“The Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches”
Edited by Brian MacArthur, Revised Edition, 1999
The latter half of the 20th century was marked by the advances of mass communications, thanks to ever modernizing satellite facilities and the fire of the entrepreneurial energy of media moguls. No wonder, mass media have deeply altered the way we work, create, play – or pray. Broadcast media, particularly, have exerted profound influence on a well-loved art and passion: oratory. Some say, media’s pervasiveness – or invasiveness – is good. Others say it’s bad.
Peggy Noonan, speech writer of former American President Ronald Reagan, said that media are responsible for oratory’s decline: “The irony of modern speeches is that, as our ability to disseminate them has exploded, their quality has declined.” Instead of concentrating on coherent speech, Ms. Noonan said, speakers pepper their talk with sound bites demanded by television.
But, Brian MacArthur, in the introduction of his anthology – Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches -- said: “Orators have adapted to television, and television has magnified the power of oratory…Speeches can now be broadcast live round the world, as on such memorable occasions as John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis, Nelson Mandela on leaving jail after twenty-seven years, or Earl Spencer delivering his philippic over the catafalque of his sister Diana, Princess of Wales, that probably had the largest audience in history.”
The book, which covers the entire sweep of about 160 memorable speeches in the 20th century, gives us readers a double treat: First, each selected speech transports us to the mood of an era, listening to words that moved crowds to action or to tears; second, background information by the author gives us insight into the increasing role and power of radio and television'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=radio%20and%20television">radio and television in amplifying the reach and impact of the speech.
At the dawn of the 20th century, public speaking was limited by time and space. Imagine Theodore Roosevelt preaching the doctrine of “the strenuous life” in 1899 from an elevated stage to a modestly big crowd. Or, Emmeline Pankhurst, the British forerunner of the women’s movement campaigning -- at times on a stretcher -- to give the distaff side the right to vote in 1908 to a disbelieving crowd.
The forties came – announced by the distant drums of war. Radio in its primitive form became handy to the “giants” of the war years. Winston Churchill used radio with his droning voice to tell British air fighters that this was their “finest hour” – and so fortified the will of England against the unforgiving attacks of the Nazis. Franklin D. Roosevelt broadcast his “fireside chats” about the increasing role of America in the war against the Axis powers – one of which was his “arsenal for democracy” speech. And then, their chief antagonist, the unlamented Adolf Hitler, was issuing dire warnings, saying his “patience is now at an end” to a crowd seduced by a romanticized view of war.
Peace returned in the fifties, and the world was ready to savor peacetime preoccupations like recognizing outstanding works of literature – or hatching a Marxist revolution. In 1950, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to novelist William Faulkner in 1950, whose acceptance speech has become a fine rhetorical specimen for astonishing insight into the uniqueness of man. These lines from Faulkner still ring true today: “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.”
In 1953, a Cuban lawyer, Fidel Castro, prepared a speech from his prison cell, declaring before his accusers: “When men carry the same ideals in their hearts, nothing can isolate them – neither prison walls nor the sod of cemeteries.” The rest is history for Cuba, where rebel became ruler of the most durable Marxist government of our time.
The turbulent sixties came, and with them outstanding personalities like John F. Kennedy, whose inaugural address in 1961 had gone down in history as one of the best in all the world for its syntax, cadence and other rhetorical tools. The book tells us that one tool used by his speech writer, Theodore Sorensen, was “contrapuntalism,” as in “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” Television and radio broadcast this rhetorical classic around the world. A new generation for media-driven speeches has begun.
The elegance of Kennedy was matched by the passion of Martin Luther King in his famous speech, “I Have a Dream,” delivered at the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. in August 1963 before a crowd of 210,000 civil rights marchers and advocates. The Reverend King spoke for millions of Negro slaves “who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice,” proving the power of Biblical rhythm and metaphor, leading MacArthur to say of King: “He has made a mastery of the spoken word the servant of his cause.”
