Speeches and speech-making

Preface

Have you been called on for remarks at a soldiers' reunion, a salesmen's banquet, a welcome to druggists, Masons or Maccabees; an address to the Home of the Friendless, the closing of a school term, the graduation of young doctors, lawyers, or a Sunday school picnic; a Fourth of July, Washington or Lincoln's birthday, the founding of a school or the presentation of a flag; on Memorial Day occasions, on children's day in the churches; a welcome to Sir Knights and an infinite variety of similar topics? If you have not, you have yet to run the gauntlet of a popular advocate and had better be posted in season.

The best time to prepare for it, is the earliest day possible. As a builder provides material and puts his tools in order, so you will gain by a thorough preparation. It will be too late by and by when a score of your comrades have outrun you in the arena of life and you have only criticised them — it will be too late then to start over again. You will be a stronger, braver, readier speaker to read up and enlarge your storehouse of information. To one who spurned to learn of any but old masters, Cicero and Demosthenes, Clay and Webster — and never, in fact, learned of anybody and simply threw clubs at those who made progress, we offer no encouragement. But to one who can see flowers even on thorn bushes and know real wisdom is born of struggle and experience, tnat the nearer we are

VI.

to the struggle itself, the more we will gain by its inspiration, this work may be useful.

Much of it is made up of shorthand reports, dictated to meet a demand from hundreds of hungry students that I am no longer able to supply by letter — time to rewrite being beyond command. Public speakers do not need many reasons why. They want facts, precedents, matter and inspiration. They will do their own pruning, cutting and selecting. If some young man, who has learned life's lesson by struggle, shall preserve what others have gained by like struggles, and profit by it, this may form a part of his mental bank account to add to and accumulate.

The greatest study of history is to know men. Books are what men have thought or found and had printed — no more. While you stop to criticise, are you yet perfect? As to the effect of eloquence, let me repeat what I have said once with emphasis: I have heard Gen. Butler in his powerful philippic on an Indianapolis editor, when hundreds stood upon the seats and shouted, "Hit him again ! Give it to 'im ! ! (smiting their hands together), Give it to 'im ! !" until I realized the force of "fighting 1 ' eloquence. I have heard Gough give his nineteen rewards to the faithful, looking up toward the heavens with expanded nerves, and eyes dilated, face all ablaze with magnetism, hands charged with electricity, and tones tuned with the finest melody. I have seen Benjamin F. Taylor when he marched the forces up the sides of Lookout Mountain, and pictured the battle above the clouds with lifelike energy — vu.

pictured it so graphically that we could almost hear the final shout of victory that shook the hills of Tennessee, when the boys in gray retreated from the boys in blue. I have heard the echoing shout receding over Cemetery Hill, caught up by Union forces and carried through the ranks of the entire army of the Cumberland; I saw the audience sit spellbound at the close, dismissed by a waive of the chairman's hand, so touched by the grandeur of the scene that they marched out in silence from college chapel, and I called that eloquence — but it was imaginary. I have heard Phillips describe the conduct of a heroic general till he called before us the mighty dead, like Napoleon, Wellington and Alexander, and "dipping his finger in the sunlight," write on the blue arch of Heaven the name of his brilliant hero, and I was thrilled by his graphic description, and even that was imaginary. And when a real picture came before me in a New York court room, and Beach was the champion of a wife discarded by a wealthy husband, and when I heard him rehearse her wrongs, and tell her simple story to a jury, and listened to their verdict of heavy damages, I knew, and felt, and realized the power and force of eloquence, and thought it would be instructive to repeat it, and describe it as a lesson to advocates and ambitious lawyers.

Many sentences, having application to different topics, are purposely repeated, both for emphasis and to show their varied application. Seward well said: "If one makes many speeches he repeats some sentiments, even if not in

Vlll.

the same language." But all good songs and sayings are repeated — the oftener the better, if they teach good lessons. Phillips repeated his lecture on "Lost Arts" for thirty years and pleased many thousands by it. Jefferson repeated his "Rip Van Winkle" twenty-six years in succession and Ole Bull played eighteen years on his violin before he really loved it, and then he said the very fibres of the wood, the strings and keys and bow all made music in his soul till it thrilled like a passion and moved his hearers like a song.

