CHAPTER XV
DEBATING
Really great debaters, like the animal reconstructed, as Bret Harte relates, before “The Society on the Stanislaw,” are “extremely rare.” This is because the great debater must have a number of accomplishments any one of which requires something very closely approaching genius.
The great debater must first of all be a brilliant speaker; but he must also be a speaker of a certain kind. Many brilliant speakers are utterly helpless in debate. The most helpless of these is the speaker who is bound closely to his fully written manuscript or who departs from it only by memorizing the sentences.
A certain preacher in a double walled brick church found a chink in the inner wall just back of the pulpit. He found this crevice a convenient pigeon hole for his carefully written and always excellent sermon during the preliminary parts of the service. While the congregation sang the last verse of the hymn preceding the sermon he would draw it from its hiding place and lay it on the pulpit. One fatal Sunday he pushed it too far in and it fell between the two walls hopelessly beyond immediate recovery. His anguish during the last verse as the novelists say, “beggared description.” He read a chapter from the Bible and dismissed his flock. One cannot imagine such a speaker, brilliant as he was with his pages before him, achieving any success in debate.
The qualities of a great debater may be ranged under two heads: (1) general, (2) technical. The general qualifications must be those of a ready speaker, fully master of his subject and able to think quickly and clearly and to clothe an idea in forceful, suitable language on very short notice. The ability to detect a flaw in an opponent’s case does not consist merely in cleverness, but will depend upon the thoroughness of your studies before going on the platform.
The great debater must go to the bottom of things. It is all very well to take an opponent’s speech and reply to it point by point, even to the last detail. It is vastly better, however, if you can lay your hands on the fundamental fallacy that underlies the whole case and explode that.
I well remember my debate with Bolton Hall. Mr. Hall’s whole case rested on the theory of the existence of certain Nature-given and God-given rights of man. The apostles of the Single Tax from George down never knew and probably never will know how completely all this has been swept into the dust-bin by modern science. It was only necessary for me to demonstrate the hopelessness of Mr. Hall’s main thesis to leave him standing before the audience without so much as the possibility of a real answer.
We shall consider at some length the technical methods that make for effective debating. In my opinion, formed from my own experience, this question of methods is of the greatest importance.
The most important thing in this connection is how to make the best use of the time allowed and always know, while speaking, how much you still have left. You may look at your watch at the beginning of your speech, but once started, the brain, working at full capacity, refuses to remember, and you turn to the chairman and ask “How much time have I?” This not only wastes your time, but distracts the attention of the audience from your attack or reply. Again, the relief is only temporary, for in a few minutes you are again in the same dilemma. Then, worst of all, right in the middle of an argument, down comes the gavel, and with a lame “I thank you,” you sit down. There are men who can carry the time in their heads, but as a rule they are not good debaters, as they do so because only a part of their energies are thrown into the debate itself.