphia. The very fact that they get discouraged is what
prevents them from getting rich. That is all there is to it. The road is open,
and let us keep it open between the poor and the rich. I know that the labor
unions have two great problems to contend with, and there is only one way to
solve them. The labor unions are doing as much to prevent its solving as are the
capitalists to-day, and there are positively two sides to it. The labor union
has two difficulties; the first one is that it began to make a labor scale for
all classes on a par, and they scale down a man that can earn five dollars a day
to two and a half a day, in order to level up to him an imbecile that cannot
earn fifty cents a day. That is one of the most dangerous and discouraging
things for the working man. He cannot get the results of his work if he do
better work or higher work or work longer; that is a dangerous thing, and in
order to get every laboring man free and every American equal to every other
American, let the laboring man ask what he is worth and get it—not let any
capitalist say to him: "You shall work for me for half of what you are worth;"
nor let any labor organization say: "You shall work for the capitalist for half
your worth." Be a man, be independent, and then shall the laboring man find the
road ever open from poverty to wealth. The other difficulty that the labor union
has to consider, and this problem they have to solve themselves, is the kind of
orators who come and talk to them about the oppressive rich. I can in my dreams
recite the oration I have heard again and again under such circumstances. My
life has been with the laboring man. I am a laboring man myself. I have often,
in their assemblies, heard the speech of the man who has been invited to address
the labor union. The man gets up before the assembled company of honest laboring
men and he begins by saying: "Oh, ye honest, industrious laboring men, who have
furnished all the capital of the world, who have built all the palaces and
constructed all the railroads and covered the ocean with her steamships. Oh, you
laboring men! You are nothing but slaves; you are ground down in the dust by the
capitalist who is gloating over you as he enjoys his beautiful estates and as he
has his banks filled with gold, and every dollar he owns is coined out of the
hearts' blood of the honest laboring man." Now, that is a lie, and you know it
is a lie; and yet that is the kind of speech that they are all the time hearing,
representing the capitalists as wicked and the laboring men so enslaved. Why,
how wrong it is! Let the man who loves his flag and believes in American
principles endeavor with all his soul to bring the capitalist and the laboring
man together until they stand side by side, and arm in arm, and work for the
common good of humanity.
He is an enemy to his country who sets capital against labor or labor against
capital.
Suppose I were to go down through this audience and ask you to introduce me to
the great inventors who live here in Philadelphia. "The inventors of
Philadelphia," you would say, "Why we don't have any in Philadelphia. It is too
slow to invent anything." But you do have just as great inventors, and they are
here in this audience, as ever invented a machine. But the probability is that
the greatest inventor to benefit the world with his discovery is some person,
perhaps some lady, who thinks she could not invent anything. Did you ever study
the history of invention and see how strange it was that the man who made the
greatest discovery did it without any previous idea that he was an inventor? Who
are the great inventors? They are persons with plain, straightforward common
sense, who saw a need in the world and immediately applied themselves to supply
that need. If you want to invent anything, don't try to find it in the wheels in
your head nor the wheels in your machine, but first find out what the people
need, and then apply yourself to that need, and this leads to invention on the
part of the people you would not dream of before. The great inventors are simply
great men; the greater the man the more simple the man; and the more simple a
machine, the more valuable it is. Did you ever know a really great man? His ways
are so simple, so common, so plain, that you think any one could do what he is
doing. So it is with the great men the world over. If you know a really great
man, a neighbor of yours, you can go right up to him and say, "How are you, Jim,
good morning, Sam." Of course you can, for they are always so simple.
When I wrote the life of General Garfield, one of his neighbors took me to his
back door, and shouted, "Jim, Jim, Jim!" and very soon "Jim" came to the door
and General Garfield let me in—one of the grandest men of our century. The great
men of the world are ever so. I was down in Virginia and went up to an
educational institution and was directed to a man who was setting out a tree. I
approached him and said, "Do you think it would be possible for me to see
General Robert E. Lee, the President of the University?" He said, "Sir, I am
General Lee." Of course, when you meet such a man, so noble a man as that, you
will find him a simple, plain man. Greatness is always just so modest and great
inventions are simple.
I asked a class in school once who were the great inventors, and a little girl
popped up and said, "Columbus." Well, now, she was not so far wrong. Columbus
bought a farm and he carried on that farm just as I carried on my father's farm.
He took a hoe and went out and sat down on a rock. But Columbus, as he sat upon
that shore and looked out upon the ocean, noticed that the ships, as they sailed
away, sank deeper into the sea the farther they went. And since that time some
other "Spanish ships" have sunk into the sea. But as Columbus noticed that the
tops of the masts dropped down out of sight, he said: "That is the way it is
with this hoe handle; if you go around this hoe handle, the farther off you go
the farther down you go. I can sail around to the East Indies." How plain it all
was. How simple the mind—majestic like the simplicity of a mountain in its
greatness. Who are the great inventors? They are ever the simple, plain,
everyday people who see the need and set about to supply it.