Detroit, June, 1895. J. W. D.

Index

A

Page

American Boy— The 3

Addresses to Societies and

Social Gatherings 63

Address to School of Industry 69 Address to Medical Students 70 Address to Retail Grocers... 91

Australia — In 151

Accused— Defending the 160

Affections— Curtis on 182

Alcohol— Ingersoll on 204

Art of Speaking 236

B

Blaine, James G 59

Books as Friends 106

Boy Lawyers 146

Bible— Mathews on 190

Beach on Beecher 193

Banquet— San Francisco 262

Bell— The Fox and the 266

O

Citizenship 35

(From a Speech by Senator Frye.)

Columbian Day 44

Cheerful Salesman— The 65

Character 110

(Extract from Bishop Newman's Address.)

Crown— The Men We 163

Commerce — Depew on 174

Crittenden on Self -Defense... 187

Commerce — Maybury on 187

Curtis on Affections 182

Capital— Speakers' 210

D

Druggists— Welcome to 88

Defending the Accused 160

Defense— The Teacher's 165

Depew on Commerce 174

Debate— Silver 196

E

Page

Elements of Happiness 101

Eloquence 239

Extraordinary— Pleading 267

(Selected.)

F

Flag— The 48

Farmer Boy— The 76

Friendship 96

Fortunes — Lawyers' 143

Fathers— In the Sight of 163

Fox and the Bell— The 266

G

Grocers— Retail— Address to.. 91

Great Speeches 148

Grain Gambling 156

Gordon's Plea for Mercy 188

Genius of Oratory— The 207

Genius of Pleasure— The 248

H

Hand— Miser's 258

I In the Sight of the Fathers.. 163 Ingersoll on Alcohol 204

K

King— A Story of 264

L

Lincoln as a Genius 12

Lincoln Election— A 33

La Fayette 54

(From a beautiful address to the Michigan Club by Henry D. Estabrook, of Omaha.)

Law— Starting in 122

Lawyers as Leaders 125

Page

Lawyers— "Wealthy 132

Lawyers Talking Too Much.. 134

Lawyer on His Merits 136

Little Things 139

Lawyers' Fortunes 143

Lawyer's Boy 146

Log Cabin Days 149

Lincoln's Art in Court 159

Lost by Latin 255

Latin— Lost by 255

Lycurgus— The Law-Giver — 260 Little Stories 263

M

McKinley— Gov. on Our National Credit 1

Make Him Our King 30

Medical Students— Address to 70

Maccabees— Welcome 84

Miscellaneous Addresses, Quotations, Etc 96

Money Making 152

Men We Crown— The 163

Maybury on Commerce 187

Mathews on the Bible 190

Marshall's Oratory 243

Miser's Hand 258

N

Newsboys— A Talk to 86

O

Orators and Oratory 112

(From Donovan's Trial Practice.)

On His Merits 136

Oratory— The Genius of 207

Orators and Oratory 222

(Selected— Modern Jury Trials.) Oratory— Marshall's 243

P

Patriotic Addresses 1

Points on Saving Money 63

Plea for Mercy— Gordon's 188

Preparation of Speeches 207

Page

Pleasure — The Genius of 248

Pinch of the Bent 256

(Story.) Pleading Extraordinary 267

(Selected.)

R

Retail Grocers— Address to 91

S Soldier's Reward— The 37

(Address to Old Soldiers.) School of Industry— Address

to 69

Stars of the Churches— The.. 73 Societies and Social Gather-;

ings— Addresses to 63

Starting in Law 122

Speeches— Great 148

Sketch— A Thrilling 150

Self-Defense— Crittenden on.. 187

Silver Debate 196

Speeches— Preparation of 207

Speakers' Capital 210

Speaking— Style of 211

Speaking— Art of 236

Short Stories 249

Story— Pinch of the Bent 256

San Francisco Banquet 262

Stories— Little 263

Story of a King 264

T

Talk to Newsboys— A 86

Talking Too Much 134

Thrilling Sketch 150

Teacher's Defense 165

The Higher— The Grander. ... 270

(Address to a High School

Graduating Class.)