Thanks to communication technology, the pieces of Kennedy and King are now immortalized in videotapes. Note that three months after King delivered his speech, Kennedy was felled by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas, Texas, in November 1963 -- thrusting Lyndon B. Johnson into the limelight to fit the Presidential shoes and to deliver an inaugural speech written in only one week. He began with these pained lines: “All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today.”
Starting a war, defending the peace, pushing women’s rights – saying hello to a leadership role and bidding goodbye – these are the stuff of the speeches of the last century. Speaking of goodbyes, this book has printed for us the tearful farewell speech before the White House staff of Richard Nixon, who resigned as President of the United States. Nixon said: “Greatness comes, and you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes, because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.”
With that speech, history looks more kindly now at Mr. Nixon -- inspite of Watergate. Indeed, seeing the entire vista of human history and realizing that life is short can imbue a leader with a certain wisdom that transcends things ephemeral. It is wishful thinking, but another President, embroiled in something that sounds like “Juetengate,” must opt for a gentler judgment by history.
Sunday, October 29, 2000
Sunday, October 01, 2000
Words of Eloquence for that decisive Speech
“Historic Speeches”
Edited by Brian MacArthur
Penguin Books
A book on speeches is not only for political leaders and their speechwriters – because that would limit interest in the art of eloquence to a very limited few. An anthology of classics in public speaking should also be available to top and rising business and organizational leaders. Wherever one needs to persuade people to head in one direction or to bring them to a decisive moment, one needs a good speech.
This book, “The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches,” caught my fancy in Sydney a month ago and – with it – my last twenty Australian dollars. Like some of you, I have been collecting books on speeches, realizing that it is the best way to be transported into the eras that we only learn about in history books. And , invariably, we come away convinced that history, indeed, is human history. And history is made, not only by men of action but men of thought and eloquence. In fact, the latter endure even more. From Ancient Greece, for example, we remember Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Demosthenes. Of warriors, the most famous is only Alexander the Great of Macedonia. The rest belong to Greek mythology, not history.
In the book’s introduction, the author highlights the power of words: “When Demosthenes spoke, he roused the Athenians to march on Philip of Macedonia. When Cicero spoke, even Caesar trembled – and only when Demosthenes and Cicero were silenced did despotism triumph in Greece and Rome. When Queen Elizabeth I spoke, men bowed at her knees. Yet when John Pym raised the ‘cry of England,’ a king lost his head. When James Otis and Andrew Hamilton and John Hancock defied the British colonialists, they raised the flag of American independence.”
This book has managed to offer the reader a total of 162 speeches, mostly great portions from overly long speeches and full reprints for notably short pieces.
You can begin with “The Ancient Times,” featuring Grecian and Roman orators, Moses, Jesus of Nazareth and Muhammad. One realizes that, shorn of any religious significance, Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” truly stands out with its simplicity, depth and distilled purity. Well, divinity, as we know, has something to do it. While the rest of the speeches have remained the handiwork of humans, albeit often showing Divine spark.
The reader can move on to the speeches of “Commoners and Kings,” harking back to the times when royalty held sway and, subsequently, when commoners gradually took power. Interesting is the speech of Queen Elizabeth, titled “To Be a King,” before a genuflecting throng. Instructive is the eloquent denunciation of John Pym, when he accused the Earl of Strafford of treason and other crimes. Pym’s line, “He should perish by the justice of the law which he would have subverted,” resulted in the beheading of Strafford before a crowd of 200,000. Read the speech and reflect: Do you think this line should have been applied to those who subverted our laws?
You move on to the chapter on “Birth of the United States,” featuring famous Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty, or give me death,” and the not-so-famous, “I agree to this Constitution with all its faults” by Benjamin Franklin. History was being shaped. While Americans roused their compatriots on American soil, far-seeing English parliamentarians in Great Britain, like Edmund Burke, spoke of the path of peace and of giving Americans a voice in the English parliament. Shades of the earlier efforts of our leaders seeking Filipino representation in the Spanish Cortes! As history would have it, Burke’s resolution was defeated – leading to inevitable war. The hawks outnumbered the doves. History repeats itself – many times.