I was once lecturing in North Carolina, and the cashier of the bank sat directly
behind a lady who wore a very large hat. I said to that audience, "Your wealth
is too near to you; you are looking right over it." He whispered to his friend,
"Well, then, my wealth is in that hat." A little later, as he wrote me, I said,
"Wherever there is a human need there is a greater fortune than a mine can
furnish." He caught my thought, and he drew up his plan for a better hat pin
than was in the hat before him, and the pin is now being manufactured. He was
offered fifty-five thousand dollars for his patent. That man made his fortune
before he got out of that hall. This is the whole question: Do you see a need?
I remember well a man up in my native hills, a poor man, who for twenty years
was helped by the town in his poverty, who owned a wide-spreading maple tree
that covered the poor man's cottage like a benediction from on high. I remember
that tree, for in the spring—there were some roguish boys around that
neighborhood when I was young—in the spring of the year the man would put a
bucket there and the spouts to catch the maple sap, and I remember where that
bucket was; and when I was young the boys were, oh, so mean, that they went to
that tree before that man had gotten out of bed in the morning, and after he had
gone to bed at night, and drank up that sweet sap. I could swear they did it. He
didn't make a great deal of maple sugar from that tree. But one day he made the
sugar so white and crystalline that the visitor did not believe it was maple
sugar; thought maple sugar must be red or black. He said to the old man: "Why
don't you make it that way and sell it for confectionery?" The old man caught
his thought and invented the "rock maple crystal," and before that patent
expired he had ninety thousand dollars and had built a beautiful palace on the
site of that tree. After forty years owning that tree he awoke to find it had
fortunes of money indeed in it. And many of us are right by the tree that has a
fortune for us, and we own it, possess it, do what we will with it, but we do
not learn its value because we do not see the human need, and in these
discoveries and inventions this is one of the most romantic things of life.
I have received letters from all over the country and from England, where I
have lectured, saying that they have discovered this and that, and one man out
in Ohio took me through his great factories last spring, and said that they cost
him $680,000, and said he, "I was not worth a cent in the world when I heard
your lecture 'Acres of Diamonds;' but I made up my mind to stop right here and
make my fortune here, and here it is." He showed me through his unmortgaged
possessions. And this is a continual experience now as I travel through the
country, after these many years. I mention this incident, not to boast, but to
show you that you can do the same if you will.
Who are the great inventors? I remember a good illustration in a man who used to
live in East Brookfield, Mass. He was a shoemaker, and he was out of work, and
he sat around the house until his wife told him to "go out doors." And he did
what every husband is compelled by law to do—he obeyed his wife. And he went out
and sat down on an ash barrel in his back yard. Think of it! Stranded on an ash
barrel and the enemy in possession of the house! As he sat on that ash barrel,
he looked down into that little brook which ran through that back yard into the
meadows, and he saw a little trout go flashing up the stream and hiding under
the bank. I do not suppose he thought of Tennyson's beautiful poem:
"Chatter, chatter, as I flow,
To join the brimming river,
Men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever."
But as this man looked into the brook, he leaped off that ash barrel and
managed to catch the trout with his fingers, and sent it to Worcester. They
wrote back that they would give him a five dollar bill for another such trout as
that, not that it was worth that much, but they wished to help the poor man. So
this shoemaker and his wife, now perfectly united, that five dollar bill in
prospect, went out to get another trout. They went up the stream to its source
and down to the brimming river, but not another trout could they find in the
whole stream; and so they came home disconsolate and went to the minister. The
minister didn't know how trout grew, but he pointed the way. Said he, "Get Seth
Green's book, and that will give you the information you want." They did so, and
found all about the culture of trout. They found that a trout lays thirty-six
hundred eggs every year and every trout gains a quarter of a pound every year,
so that in four years a little trout will furnish four tons per annum to sell to
the market at fifty cents a pound. When they found that, they said they didn't
believe any such story as that, but if they could get five dollars apiece they
could make something. And right in that same back yard with the coal sifter up
stream and window screen down the stream, they began the culture of trout. They
afterwards moved to the Hudson, and since then he has become the authority in
the United States upon the raising of fish, and he has been next to the highest
on the United States Fish Commission in Washington. My lesson is that man's
wealth was out there in his back yard for twenty years, but he didn't see it
until his wife drove him out with a mop stick.
I remember meeting personally a poor carpenter of Hingham, Massachusetts, who
was out of work and in poverty. His wife also drove him out of doors. He sat
down on the shore and whittled a soaked shingle into a wooden chain. His
children quarreled over it in the evening, and while he was whittling a second
one, a neighbor came along and said, "Why don't you whittle toys if you can
carve like that?" He said, "I don't know what to make!" There is the whole
thing. His neighbor said to him: "Why don't you ask your own children?" Said he,
"What is the use of doing that? My children are different from other people's
children." I used to see people like that when I taught school. The next morning
when his boy came down the stairway, he said, "Sam, what do you want for a toy?"