\V

Welcome Maccabees 84

Welcome to Druggists 88

Well-Bought Goods 91

Wealthy Lawyers 1S2

SPEECHES AND SPEECH-MAKING.

Chapter I. Patriotic Addresses

ooy. Mckinley on our national credit— the American BOY— LINCOLN AS A GENIUS— A LINCOLN ELEC- TION—CITIZENSHIP—THE SOLDIER'S REWARD — CO- LUMBIAN DAY— THE FLAG— LA FAYETTE— INGE R SO LL NOMINATING BLAINE.

GOV. McKINLEY ON OUR NATIONAL CREDIT.

The United States need not go abroad to find purchasers for its bonds. The patriotic people of this country stand quite ready to take all that may be offered, and pay for them in as good money as the financiers of Europe. We ought to appreciate by this time that we should neither do our work nor make our loans in Europe. Let us place our options with our own capitalists, and let us place our orders with our own manufacturers who, in the past, have been quite capable to answer every need and demand of the government and of the people.

Who has questioned the good faith of the government of the United States? When did it ever fail to meet the highest requirements of national and commercial integrity? Answer me that!

Its financial honor is without taint; it has always been above and beyond suspicion.

The government faith cannot be prescribed by the language of the bond; it can neither be enhanced or abated by the mere words of the contract. Our national honor is far above the quibble of the ordinary debtor. The government has established its credit, and the highest financial standing in the world, by paying its creditors in the money, not of the contract merely, but in that money which the whole civilized world regarded as the best in existence at the time of payment.

Every obligation of the government rests upon the honor of the government, and in whatever payment the highest honor of the government suggests, in that the government has always paid and always will pay. It never took advantage of a creditor at home nor a creditor abroad. It sold its bonds during the stress of war at whatever price it could get, and when the great war ended it marched steadily up to the very highest standard of payment.

Let us provide somehow, and in some sensible, patriotic way, for the collection of enough money annually to pay all our current expenses, and let it be large enough to pay all pensions justly due our soldiers and sailors in all the wars of the Republic. Let it be enough to maintain with vigor our navy and diplomatic services and abundantly support every branch of the government, without parsimony or extravagance. If this cannot be done now — if the present Congress and administration are unable to do it — then the only thing we can do to bridge over the trouble is to borrow the money to do it. But it should be remembered that this will only be a temporary cure and provision. What we want — what we must have — is enough money to run the government, and it must be borne in mind constantly that we have the best government and highest civilization to maintain of any government and civilization of the world.

THE AMERICAN BOY.

"It is a wise man that carries his boy heart up into manhood."

The American Girl is a familiar theme. Her portrait is painted in short or, long dresses, with curious costumes and strange designs. She is seen, and known, and remembered by the masses, from the day she emerges as a sweet girl graduate, to the hour of her grander wedding march and triumphal bridal tour. She is pictured at the charity dance, and described on the burning sands of the sea shore, in the raging surf, or marching off by moonlight, leaning on the arm of a wealthy merchant, in a maiden's dream of ideal happiness — and then — and then — she is forgotten.

But the American Boy, who is he? where is he? what is he? and how does he reach the high rounds of fame's tall ladder and become rich or honored?

In early days he had one of four qualities to make him famous, either a good woodchopper, a great wrestler, a fine cradler, or an athlete. When the country was new and log cabin raisings were more frequent than league games of base ball, the woodchopper of three cords a day was known and noted for miles around his neighborhood. When barn raisings ended with a grand dinner and a hurrah, the climax was reached in a matched wrestle, where the idol of the town could throw his rival in three out of five rounds in a splendid physical contest — then he was a hero. When the wheat harvesting was done by hand, the evening story tellers doted on the four-acre-a-day cradler, and corner grocery gatherings told of the heavy lifter who could shoulder a full flour barrel.

