Public Speaking Part 26

6. All laws prohibiting secular employment on Sunday should be repealed.

7. The purely protective tariff should be withdrawn from goods the manufacture of which has been firmly established in this country.

8. Large incomes should be subject to a graduated income tax.

9. Employers should not be forced to recognize labor unions.

10. Immigration into the United States of persons who cannot read or write some language should be prohibited, except dependents upon such qualified entrants.

11. An amendment should be added to the Const.i.tution providing for uniform marriage and divorce laws throughout the entire country.

12. A city is the best place for a college.

13. Military training should be obligatory in all public schools.

14. Colleges and universities should reduce the attention paid to athletics.

15. The negro in the South should be disfranchised.

16. The number of Representatives in Congress should be reduced.

17. Moving pictures should be used in schools.

18. Street car systems should be owned and operated by munic.i.p.alities.

19. Education should be compulsory until the completion of high school.

20. Athletes whose grade is below 75% should be debarred from all partic.i.p.ation until the marks are raised.

21. The Federal government should own and operate the telegraph and telephone systems.

22. The state should provide pensions for indigent mothers of children below the working age.

23. The study of algebra (or some other subject) in the high school should be elective.

24 The initiative should be adopted in all states.

25. The referendum should be adopted in all states.

26. All governmental officials should be subject to recall.

27. The public should support in all ways the movement of labor to secure the closed shop system.

28. Railroad crossings should be abolished.

29. The Federal government should pa.s.s laws controlling all prices of foodstuffs.

30. A trial before a group of competent judges should be subst.i.tuted for trial by jury.

CHAPTER XI

REFUTING

Answering the Other Side. It has been said already that even in a single argumentative speech some account must be taken of the possibility among the audience of the belief in other views. A speaker must always a.s.sume that people will believe otherwise than he does.

In such cases as debate or questioning after a speech is made, this opposing side will very clearly be brought out, so that any person training for any kind of public speaking will give much attention to the contentions of others in order to strengthen his own convictions as displayed in his speeches.

A sincere thinker may believe that trial before a group of competent judges is a better procedure than trial by jury. Were he to speak upon such a proposition he would realize that he would meet at once the solid opposition of the general opinion that jury trials, sanctioned by long practice, are in some mysterious way symbolic of the liberty and equality of mankind. Before he could expect to arouse sympathetic understanding he would have to answer all the possible objections and reasons against his new scheme. This he would do by refutation, by disproving the soundness of the arguments against his scheme. He could cite the evident and recorded injustices committed by juries. He could bring before them the impossibility of securing an intelligent verdict from a group of farmers, anxious to get to their farms for harvest, sitting in a case through July, while the days pa.s.sed in lengthy examinations of witnesses--one man was on the stand eight days--and the lawyers bandied words and names like socialist, pagan, bolsheviki, anarchy, ideal republic, Aristotle, Plato, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Tolstoi, Jane Addams, Lenin. Then when he felt a.s.sured he had removed all the reasons for supporting the present jury system he could proceed to advance his own subst.i.tute.

Need and Value of Refutation. In all argumentation, therefore, refutation is valuable and necessary. By it opposing arguments are reasoned away, their real value is determined, or they are answered and demolished if they are false or faulty. To acquire any readiness as a speaker or debater a person must pay a great deal of attention to refutation. It has also an additional value. It has been stated that every argumentative speaker must study the other side of every question upon which he is to speak. One great debater declared that if he had time to study only one side of a proposition or law case he would devote that time to the other side. Study your own position from the point of view of the other side. Consider carefully what arguments that side will naturally advance. In fact, try to refute your own arguments exactly as some opponent would, or get some friend to try to refute your statements. Many a speaker has gained power in reasoning by having his views attacked by members of his family who would individually and collectively try to drive him into a corner. In actual amount, perhaps you will never deliver as much refutation of an opponent as you will conjure up in your mind against your own speeches. Perhaps, also, this great amount advanced by you in testing your own position will prevent your opponents from ever finding in your delivered arguments much against which they can pit their own powers of refutation.

In judging your own production you will have to imagine yourself on the other side, so the methods will be the same for all purposes of self-help or weakening of an opponent's views.

Contradiction Is Not Refutation. In the first place contradiction is not refutation. No unsupported fact or statement has any value in argumentation. Such expressions as "I don't believe, I don't think so, I don't agree" introduce not arguments, but personal opinions. You must, to make your refutation valuable, _prove_ your position. Never allow your attempts at refutation to descend to mere denial or quibbling. Be prepared to support, to prove everything you say.

Three Phases of Refutation. In general, refutation consists of three phases:

1. The a.n.a.lysis of the opposite side.

2. The cla.s.sification of the arguments according to importance.

3. The answering of only the strongest points.

a.n.a.lysis of Opposing Side for Accuracy. In the first a.n.a.lysis, you will probably examine the opposing statements to test their accuracy.

Mere slips, so evident that they deceive no one, you may disregard entirely, but gross error of fact or conclusion you should note and correct in unmistakably plain terms. The kind of statement which gives insufficient data should be cla.s.sed in a.n.a.lysis with this same kind of erroneous statement. A shoe dealer in arguing for increased prices might quote correctly the rising cost of materials, but if he stopped there, you in refutation should be able to show that profits had already risen to 57%, and so turn his own figures against him.

Another cla.s.s of refutation similar to this is the questioning of authorities. Something concerning this has already been said. In a recent trial a lawyer cast doubt upon the value of a pa.s.sage read from a book by declaring its author could never have written such a thing.

