It must be remembered that often the most awful results follow some forms of persuasion, some appeals which do not aim at the higher motives but to passion and prejudice. The hateful story of many a mob shows the effect of persuasion addressed to the lowest instead of the higher instincts and emotions, but the persuasion had nothing to do with argument.
CHAPTER III
WHAT TO DEBATE
In the first place remember that you must debate something which is debatable, something which can be proved. Too many times a question is framed which could never in the reason of things be decided. For example, to refer to the Indian again, a question might be stated, “Resolved: that the treatment of the Indian by the white man has been unjust,” which could be decided after a reasonable discussion. The arguments, though general, would be of such a character that a more or less exact weighing could be had and a verdict taken. But if with the same kindly feeling for the oppressed and hatred of oppression, a question should be selected, “Resolved: that the Indian has suffered greater wrongs from the American government than has the negro,” you see, don’t you, how you could never arrive at a verdict? One side could only cite instance after instance where the Indian has suffered, and the other side could retaliate by exactly the same number of cases of wrongs the negro has suffered, and the scale would be even. Really a correct verdict could never be reached, for to be sure and certain, every wrong done to each race would have to be catalogued and weighed, and only omniscience could hope successfully to accomplish that result.
Take another illustration: “Resolved: that the works of nature are more beautiful than the works of art.” To the rainbow of the affirmative could be contrasted the electric fountain of the negative; to the Rock of Gibraltar would be offered Saint-Gaudens’ statue of Lincoln, and so on indefinitely. On the other hand you may so state your question that although the argument on both sides may consist largely of such a cataloguing of facts, those facts may so differ in their relations to the general question that one set will clearly outweigh the other. If you should suggest as a question, for example, “Resolved: that Amundson is a greater explorer than Peary,” I should say that the question is not a good one because of the suggestions I have just made; the debaters would simply balance the hardships of the Antarctic explorer against the trials of the Arctic traveler.
Now if the question is changed so that it would read, “Resolved: that the explorations of Amundson are more valuable to the world than those of Peary,” I should still say the question is bad, for the value of one ice field will simply be exchanged for that of another. But if the name of Stanley were to be substituted in the latter question for that of Amundson, so that the question would constitute a comparison of the respective values of arctic and equatorial exploration, it would open up a clear field for discussion. Whether the products of Africa are more valuable to the world than those of Greenland, whether the negroes mean more to the world than the Esquimaux, whether the scientific results are more valuable in the one case than in the other,—these propositions and others like them are open to argument and decision.
So, to use another illustration, if the question is, “Resolved: that a union of England and America would be beneficial to the world’s progress,” there is room for such clear and explicit reasoning on both sides that the arguments would be reasons and not simply a catalogue of unrelated facts.
Subjects Should Be Properly Limited.—Another rule valuable in the selection of a subject is that it should be properly limited so that too much is not attempted. This is really another way of stating the proposition that the exact boundaries of the question should be properly defined. For example, one might be greatly interested in the “Philippine question” but that as so stated could not be debated. What is the “Philippine question”? Has it to do with the broad proposition that the Anglo-Saxon race in general and that composite branch of the race residing in the United States in particular has had imposed upon it the police duty commonly regarded as the “White Man’s Burden”? Or is the question one of comparison between the respective values of life in the temperate and in the tropic zones?
Some particular branch of the question must be selected and matter outside of it rigorously put aside. If you should attempt to cover the whole subject, you could not properly discuss it in a dozen evenings, and if you should try to debate it in one evening without some restrictions, there would be such hopeless confusion that clear argument would be impossible.
Even if you get away from the general character of the subject implied in a loose statement of the question, you must still define its limits closely. For example, if your question reads, “Resolved: that the treatment of the Philippines by the United States has been unjust,” it sounds as if you had narrowed the question satisfactorily. You have taken it out of the domain of world civics and brought it home into national politics. But the question is still too indefinite. You may be talking about the original conquest of the Islands from the Spaniards, one of your partners in debate about the treatment of the Islanders themselves in the later wars, one of your opponents be speaking of the attitude of the United States toward the Islands in business and everyday life, and another of your opponents, of the alleged injustice on the part of the United States in not granting them independence. Any one of these interpretations would afford ample occupation for a whole evening, but you see that unless the question is properly restricted you would all be lost in hopeless confusion.