"I want a wheelbarrow." When his little girl came down, he asked her what she
wanted, and she said, "I want a little doll's washstand, a little doll's
carriage, a little doll's umbrella," and went on with a whole lot of things that
would have taken his lifetime to supply. He consulted his own children right
there in his own house and began to whittle out toys to please them. He began
with his jack-knife, and made those unpainted Hingham toys. He is the richest
man in the entire New England States, if Mr. Lawson is to be trusted in his
statement concerning such things, and yet that man's fortune was made by
consulting his own children in his own house. You don't need to go out of your
own house to find out what to invent or what to make. I always talk too long on
this subject.
I would like to meet the great men who are here to-night. The great men! We
don't have any great men in Philadelphia. Great men! You say that they all come
from London, or San Francisco, or Rome, or Manayunk, or anywhere else but
here—anywhere else but Philadelphia—and yet, in fact, there are just as great
men in Philadelphia as in any city of its size. There are great men and women in
this audience. Great men, I have said, are very simple men. Just as many great
men here as are to be found anywhere. The greatest error in judging great men is
that we think that they always hold an office. The world knows nothing of its
greatest men. Who are the great men of the world? The young man and young woman
may well ask the question. It is not necessary that they should hold an office,
and yet that is the popular idea. That is the idea we teach now in our high
schools and common schools, that the great men of the world are those who hold
some high office, and unless we change that very soon and do away with that
prejudice, we are going to change to an empire. There is no question about it.
We must teach that men are great only on their intrinsic value, and not on the
position that they may incidentally happen to occupy. And yet, don't blame the
young men saying that they are going to be great when they get into some
official position. I ask this audience again who of you are going to be great?
Says a young man: "I am going to be great." "When are you going to be great?"
"When I am elected to some political office." Won't you learn the lesson, young
man; that it is prima facie evidence of littleness to hold public office under
our form of government? Think of it. This is a government of the people, and by
the people, and for the people, and not for the office-holder, and if the people
in this country rule as they always should rule, an office-holder is only the
servant of the people, and the Bible says that "the servant cannot be greater
than his master." The Bible says that "he that is sent cannot be greater than
him who sent him." In this country the people are the masters, and the
office-holders can never be greater than the people; they should be honest
servants of the people, but they are not our greatest men. Young man, remember
that you never heard of a great man holding any political office in this country
unless he took that office at an expense to himself. It is a loss to every great
man to take a public office in our country. Bear this in mind, young man, that
you cannot be made great by a political election.
Another young man says, "I am going to be a great man in Philadelphia some
time." "Is that so? When are you going to be great?" "When there comes another
war! When we get into difficulty with Mexico, or England, or Russia, or Japan,
or with Spain again over Cuba, or with New Jersey, I will march up to the
cannon's mouth, and amid the glistening bayonets I will tear down their flag
from its staff, and I will come home with stars on my shoulders, and hold every
office in the gift of the government, and I will be great." "No, you won't! No,
you won't; that is no evidence of true greatness, young man." But don't blame
that young man for thinking that way; that is the way he is taught in the high
school. That is the way history is taught in college. He is taught that the men
who held the office did all the fighting.
I remember we had a Peace Jubilee here in Philadelphia soon after the Spanish
war. Perhaps some of these visitors think we should not have had it until now in
Philadelphia, and as the great procession was going up Broad street I was told
that the tally-ho coach stopped right in front of my house, and on the coach was
Hobson, and all the people threw up their hats and swung their handkerchiefs,
and shouted "Hurrah for Hobson!" I would have yelled too, because he deserves
much more of his country than he has ever received. But suppose I go into the
High School to-morrow and ask, "Boys, who sunk the Merrimac?" If they answer me
"Hobson," they tell me seven-eighths of a lie—seven-eighths of a lie, because
there were eight men who sunk the Merrimac. The other seven men, by virtue of
their position, were continually exposed to the Spanish fire, while Hobson, as
an officer, might reasonably be behind the smoke-stack. Why, my friends, in this
intelligent audience gathered here to-night I do not believe I could find a
single person that can name the other seven men who were with Hobson. Why do we
teach history in that way? We ought to teach that however humble the station a
man may occupy, if he does his full duty in his place, he is just as much
entitled to the American people's honor as is a king upon a throne. We do teach
it as a mother did her little boy in New York when he said, "Mamma, what great
building is that?" "That is General Grant's tomb." "Who was General Grant?" "He
was the man who put down the rebellion." Is that the way to teach history?