In refutation the opposing lawyer said, "You will find that pa.s.sage on page 253 of his _Essays and Letters."_ Public speakers, realizing that errors of statement are likely to be the first to be picked out for correction, and recognizing the damaging effect of such conviction in error of fact and testimony, are extremely careful not to render themselves liable to attack upon such points. Yet they may. We are told by Webster's biographers that in later periods of his life he was detected in errors of law in cases being argued before the court, and refuted in statement. To catch such slips requires two things of the successful speaker. He must be in possession of the facts himself. He must be mentally alert to see the falsity and know how to answer it.

Begging the Question. The expression "begging the question" is often heard as a fallacy in argument. In its simplest form it is similar to inaccurate statement, for it includes a.s.sertions introduced without proof, and the statement of things as taken for granted without attempting to prove them, yet using them to prove other statements.

Sometimes, also, a careless thinker, through an extended group of paragraphs will end by taking as proven exactly the proposition he started out to prove, when close a.n.a.lysis will show that nowhere during the discussion does he actually prove it. As this is frequent in amateur debates, students should be on their guard against it.

Ignoring the Question. The same kind of flimsy mental process results in ignoring the question. Instead of sticking closely to the proposition to be proved the speaker argues beside the point, proving not the entire proposition but merely a portion of it. Or in some manner he may s.h.i.+ft his ground and emerge, having proven the wrong point or something he did not start out to consider. An amateur theatrical producer whose playhouse had been closed by the police for violating the terms of his license started out to defend his action, but ended by proving that all men are equal. In fact he wound up by quoting the poem by Burns, "A Man's a Man for A' That." Such a s.h.i.+fting of propositions is a frequent error of speakers. It occurs so often that one might be disposed to term it a mere trick to deceive, or a clever though unscrupulous device to secure support for a weak claim. One of the first ways for the speaker to avoid it is to be able to recognize it when it occurs. One of the most quoted instances of its effective unmasking is the following by Macaulay.

The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony to character. He had so many private virtues! And had James the Second no private virtues! Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, dest.i.tute of private virtues? And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood!

We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defence is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Pet.i.tion of Right, after having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vand.y.k.e dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present generation.

Appealing to Prejudice or Pa.s.sions. The question is also ignored when the speaker appeals to the prejudices or pa.s.sions of his audience (_argumentum ad populum_). Persons of some intellect resent this as almost an insult if they are in the audience, yet it is often resorted to by speakers who would rather produce the effect they desire by the use of any methods, right or wrong. Its use in court by unscrupulous lawyers to win decisions is checked by attempts on the part of judges to counteract it in their charges to the jury, but its influence may still persist. Mark Antony in Shakespere's play, _Julius Caesar_, used it in his oration over the dead body of Caesar to further his own ends.

Taking Advantage of Ignorance. Just as a speaker may take advantage of the prejudices and pa.s.sions of an audience, so he may take advantage of their ignorance. Against the blankness of their brains he may hurl unfamiliar names to dazzle them, cite facts of all kinds to impress them, show a wide knowledge of all sorts of things, "play up to them"

in every way, until they become so impressed that they are ready to accept as truth anything he chooses to tell them. Any daily paper will provide examples of the sad results of the power of this kind of fallacious reasoning. The get-rich-quick schemes, the worthless stock deals, the patent medicine quacks, the extravagantly worded claims of new religions and faddist movements, all testify to the power this form of seemingly convincing argument has over the great ma.s.s of the ignorant.

The Fallacy of Tradition. In discussing the burden of proof it was said that such burden rests upon the advocate of change, or novel introductions, etc. This tendency of the people at large to be rather conservative in practice links with the fallacy of tradition, the belief that whatever is, is right. In many cases such a faith is worse than wrong, it is pernicious. Many of the questions concerning relations of modern society--as capital and labor--are based upon this fallacy. Henry Clay was guilty of it when he announced, "Two hundred years of legislation have sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as property." The successful way to dispose of such a fallacy is ill.u.s.trated by William Ellery Channing's treatment of this statement.

But this property, we are told, is not to be questioned on account of its long duration. "Two hundred years of legislation have sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as property." Nothing but respect for the speaker could repress criticism on this unhappy phraseology. We will trust it escaped him without thought. But to confine ourselves to the argument from duration; how obvious the reply! Is injustice changed into justice by the practice of the ages? Is my victim made a righteous prey because I have bowed him to the earth till he cannot rise? For more than two hundred years heretics were burned, and not by mobs, not by lynch law, but by the decrees of the councils, at the instigation of theologians, and with the sanction of the laws and religions of nations; and was this a reason for keeping up the fires, that they had burned two hundred years? In the Eastern world successive despots, not for two hundred years, but for twice two thousand have claimed the right of life and death over millions, and, with no law but their own will, have beheaded, bowstrung, starved, tortured unhappy men without number who have incurred their wrath; and does the lapse of so many centuries sanctify murder and ferocious power?

Attacking a Speaker's Character or Principles. Sometimes a speaker who finds himself unable to attack the truth of a proposition, or the arguments cited to support it, changes his tactics from the subject-matter to the opponent himself and delivers an attack upon his character, principles, or former beliefs and statements. This is called the _argumentum ad hominem_. In no sense is it really argument; it is irrelevant attack, and should be answered in a clear accurate demonstration of its unsuitability to the topic under consideration.