Public Speaking Part 20

New York City has just resolved to build with its own funds a Coney Island bathhouse, and has on file an offer to build it with private money at a cost of $300,000, with a guarantee of 15-cent baths. Accepting no responsibility for the merits of the private bidder's proposal, it does not appear likely that the city can supply cheaper baths or give more satisfaction to bathers than a management whose profits were related to its efforts to please patrons. On the other hand, it is sure that the city's financial embarra.s.sment is due to supplying many privileges at the cost of the taxpayers, which might have been supplied both more cheaply and better by private enterprise with profit than by the city without profit, and with the use of ill-spared public funds.

New York does not stand alone in these misadventures, which are warnings against trading by either local or national government. Take, for example, the manner in which the army is disposing of its surplus blankets, as reported from Boston. A Chicago firm which wished to bid was permitted to inspect three samples of varying grades, but a guarantee that the goods sold would correspond to the samples was refused.

The bales could neither be opened nor allowed to be opened, nor would information be given whether the blankets in the bales were cotton, wool, or mixed, whether single or double, whether bed blankets or regulation army blankets. The likelihood that the Government will get the worth of its blankets is small. There may be unknown reasons for such uncommercial procedure, but what shall be said of the fact that at the same time that these blankets are being sold the Interior Department is asking for bids to supply 10,000 blankets for the Indians? The reason for buying more when there is an embarra.s.sing over-supply is that the specifications call for the words "Interior Department" to be woven into the blankets. To an outsider it would seem that the words might be indelibly stamped on the old blankets of similar description, and that the departure from custom would be better than the loss on the old blankets and the increased expenditure for the new blankets.

The reason for mentioning such incidents is that there are so many more of which the public never hears. Their combined educative effect would be great, but it is wasted without publicity. Since the public is not unanimous against public owners.h.i.+p and operation, there must be a considerable number of persons who are proof against anything but a catastrophe greater than the prostration of the railway and utility industries. That is an expansive way of education, but perhaps Dr. Cooley, Dean of the University of Michigan, is right in his view that the method is necessary to prevent a greater calamity by persistence in the error.

_New York Times_, July 21, 1919

2. Fourscore and seven years ago our Fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived or so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate--we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so n.o.bly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under G.o.d, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: _Gettysburg Address_, 1865

3. Every thoughtful and unprejudiced mind must see that such an evil as slavery will yield only to the most radical treatment. If you consider the work we have to do, you will not think us needlessly aggressive, or that we dig down unnecessarily deep in laying the foundations of our enterprise. A money power of two thousand millions of dollars, as the prices of slaves now range, held by a small body of able and desperate men; that body raised into a political aristocracy by special const.i.tutional provisions; cotton, the product of slave labor, forming the basis of our whole foreign commerce, and the commercial cla.s.s thus subsidized; the press bought up, the pulpit reduced to va.s.salage, the heart of the common people chilled by a bitter prejudice against the black race; our leading men bribed, by ambition, either to silence or open hostility;--in such a land, on what shall an Abolitionist rely? On a few cold prayers, mere lip-service, and never from the heart? On a church resolution, hidden often in its records, and meant only as a decent cover for servility in daily practice? On political parties, with their superficial influence at best, and seeking ordinarily only to use existing prejudices to the best advantage? Slavery has deeper root here than any aristocratic inst.i.tution has in Europe; and politics is but the common pulse-beat, of which revolution is the fever-spasm. Yet we have seen European aristocracy survive storms which seemed to reach down to the primal strata of European life. Shall we, then, trust to mere politics, where even revolution has failed? How shall the stream rise above its fountain? Where shall our church organizations or parties get strength to attack their great parent and moulder, the slave power? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? The old jest of one who tried to lift himself in his own basket, is but a tame picture of the man who imagines that, by working solely through existing sects and parties, he can destroy slavery.

Mechanics say nothing, but an earthquake strong enough to move all Egypt can bring down the pyramids.

Experience has confirmed these views. The Abolitionists who have acted on them have a "short method" with all unbelievers. They have but to point to their own success, in contrast with every other man's failure. To waken the nation to its real state, and chain it to the consideration of this one duty, is half the work. So much have we done. Slavery has been made the question of this generation. To startle the South to madness, so that every step she takes, in her blindness, is one step more toward ruin, is much. This we have done. Witness Texas and the Fugitive Slave Law.

WENDELL PHILLIPS: _The Abolition Movement_, 1853

4. Until just a few years ago flying was popularly regarded as a dangerous hobby and comparatively few had faith in its practical purposes. But the phenomenal evolutions of the aircraft industry during the war brought progress which would otherwise have required a span of years. With the cessation of hostilities considerable attention has been diverted to the commercial uses of aircraft, which may conveniently be cla.s.sified as mail-and pa.s.senger-service.

Men who first ventured the prediction that postal and express matter would one day be carried through the air were branded as dreamers. Parts of that dream became a reality during 1918, and a more extensive aerial-mail program will be adopted this year. The dispatch with which important communications and parcels are delivered between large cities has firmly established its need.