But all of these boys have passed away. Their places are filled with fast oarsmen or curve pitchers. The scenes of amusement are moved into cities. The American boy is no longer an obscure quantity. He is a factor in society, an element of speculation — something to draw on tor amusement. The rugged labor that made Lincoln famous with the pioneers of Illinois, and fought the great battle with the Michigan wilderness and won it, is almost forgotten in the struggle for the pennant in a base ball contest, or of the labor leadership in a country that can keep its chief organizer on a salary far above the net earnings of President Washington.

The American Boy is a traveler on a fast express. If he is a printer without fortune, he can live by his wits a half year in New York, a quarter year in England, a winter in France, and a summer in Germany, a vacation in China, and a season at Salt Lake or San Francisco.

The space for the American Boy is unbounded, for the English speaking race is fast spreading over the globe, and the boy is always first in work, first in play, and first in the scenes of invention and discovery. The room in his own country gives him courage for big undertakings, and confidence to reach out after new opportunities. He is a far-seeing statesman, and an unyielding competitor.

If you take the wings of the morning and fly away to Birmingham, San Diego, Tacoma or St. Paul, even there you will find the young American merchant in all his glory. He may have bought farms in Kansas City at $50 an acre, and sold them in lots at $100 a foot, and yet be under thirty and still a millionaire, but he is a boy all the same, and is ready to greet you with a slap on the shoulder and a hint of: "Have a quail lunch, old fellow, while you tell me of the boys back in Northville." It is his boy heart carried up into manhood that cheers him. It is his hope of prosperity that promotes his progress. It is his belief in himself that animates him. It is his thinking to the front that takes him there. It is his determination to reach a front seat in life that gives him room in the box near the footlights.

The American Boy, like a poet, is born that way. There is no use of cutting patterns for him to follow. He will make patterns for himself and suited to his condition. He will see the world as it is. He does not need any Roman forums, or Grecian games to practice in. His country is his forum. He is an all-seeing, all-inhaling, all-around money-making and self-enjoying model of his own. You may preach him a sermon, or tell him a story; you may show him a play, or build him a model ; but he will hear half the sermon, see half the play, glance at the model, and make a mental improvement on the whole lot. He is a sermon. He is a play. He is a model. He makes all these trifles for himself.

What is the use of saying new things, or strange things, or funny things to an American Boy? Is he not up to every new art, strange device or funny saying the day before it was uttered, invented or related? And can't he straightway make an improvement on it? Talk to him of perfection? He sees it in a flying machine. Talk to him of motor power, and he dreams out a storage batten-; talk of the printers' art, and he invents a typesetter; and away he goes with the discovery to the ends of the earth an hour later after a patent. He beats all the news carriers, and excels all the ages as an advance agent.

The American Boy as a city builder is a marvel. If Home was not built in a day, that is no sign that another city, more modern, better lighted, with broader streets, more opera houses, grander boulevards, finer railroads and faster cable cars cannot be built in a day — -on paper! And he builds it — for he knows how to build it. An older boy might hesitate and begin to quote to his iriends the Scotch adage, "The house never costs less than the builder estimated," or "Count the cost," or some such old-fashioned notion; but while one fellow is counting the cost, the other fellow (the American Boy), is laying out a city and building it, and selling lots at a fabulous profit.