Do you think we would have gained a victory if it had depended on General Grant
alone? Oh, no. Then why is there a tomb on the Hudson at all? Why, not simply
because General Grant was personally a great man himself, but that tomb is there
because he was a representative man and represented two hundred thousand men who
went down to death for their nation and many of them as great as General Grant.
That is why that beautiful tomb stands on the heights over the Hudson.
I remember an incident that will illustrate this, the only one that I can give
to-night. I am ashamed of it, but I don't dare leave it out. I close my eyes
now; I look back through the years to 1863; I can see my native town in the
Berkshire Hills, I can see that cattle-show ground filled with people; I can see
the church there and the town hall crowded, and hear bands playing, and see
flags flying and handkerchiefs streaming—well do I recall at this moment that
day. The people had turned out to receive a company of soldiers, and that
company came marching up on the Common. They had served out one term in the
Civil War and had reënlisted, and they were being received by their native
townsmen. I was but a boy, but I was captain of that company, puffed out with
pride on that day—why, a cambric needle would have burst me all to pieces. As I
marched on the Common at the head of my company, there was not a man more proud
than I. We marched into the town hall and then they seated my soldiers down in
the center of the house and I took my place down on the front seat, and then the
town officers filed through the great throng of people, who stood close and
packed in that little hall. They came up on the platform, formed a half circle
around it, and the mayor of the town, the "chairman of the Selectmen" in New
England, took his seat in the middle of that half circle. He was an old man, his
hair was gray; he never held an office before in his life. He thought that an
office was all he needed to be a truly great man, and when he came up he
adjusted his powerful spectacles and glanced calmly around the audience with
amazing dignity. Suddenly his eyes fell upon me, and then the good old man came
right forward and invited me to come up on the stand with the town officers.
Invited me up on the stand! No town officer ever took notice of me before I went
to war. Now, I should not say that. One town officer was there who advised the
teacher to "whale" me, but I mean no "honorable mention." So I was invited up on
the stand with the town officers. I took my seat and let my sword fall on the
floor, and folded my arms across my breast and waited to be received. Napoleon
the Fifth! Pride goeth before destruction and a fall. When I had gotten my seat
and all became silent through the hall, the chairman of the Selectmen arose and
came forward with great dignity to the table, and we all supposed he would
introduce the Congregational minister, who was the only orator in the town, and
who would give the oration to the returning soldiers. But, friends, you should
have seen the surprise that ran over that audience when they discovered that
this old farmer was going to deliver that oration himself. He had never made a
speech in his life before, but he fell into the same error that others have
fallen into, he seemed to think that the office would make him an orator. So he
had written out a speech and walked up and down the pasture until he had learned
it by heart and frightened the cattle, and he brought that manuscript with him,
and taking it from his pocket, he spread it carefully upon the table. Then he
adjusted his spectacles to be sure that he might see it, and walked far back on
the platform and then stepped forward like this. He must have studied the
subject much, for he assumed an elocutionary attitude; he rested heavily upon
his left heel, slightly advanced the right foot, threw back his shoulders,
opened the organs of speech, and advanced his right hand at an angle of
forty-five. As he stood in that elocutionary attitude this is just the way that
speech went, this is it precisely. Some of my friends have asked me if I do not
exaggerate it, but I could not exaggerate it. Impossible! This is the way it
went; although I am not here for the story but the lesson that is back of it:
"Fellow citizens." As soon as he heard his voice, his hand began to shake like
that, his knees began to tremble, and then he shook all over. He coughed and
choked and finally came around to look at his manuscript. Then he began again:
"Fellow citizens: We—are—we are—we are—we are—We are very happy—we are very
happy—we are very happy—to welcome back to their native town these soldiers who
have fought and bled—and come back again to their native town. We are
especially—we are especially—we are especially—we are especially pleased to see
with us to-day this young hero (that meant me)—this young hero who in
imagination (friends, remember, he said "imagination," for if he had not said
that, I would not be egotistical enough to refer to it)—this young hero who, in
imagination, we have seen leading his troops—leading—we have seen leading—we
have seen leading his troops on to the deadly breach. We have seen his
shining—his shining—we have seen his shining—we have seen his shining—his
shining sword—flashing in the sunlight as he shouted to his troops, 'Come on!'"
Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear! How little that good, old man knew about war. If he
had known anything about war, he ought to have known what any soldier in this
audience knows is true, that it is next to a crime for an officer of infantry
ever in time of danger to go ahead of his men. I, with my shining sword flashing
in the sunlight, shouting to my troops: "Come on." I never did it. Do you
suppose I would go ahead of my men to be shot in the front by the enemy and in
the back by my own men? That is no place for an officer. The place for the
officer is behind the private soldier in actual fighting. How often, as a staff
officer, I rode down the line when the Rebel cry and yell was coming out of the
woods, sweeping along over the fields, and shouted, "Officers to the rear!
