J. BERG ESENWEIN DALE CARNAGEY - THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

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:

[Footnote 2: Those who sat in the pit or the parquet.]

[Footnote 3: _Hamlet_, Act III, Scene 2.]

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