Shakespeare, the greatest star playwriter of his time, who said so much of law, medicine, love and murder, who became so elated in his art, that he called the whole world a stage and twitted every man and woman in it with being rather poor players; who told the young men how to dress well, before he had ever seen a standing paper •collar, or a red russet or patent leather shoe ; how to beware -of entrance to a quarrel (when he had never known howlittle Mrs. Prof. John L. Sullivan could pound the Boston culture all out of such a maxim); who told the boys to put money in their purses, but never played to a six-thousand-dollar house in his life, and if he Tiad seen some of the Booth, Barrett, Anderson, Langtry, or Irving-Terry fortunes, he would have opened his ^eyes wider on the taking plays of the season. Or if he had ■seen a Chicago grain dealer make a million, or a New

Yorker buy up a railroad, or followed a boodle alderman over into Canada, he would have a good many new pointers on that "money-in-your-purse" business; yes, even Shakespeare was as much behind the American Boy in knowledge of things that are, as a sail barge is behind the speed of an ocean steamer. He never struck a curve ball; never even struck a match; never saw Barnum's circus; never went up in a balloon, or slept in a palace car across the continent; or founded a western city; telephoned his dinner, or heard the new Edison doll-baby sing the touching lullaby of "Put Me in My Little Bed,"" like a modern Jennie Lind. So there's no use in looking way backward for wonders, with plenty of them in our own country. We need no ancient advisers to tell young American boys how to make up the earth into money. They know how already. They are way up in everything.

The American Boy gets married — in America; of course he does; he will live longer, better, happier, and he gets married and that's a good notion. In marriage he is a free trader. He goes where the market is full of blue-blooded women; he goes east and moves westward. Out west he is a typical Yankee, for later on in the season his fatherin-law calls out west at the ranch he has opened, and being intoxicated with the climate (climate is the biggest word in the whole western country), being made duly drunk on the climate, he invests his eastern money in western climate, where the son-in-law has the experience, and the money, with the experience soon becomes so equally divided that protection and free trade become a double blessing to the American Boy with his American bride and American father-in-law.

Does the American Boy work hard? Does he get up at 4 in the morning like a farmer, or a Polish car builder? Oh, no, not that way any longer. He is a manager this year. He worked very hard when. he started, but he got over it; he makes machines do his. heavy work lately. He invests money more judiciously and lets the other fellow do the working. It may have been well enough once to have been economical and save the pennies. Now he spends them in advertising. A country paper, a plat of a city, a big ranch in Texas, a charter for a franchise, a bank in "Cauker City;" a right of way across, a county; a township of pine timber; a five-million iron company; an oil well; a hundred schemes that men invent, and men invest in; are made to do his bidding, just as soon as he knows the ropes, for he is rich, and great, and happy, honored, and elevated because of his grasp of genius to seek and to find opportunities.

The American Boy is a wide-awake traveler. He is not a spendthrift, but his wits sharpen, his mind enlarges,, his plans expand, his courage increases with this experience. "He is a wise man who has known manymen and seen many cities." He has learned that a. home character is not enough. He needs a training outside of colleges; colleges teach how things ought to be done; experience shows exactly how they are done. Theio SPEECHES AND SPEECH-MAKING.

college graduate has had his ringers pinched just often enough to keep his eyes open. He only wishes that he had ventured more and taken more chances — been more courageous. Men must venture to make money.

"Had I bought a farm in Chicago instead of Peoria, I might be a millionaire," said a western farmer. Yes, and so you might have been to have bought in New York, Buffalo, Toledo or Detroit. And so you may be yet to buy in any growing city. But you will not. For it takes nerve to make money. It takes genius to reach greatness. It takes courage to be successful. The boy that waits is never successful. He is the hard times believer, who hopes something may turn up, who thinks to the rear, and keeps in the back seat; who has a dream of progress, but dares not enforce his ambition; who wants to marry a fortune but daren't propose — till the other boy gets his girl away.

To-day the American Boy is a moulder, or joiner; to-morrow a foreman, or master car-builder; next day he is at the head of a stove works, or car works, or owner of an air brake, making up the earth into money, with two thousand wage-workers looking up into his eyes in wonder how he got there! To him the wonder is as great as to anyone. But he had the courage to begin. The genius to plan. The perseverance to execute, and the knack of success! Every State has a hundred such instances. In Grand Rapids, Saginaw, Bay City, Detroit, Chicago and Omaha, every leading house and factory manager has worked up from the basement. To name them is to be personal, to admire them is but natural.