Officers to the rear!" and then every officer goes behind the line of battle,
and the higher the officer's rank, the farther behind he goes. Not because he is
any the less brave, but because the laws of war require that to be done. If the
general came up on the front line and were killed you would lose your battle
anyhow, because he has the plan of the battle in his brain, and must be kept in
comparative safety. I, with my "shining sword flashing in the sunlight." Ah!
There sat in the hall that day men who had given that boy their last hard-tack,
who had carried him on their backs through deep rivers. But some were not there;
they had gone down to death for their country. The speaker mentioned them, but
they were but little noticed, and yet they had gone down to death for their
country, gone down for a cause they believed was right and still believe was
right, though I grant to the other side the same that I ask for myself. Yet
these men who had actually died for their country were little noticed, and the
hero of the hour was this boy. Why was he the hero? Simply because that man fell
into that same foolishness. This boy was an officer, and those were only private
soldiers. I learned a lesson that I will never forget. Greatness consists not in
holding some office; greatness really consists in doing some great deed with
little means, in the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private ranks of
life; that is true greatness. He who can give to this people better streets,
better homes, better schools, better churches, more religion, more of happiness,
more of God, he that can be a blessing to the community in which he lives
to-night will be great anywhere, but he who cannot be a blessing where he now
lives will never be great anywhere on the face of God's earth. "We live in
deeds, not years, in feeling, not in figures on a dial; in thoughts, not
breaths; we should count time by heart throbs, in the cause of right." Bailey
says: "He most lives who thinks most."
If you forget everything I have said to you, do not forget this, because it
contains more in two lines than all I have said. Bailey says: "He most lives who
thinks most, who feels the noblest, and who acts the best."
VICTOR HUGO
HONORE DE BALZAC
Delivered at the Funeral of Balzac, August 20, 1850.
Gentlemen: The man who now goes down into this tomb is one of those to whom
public grief pays homage.
In one day all fictions have vanished. The eye is fixed not only on the heads
that reign, but on heads that think, and the whole country is moved when one of
those heads disappears. To-day we have a people in black because of the death of
the man of talent; a nation in mourning for a man of genius.
Gentlemen, the name of Balzac will be mingled in the luminous trace our epoch
will leave across the future.
Balzac was one of that powerful generation of writers of the nineteenth century
who came after Napoleon, as the illustrious Pleiad of the seventeenth century
came after Richelieu,—as if in the development of civilization there were a law
which gives conquerors by the intellect as successors to conquerors by the
sword.
Balzac was one of the first among the greatest, one of the highest among the
best. This is not the place to tell all that constituted this splendid and
sovereign intelligence. All his books form but one book,—a book living,
luminous, profound, where one sees coming and going and marching and moving,
with I know not what of the formidable and terrible, mixed with the real, all
our contemporary civilization;—a marvelous book which the poet entitled "a
comedy" and which he could have called history; which takes all forms and all
style, which surpasses Tacitus and Suetonius; which traverses Beaumarchais and
reaches Rabelais;—a book which realizes observation and imagination, which
lavishes the true, the esoteric, the commonplace, the trivial, the material, and
which at times through all realities, swiftly and grandly rent away, allows us
all at once a glimpse of a most sombre and tragic ideal. Unknown to himself,
whether he wished it or not, whether he consented or not, the author of this
immense and strange work is one of the strong race of Revolutionist writers.
Balzac goes straight to the goal.
Body to body he seizes modern society; from all he wrests something, from these
an illusion, from those a hope; from one a catch-word, from another a mask. He
ransacked vice, he dissected passion. He searched out and sounded man, soul,
heart, entrails, brain,—the abyss that each one has within himself. And by grace
of his free and vigorous nature; by a privilege of the intellect of our time,
which, having seen revolutions face to face, can see more clearly the destiny of
humanity and comprehend Providence better,—Balzac redeemed himself smiling and
severe from those formidable studies which produced melancholy in Moliere and
misanthropy in Rousseau.
This is what he has accomplished among us, this is the work which he has left
us,—a work lofty and solid,—a monument robustly piled in layers of granite, from
the height of which hereafter his renown shall shine in splendor. Great men make
their own pedestal, the future will be answerable for the statue.
His death stupefied Paris! Only a few months ago he had come back to France.
Feeling that he was dying, he wished to see his country again, as one who would
embrace his mother on the eve of a distant voyage. His life was short, but full,
more filled with deeds than days.
Alas! this powerful worker, never fatigued, this philosopher, this thinker, this
poet, this genius, has lived among us that life of storm, of strife, of quarrels
and combats, common in all times to all great men. To-day he is at peace. He
escapes contention and hatred. On the same day he enters into glory and the
tomb. Thereafter beyond the clouds, which are above our heads, he will shine
among the stars of his country. All you who are here, are you not tempted to
envy him?