Large pa.s.senger-carrying aircraft are now receiving p.r.o.nounced attention. Lately developed by the Navy is a flying-boat having a wing area of 2,400 square feet, equipped with three Liberty motors and weighing 22,000 pounds with a full load. It is the largest seaplane in the world, and on a recent test-trip from Virginia to New York carried fifty-one pa.s.sengers. At the present moment the public is awaiting the thrilling details of the first flight between Europe and America, which has just occurred as a result of the keen international rivalry involved between the various entrants.

The British are now constructing a super-triplane fitted with six 500 horse-power engines. Originally intended to carry 10,000 pounds of bombs and a crew of eight over a distance of 1,200 miles, the converted machine is claimed to be able to carry approximately one hundred pa.s.sengers. It has a wing span of 141 feet and a fuselage length of 85 feet.

What about the power plants of the future aircraft? Will the internal-combustion engine continue to reign supreme, or will increasing power demands of the huge planes to come lead to the development of suitable steam-engines? Will the use of petroleum continue to be one of the triumphs of aviation, or will the time come when subst.i.tutes may be successfully utilized?

For aerial motive-power, the princ.i.p.al requirements are: great power for weight with a fairly high factor of safety, compactness, reliability of operation under flying conditions, and safety from fire. Bulk and weight of steam-driven equipment apparently impose severe restrictions upon its practical development for present aircraft purposes, but who is willing to cla.s.sify its future use as an absurdity?

Steam operation in small model airplanes is no innovation.

Langley, in 1891-1895, built four model airplanes, one driven by carbonic-acid gas and three by steam-engines. One of the steam-driven models weighed thirty pounds, and on one occasion flew a distance of about three thousand feet. In 1913 an Englishman constructed a power plant weighing about two pounds which consisted of a flash boiler and single-acting engine. This unit employed benzolin, impure benzine, as fuel, and propelled a model plane weighing five pounds.

_Power Plant Engineering_, Chicago, June 1, 1919

Making a Brief. The next step after making outlines or briefs of material already organized is to make your own from material you gather. Speeches you have already prepared or considered as fit for presentation will supply you with ideas if you cannot work up new material in a short time. At first you will be more concerned with the form than the meaning of the entries, but even from the first you should consider the facts or opinions for which each topic or statement stands. Weigh its importance in the general scheme of details. Consider carefully its suitability for the audience who may be supposed to hear the finished speech. Discard the inappropriate.

Replace the weak. Improve the indefinite. Be sure your examples and ill.u.s.trations are apt.

Be wary about statistics. In listening to an address many people begin to distrust as soon as figures are mentioned. Statistics will ill.u.s.trate and prove a.s.sertions, but they must be used judiciously. Do not use too many statistics. Never be too detailed. In a speech, $4,000,000 sounds more impressive than $4,232,196.96. Use round numbers. Never let them stand alone. Show their relations.h.i.+p. Burke quotes exact amounts to show the growth of the commerce of Pennsylvania, but he adds that it had increased fifty fold. A hearer will forget the numbers; he will remember the fact.

Similar reasons will warn you concerning the use of too many dates.

They can be easily avoided by showing lapses of time--by saying, "fifty years later," or "when he was forty-six years old," or "this condition was endured only a score of months."

The chapters on introductions, conclusions, and planning material will have suggested certain orders for your briefs. Glance back at them for hints before you attempt to make the general scheme. Let two factors determine your resultant development--the nature of the material itself and the effect you want to produce.

In argumentative speeches a usual, as well as excellent, order is this:

1. Origin of the question. The immediate cause for discussion.

2. History of the question.

3. Definition of terms.

4. Main arguments.

5. Conclusion.

Why is the proposition worth discussing at this present time? Why do you choose it? Why is it timely? What is its importance? Why is a settlement needed? Any of these would fall under the first heading.

Has the matter engaged attention prior to the present? Has it changed?

Was any settlement ever attempted? What was its result?

Are any of the words and phrases used likely to be misunderstood? Are any used in special senses? Do all people accept the same meaning?

Good ill.u.s.trations of this last are the ideas attached to _socialism_, _anarchist_, _soviet_, _union_.

To ill.u.s.trate: the question of woman suffrage was brought into public interest once more by the advance woman has made in all walks of life and by the needs and lessons of the great war. To make clear how its importance had increased a speaker might trace its history from its first inception. As applied to women, what does "suffrage" mean exactly--the right to vote in all elections, or only in certain ones?

Does it carry with it the right to hold office? Would the voting qualifications be the same for women as for men? Then would follow the arguments.

How could this scheme be used for a discussion of the Monroe Doctrine?

For higher education? For education for girls? For child working laws?

For a league of nations? For admitting Asiatic laborers to the United States? For advocating the study of the sciences? For urging men to become farmers? For predicting aerial pa.s.senger service? For a scholars.h.i.+p qualification in athletics? For abolis.h.i.+ng railroad grade crossings? For equal wages for men and women?

EXERCISES

Make the completed brief for one or more of the preceding.

Briefs should be made for propositions selected from the following list.

1. The President of the United States should be elected by the direct vote of the people.

2. The States should limit the right of suffrage to persons who can read and write.

3. The President of the United States should be elected for a term of seven years, and be ineligible to reelection.

4. A great nation should be made the mandatory over an inferior people.

5. Students should be allowed school credit for outside reading in connection with a.s.signed work, or for editing of school papers, or for partic.i.p.ation in dramatic performances.

6. This state should adopt the "short ballot."

7. The present rules of football are unsatisfactory.