FOOTNOTES:
[1]This is the famous passage in which Cato intimated that Caesar was in some manner allied with the conspirators.
[2]A decree of the Senate was made in accordance with this advice.
[3]This arch, as explained in a note to Mr. Yonge’s translation, had been erected to commemorate the victory obtained by Fabius over the Allobroges; and it was erected in the Via Sacra, as Cicero mentions in his speech Pro Plancio.
CHAPTER IX
THE MODERN ORATORS
The need of orators is as great today as when John Hampden spoke against the exactions of Charles I, James Otis argued against writs of assistance, or Daniel Webster expounded the Constitution of his country. The need is here, but where are the orators? Questions of great moment now confront America and the world, but there is no Demosthenes to arouse men to the necessity of action, no Cicero to drive out the traitor Injustice, no Patrick Henry to consolidate the forces of Liberty. The power of the newspaper is great, and today it is doing noble work for progress; but this power can be used, and is being used, for evil as well as for good. A subsidized press is as dangerous as a Catiline or an Aeschines, and government by newspapers is as tyrannous as was the rule of Nero, Louis XI, or George III. The questions of the tariff, the trusts, finance, religion, education, and civic justice are burning, vital ones that closely affect the well-being of man on earth and his preparation for a larger existence in a hopeful spiritual future, and they should be plainly and honestly presented, clearly discussed, and justly settled. These results cannot be reached through papers that are owned by the great financiers and trust magnates, and where the complaints and demands of the people receive scant consideration. Wherein, then, lie the hopes of the masses? In the power of the spoken word. All great reforms, through all ages, have been brought about by the voiced thoughts of men who not only knew their rights but had the courage that gave them the ability to enforce them. A band of noble missionaries should be created, composed of men and women who not only have ideas concerning the questions of today but who know how to express those ideas by word of mouth.
The eighteenth century produced oratorical giants that were undoubtedly equal in many cases to the orators of Greece and Rome in their palmiest days. Such men as the Earl of Chatham, Charles James Fox, Henry Grattan, Lord Brougham, Thomas Erskine, and William C. Plunket of Great Britain, and James Otis, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee of America, compare favorably with any group of ancient orators existing within a like period of time; while in behalf of the nineteenth century, America boasts of Pinckney, Prentiss, Wirt, Clay, Calhoun, Everett, Choate, Phillips, Lincoln, and Webster, and Great Britain points to Gladstone, Cobden, Curran, O’Connell, and Bright. The great rhetorician Burke is not placed among the foremost orators for the reason that he was a great constructor of speeches but not equally great in the art of delivery. His speeches are masterpieces of composition, and live today as such, but he was a poor speaker, and consequently should not be called an orator, because an orator, in the true sense of the word, is primarily a speaker, whereas Burke’s genius consisted of his masterly logic and his marvellous power of composition.
Today, America has many beautiful writers and clever constructors of speeches, but not one really great orator. Theodore Roosevelt and William J. Bryan are two representatives of the best this country can offer in the way of orators, but neither of them measures up to the standard of Edward Everett, Wendell Phillips, or Daniel Webster. The main reason for the dearth of real orators is the lack of training in the art of delivery. Much attention is given to gaining a knowledge of the matter that is to be spoken, but little consideration is given to the delivery of that matter to the listener after once it has been gathered by the speaker. It is unfortunate that men like John Mitchell and Dr. Washington Gladden, who are standing up so nobly for the rights of labor, should be poorly equipped as speakers. Both these men possess noble thoughts which read impressively, but, when spoken, lack much force and power, on account of the poor delivery.
This point can be illustrated further by citing the manner and delivery of two men well known to the public of today—Andrew Carnegie and John H. Finley. Both have done considerable public speaking, and one is the president of a college.