Whatever may be our grief in presence of such a loss, let us accept these
catastrophes with resignation! Let us accept in it whatever is distressing and
severe; it is good perhaps, it is necessary perhaps, in an epoch like ours, that
from time to time the great dead shall communicate to spirits devoured with
skepticism and doubt, a religious fervor. Providence knows what it does when it
puts the people face to face with the supreme mystery and when it gives them
death to reflect on,—death which is supreme equality, as it is also supreme
liberty. Providence knows what it does, since it is the greatest of all
instructors.
There can be but austere and serious thoughts in all hearts when a sublime
spirit makes its majestic entrance into another life, when one of those beings
who have long soared above the crowd on the visible wings of genius, spreading
all at once other wings which we did not see, plunges swiftly into the unknown.
No, it is not the unknown; no, I have said it on another sad occasion and I
shall repeat it to-day, it is not night, it is light. It is not the end, it is
the beginning! It is not extinction, it is eternity! Is it not true, my hearers,
such tombs as this demonstrate immortality? In presence of the illustrious dead,
we feel more distinctly the divine destiny of that intelligence which traverses
the earth to suffer and to purify itself,—which we call man.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] Saguntum was a city of Iberia (Spain) in alliance with Rome. Hannibal, in
spite of Rome's warnings in 219 B.C., laid siege to and captured it. This became
the immediate cause of the war which Rome declared against Carthage.
[38] From his speech in Washington on March 13, 1905, before the National
Congress of Mothers. Printed from a copy furnished by the president for this
collection, in response to a request.
[39] Used by permission.
[40] Reported by A. Russell Smith and Harry E. Greager. Used by permission.
On May 21, 1914, when Dr. Conwell delivered this lecture for the five thousandth
time, Mr. John Wanamaker said that if the proceeds had been put out at compound
interest the sum would aggregate eight millions of dollars. Dr. Conwell has
uniformly devoted his lecturing income to works of benevolence.
GENERAL INDEX
Names of speakers and writers referred to are set in CAPITALS. Other references
are printed in "lower case," or "small," type. Because of the large number of
fragmentary quotations made from speeches and books, no titles are indexed, but
all such material will be found indexed under the name of its author.
A
Accentuation, 150.
ADDISON, JOSEPH, 134.
ADE, GEORGE, 252.
After-Dinner Speaking, 362-370.
Analogy, 223.
Analysis, 225.
Anecdote, 251-255; 364.
Anglo-Saxon words, 338.
Antithesis, 222.
Applause, 317.
Argument, 280-294.
ARISTOTLE, 344.
Articulation, 148-149.
Association of ideas, 347, 348.
Attention, 346, 347.
Auditory images, 324, 348, 349.
B
BACON, FRANCIS, 225, 226, 362.
BAGEHOT, WALTER, 249.
BAKER, GEORGE P., 281.
BALDWIN, C.S., 16, 92.
BARRIE, JAMES M., 339-341.
BATES, ARLO, 222-223.
BEECHER, HENRY WARD, 3, 6, 31, 76-78;
113, 139, 186, 188, 223, 265, 275, 343, 346, 351-352.
BERNHARDT, SARA, 105.
BEROL, FELIX, 344.
BEVERIDGE, ALBERT, J., 22, 35, 46, 67, 107, 470-483
BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE, 97.
BLAINE, JAMES G., 368.
BONCI, SIGNOR, 124.
Books, 191-197; 207-210.
Breathing, 129-131.
Briefs, 177, 210-214, 290-294.
BRISBANE, ARTHUR, 19.
BROOKS, PHILLIPS, 356.
BROUGHAM, LORD, 338.
BRYAN, WILLIAM JENNINGS, 32, 60, 116, 157, 269, 273-277, 302, 448-464.
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, 366-367.
BURNS, ROBERT, 39.
BURROUGHS, JOHN, 116.
BYRON, LORD, 64, 87, 145, 188, 189, 199.
C
CAESAR, JULIUS, 175.
CAMPBELL, THOMAS, 121.
CARLETON, WILL, 334.
CARLYLE, THOMAS, 42, 57, 105, 109, 194, 218, 249, 277-278.
CATO, 356, 372.
CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 19.
Change of pace, 39-49.
Character, 357-358.
CHANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY, 177.
Charm, 134-144.
CHILD, RICHARD WASHBURN, 376.
CHOATE, RUFUS, 464-469.
CHURCHILL, WINSTON SPENCER, 89.
CICERO, 115.
Classification, 224.
CLEVELAND, GROVER, 367-368.
COHAN, GEORGE, 376.
COLERIDGE, S.T., 373.
COLLINS, WILKIE, 60.
COMFORT, W.L., 235.
Comparison, 19.
Conceit, 4.
Concentration, 3, 57, 80-84; 346-347; 374.
