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

      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:

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

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

      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