SPEECHES AND SPEECH-MAKING. n

Pitcarn, the air brake inventor, is a fifty millionaire.

Carnegie's auditor has an $18,000 salary.

Dr. Hussy, of steel patents, makes a quarter million a year.

But do not expect one to be everything. Not by any means. It is enough to be a man of good character — one who is proficient in some honest trade or calling, for promotion comes in the end to the deserving. He must be trusty, or he will never be trusted. He must be able to do something well, or no one can use him. He must attract attention by some act of ability. He must perform his duty well, or he will never lead an enterprise. It was Grant's victories that led Lincoln to trust him and promote him. It was Edison's skill that gave him control of telegraph capital to make up his inventions. Let us remember the Carlyle rule:

"Success in life, in anything, depends upon the number of persons that one can make himself agreeable to."

Finally, the American Boy's ambition is unbounded. For years he has been an inventor of new implements. The house and the farm, the shop and the factory, bear marks of his genius and discovery. He would raise faster horses, breed finer cattle, make safer ships, build taller blocks, run grander cars, write better books, print cheaper, larger, nicer newspapers, heat homes with gas jets, make the dolls in doll-houses to sing the babes to sleep, lay out the earth into villages, sell all the corner lots for school houses, travel, marry, go to Congress, be a merchant prince, or make himself a millionaire; but more than all, he will magnify and love his country — as the greatest and freest nation on earth!

The time was when he took sides in war; when he went out in the morning of his life — in the honeymoon of his marriage — the day after his wedding ; when he endured hardship and suffered hunger — when he reached his hands down into the horse troughs and took the coarse corn from the dumb brutes' rations, to parch it and eat it and keep from starving to death! But he will do so no longer! In the morning of his life, his country was poor, like the early days of our fathers, and now that it is richer, and prouder, he repeats the good words of his old commander, the silent soldier, General Grant, "Let us have peace ; Let us prosper." Truly let us have peace, and, by making up the earth into money, let us create prosperity. Let us distribute not grudgingly but liberally among those who created it!

LINCOLN AS A GENIUS.

For over thirty years in his lifetime, Wendell Phillips, the brilliant and distinguished Boston orator, passed over this country and spoke in different cities week after week, month after month, and year after year, on the "Lost Arts." Leaning with one arm upon the pulpit, or standing at ease, with scarcely a gesture above the forearm, he described by the hour and a half the pyramids of Egypt, the Damascus blade, the raising of mighty rocks high in air, and we listened to it, and year after year, he told the same story, with the same interest, and I have thought of all he said of the lost arts, but it was nothing in comparison with the great character that we are to consider to-night.

George Eliot tells us that there are words in describing things that pass by us like the winds, and we forget all about them, and there are other words that come to us as with friendly hands, and look upon us with kind eyes and breathe upon us with sweet breath, and come into our being, move us and thrill us like music, and then we are influenced by them, and then they mold our lives, and then they last and influence us in our whole career.

We are to consider to-night, in plain simple words, the greatest character that this country has produced in this century — without any exception whatever — a character not so learned in books as many others; not so learned as Everett or Seward or Chase, in books; but considered in another light, in the knowledge of men and events, a man wiser than either of these; for one single year of his administration was more than eight years of any college course that any man ever had in the world. Not so polished an orator, in the ordinary acceptation of the term as was Beecher, Webster, Clay or Phillips; not as we ordinarily speak of orators, but measured by a higher test than these, by the ancient test — the test that Cicero and Demosthenes gave —

U SPEECHES AND SPEECH-MAKING.

the power to mold and influence men; to make them act as he willed. Measured by this test he was a greater orator than either of these. Not so polished a man in deportment and manners as was Franklin Pierce, Charles Sumner, Conkling or Arthur, but measured by a broader test than of ordinary deportment — a gentleman. A man whom all could approach and feel at home with. A man whose heart beat alike for all mankind. A man who carried his manhood forward in all positions, under all circumstances, and who was ever true, faithful, and upright as a gentleman. By this test no one of them excelled plain Abraham Lincoln.