Confidence, 1-8; 184, 263-275; 350, 358-360.
Contrast, 19, 222.
Conversation, 372-377.
CONWELL, RUSSELL, 200, 483-503.
CORNWALL, BARRY, 138, 184.
COWPER, WILLIAM, 69, 121.
CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER P., 72.
CROMWELL, OLIVER, 95, 105.
Crowd, Influencing the, 262-278; 308-320.
Ctesiphon, 116.
CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM, 258-260.
D
DANA, CHARLES, 18, 200.
DANIEL, JOHN WARWICK, 369-370.
DANTE, 106.
DE AMICIS, EDMONDO, 238.
Debate, Questions for, 290, 379-382.
Definition, 222, 224.
Delivery, methods of, 171-181.
DE MAUPASSANT, GUY, 187, 339.
DEMOSTHENES, 67, 363.
DEPEW, CHAUNCEY M., 365.
DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, 255-256; 338
Description, 231-247.
DICKENS, CHARLES, 5, 234, 246, 247.
Discarding, 224.
DISRAELI, ISAAC, 101, 321.
Distinctness, 146-152.
Division, 224, 225.
E
Egotism, 376.
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, 10, 97, 103, 104, 105, 122, 144, 168, 188, 201,
231, 295, 321, 357, 362, 372.
Emphasis, 16-24; 31-32; 47, 73.
Enthusiasm, 101-109; 267, 304, 311.
Enunciation, 150-152.
EVERETT, EDWARD, 78-79.
Example, 223.
Exposition, 218-228.
Extemporaneous Speech, 179.
F
Facial Expression, 163.
Feeling, 101-109; 240, 264-265; 295-305; 312, 317, 320.
Figures of speech, 235, 277, 331.
FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE, 339.
Fluency, 115-123; 179, 184-197, 354, 373.
Force, 87-97.
G
GALTON, FRANCIS, 323.
GASKELL, MRS., 186.
Generalization, 226.
GENUNG, JOHN FRANKLIN, 55, 92, 220, 226, 281.
GEORGE, HENRY, 344.
Gesture, 150-168.
GIBBON, EDWARD, 175.
GLADSTONE, WILLIAM E., 2, 8, 124, 157, 372.
GOETHE, J.W. VON, 117, 372.
GOLDSMITH, OLIVER, 121.
GORDON, G.B., 365-366.
GOUGH, JOHN B., 188.
GRADY, HENRY W., 38, 240-242; 252-253; 268, 365, 425-438.
GRAHAM, HARRY, 255.
Gustatory images, 325, 348.
H
Habit, 190, 349.
HALLECK, FITZ-GREENE, 302.
HAMLET, 88-89; 152-153.
HANCOCK, PROF. ALBERT E., 335.
HART, J.M., 338.
HAY, JOHN, 443-448.
HEARN, LAFCADIO, 238.
HENLEY, WILLIAM ERNEST, 122, 271-272.
HENRY, O., 247, 328-329.
HENRY, PATRICK, 22, 102, 103, 107, 110-112; 201, 271, 276.
HESIOD, 146.
HILL, A.S., 92, 281.
HILLIS, NEWELL DWIGHT, 24, 32, 191-193; 273-274; 394-402.
HOAR, GEORGE, 296-297.
HOBSON, RICHMOND PEARSON, 285-286; 287-289.
HOGG, JAMES, 139.
HOLMES, G.C.V., 226.
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL, 148, 373.
HOLYOAKE, GEORGE JACOB, 280, 281.
HOMER, 146, 235.
HOUDIN, ROBERT, 350.
HUBBARD, ELBERT, 3.
HUGO, VICTOR, 107, 503-505.
Humor, 251-255; 363-365.
HUXLEY, T.H., 227.
I
Imagination, 321-333.
Imitation, 335-336.
Inflection, 69-74.
INGERSOLL, ROBERT J., 68, 175.
IRVING, WASHINGTON, 5, 235, 236, 246.
IRVING, SIR HENRY, 158.
J
JAMES, WILLIAM, 349.
JAMESON, MRS. ANNA, 69.
JONES-FOSTER, ARDENNES, 243-245.
JONSON, BEN, 343.
K
KAUFMAN, HERBERT, 42-44.
KIPLING, RUDYARD, 4, 299-300.
KIRKHAM, STANTON DAVIS, 360.
L
LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE, 339.
LEE, GERALD STANLEY, 308.
Library, Use of a, 207-210.
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, 50, 107, 166.
LINDSAY, HOWARD, 40.
LOCKE, JOHN, 188, 343.
LONGFELLOW, H.W., 117, 124, 136.
LOOMIS, CHARLES BATTELL, 365.
LOTI, PIERRE, 238.
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, 235.
M
MACAULAY, T.B., 76.
MACLAREN, ALEXANDER, 254.
MCKINLEY, WILLIAM, Last Speech, 438-442;
Tribute to, by John Hay, 443.
MASSILLON, 188.
Memory, 343-354.
MERWIN, SAMUEL, 72.
MESSAROS, WALDO, 147.
MILL, JOHN STUART, 355.
MILTON, JOHN, 137.
Monotony, Evils of, 10-12;
How to conquer, 12-14; 44.
MORLEY, JOHN, 403-410.
MOSES, 115.
Motor images, 324, 348.
MOTTE, ANTOINE, 10.
MOZLEY, JAMES, 235.
N
NAPOLEON, 13, 104, 141, 184, 321.
Narration, 249-260.
Naturalness, 14, 29, 58, 70.
Notes, see Briefs.
O
Observation, 167-168; 186-188; 206-207; 223, 227, 350.
Occasional speaking, 362-370.
Olfactory images, 325, 348.
Outline of speech, 212-214.
P
Pace, Change of, 30-49.
PAINE, THOMAS, 122.
PARKER, ALTON B., 423.
PARKER, THEODORE, 257-258.
PATCH, DAN, 2.
PAUL, 2, 107.
Pause, 55-64.
Personality, 355-360.
Persuasion, 295-307.
PHILLIPS, ARTHUR EDWARD, 227, 229.
PHILLIPS, CHARLES, 302-305.
PHILLIPS, WENDELL, 25-26; 34-35; 38, 72, 97, 99-100.
Pitch, change of, 27-35;
low, 32, 69.
PITTENGER, WILLIAM, I, 66.
Platitudes, 376, 377.
POPE, ALEXANDER, 122, 175, 231.
Posture, 165.
Practise, Necessity for, 2, 14, 118.
Precision of utterance, 146-152.
Preparation, 4-5; 179, 184-215; 362-365.
PREYER, WILHELM T., 188.
Proportion, 205.
PUTNAM, DANIEL, 80.
Q
QUINTILIAN, 344.
R
Reading, 191-197.
REDWAY, 170.
Reference to Experience, 226.
Repetition in memorizing, 348.
Reserve power, 184-197.
Right thinking, 355-360.
ROBESPIERRE, 153-155.
ROGERS, SAMUEL, 343.
ROOSEVELT, THEODORE, 275, 416-422.
RUSKIN, JOHN, 89, 90, 188.
S
SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 55.
SAVONAROLA, 158, 161.
SCALIGER, 343.
SCHAEFER, NATHAN C., 262, 355.
SCHEPPEGRELL, WILLIAM, 27.
SCHILLER, J.C.F., 117.
SCOTT, WALTER DILL, 8.
SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 271.
Self-confidence, See Confidence.
Self-consciousness, 1-8.
SEWARD, W.H., 65-68.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM, 22, 32, 82, 88-89; 122, 152-153; 161, 164, 227,
295, 302, 312-317; 321.
SHEPPARD, NATHAN, 147, 156, 170.
SIDDONS, MRS., 48, 70.
SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP, 188.
Sincerity, 109.
SMITH, F. HOPKINSON, 365.
SPENCER, HERBERT, 58, 69.
Stage fright, 1-8.
STEVENSON, R.L., 122, 196, 201, 238, 242-243; 335-336.
STORY, JOSEPH, 298.
Subject, Choosing a, 201-204.
Subjects for speeches and debates, 121-123; 379-393.
Suggestion, 262-278; 308-320.
SUNDAY, "BILLY," 90, 158.
Suspense, 59-61.
Syllogism, 286.
T
Tactile images, 325, 348.
TALMAGE, T. DEWITT, 237.
Tempo, 39-49.
TENNYSON, ALFRED, 121, 141-143.
THACKERAY, W.M., 343.
THOREAU, H.D., 188.
Thought, 184-197; 265, 347, 355-360.
THURSTON, JAMES MELLEN, 50-54; 302.
Titles, 215.
TOOMBS, ROBERT, 410-415.
TWAIN, MARK, 343, 363, 365.
V
VAN DYKE, HENRY, 365.
Visualizing, 323, 348, 349.
Vocabulary, 334-341.
Voice, 32, 124-144.
VOLTAIRE, 4.
W
WATTERSON, HENRY, 303, 402-403.
WEBSTER, DANIEL, 2, 73, 103, 109, 201, 278;
Eulogy of, by Rufus Choate, 464-469.
WEED, THURLOW, 349.
WENDELL, PROF. BARRETT, 93.
WESCOTT, JOHN W., 424-425.
WHITEFIELD, GEORGE, 161.
WHITTIER, J.G., 48.
Will power, 356-359; 373, 375.
Words, 92, 93, 336-341; 374.
Y
YOUNG, EDWARD, 90.
End of The Art of Public Speaking
by Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
*** END OF THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING ***
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