A chapter, “The Age of Lincoln,” naturally features Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, now a classic and required memory work in many public speaking classrooms. The editor illuminates that historic moment when mild-mannered Lincoln spoke after a powerful and florid two-hour oration of the celebrated orator of the time Edward Everett.
Here is his account: “Everett’s florid speech is forgotten. Lincoln spoke 270 words in about three minutes, interrupted by applause five times, and made the greatest and noblest speech of modern times, a speech that stands comparison with the Sermon on the Mount or the funeral oration of Pericles.” And, contrary to a common notion, Lincoln’s address “was certainly not written on the back of the envelope,” but drafted and re-drafted right up to the morning of the event.
The book’s final two chapters were, first, devoted to “Women’ Liberation,” revealing to us that it is not the sole domain of Betty Friedan but a distinguished company of courageous women in history.
The onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href=" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" si="'22&k=" onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href=" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" si="'22&k=" style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends" onmouseover="window.status= style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends" onmouseover="window.status='book ends'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">book ends'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">book ends'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends">book ends'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends"book ends with “A Century of War and Revolution,” giving us Lenin who, it turned out, gave his incendiary speeches in installments, interrupted by roars of approval – and which forever changed Russian political life. And then you have ample time to listen to Winston Churchill, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Vaclav Havel and Nelson Mandela. (These men of eloquence will be a subject of another book review – Brian MacArthur’s companion anthology: “The Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches”.)
From ancient history to recent ones, from the past to the evolving present, speeches will be delivered by political leaders. Executives in business organizations should, too – and should even learn a lesson or two from the tools of rhetoric effectively used by political leaders through centuries. Nothing much has changed. Followers are moved by thoughtfully, carefully and effectively delivered speeches – anywhere. It is hoped that, with this anthology, business executives will realize they should craft a speech beyond the jargon of business or the workaday tone of office memoranda.
Edited by Brian MacArthur
Penguin Books
A book on speeches is not only for political leaders and their speechwriters – because that would limit interest in the art of eloquence to a very limited few. An anthology of classics in public speaking should also be available to top and rising business and organizational leaders. Wherever one needs to persuade people to head in one direction or to bring them to a decisive moment, one needs a good speech.
This book, “The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches,” caught my fancy in Sydney a month ago and – with it – my last twenty Australian dollars. Like some of you, I have been collecting books on speeches, realizing that it is the best way to be transported into the eras that we only learn about in history books. And , invariably, we come away convinced that history, indeed, is human history. And history is made, not only by men of action but men of thought and eloquence. In fact, the latter endure even more. From Ancient Greece, for example, we remember Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Demosthenes. Of warriors, the most famous is only Alexander the Great of Macedonia. The rest belong to Greek mythology, not history.
In the book’s introduction, the author highlights the power of words: “When Demosthenes spoke, he roused the Athenians to march on Philip of Macedonia. When Cicero spoke, even Caesar trembled – and only when Demosthenes and Cicero were silenced did despotism triumph in Greece and Rome. When Queen Elizabeth I spoke, men bowed at her knees. Yet when John Pym raised the ‘cry of England,’ a king lost his head. When James Otis and Andrew Hamilton and John Hancock defied the British colonialists, they raised the flag of American independence.”
This book has managed to offer the reader a total of 162 speeches, mostly great portions from overly long speeches and full reprints for notably short pieces.
You can begin with “The Ancient Times,” featuring Grecian and Roman orators, Moses, Jesus of Nazareth and Muhammad. One realizes that, shorn of any religious significance, Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” truly stands out with its simplicity, depth and distilled purity. Well, divinity, as we know, has something to do it. While the rest of the speeches have remained the handiwork of humans, albeit often showing Divine spark.
The reader can move on to the speeches of “Commoners and Kings,” harking back to the times when royalty held sway and, subsequently, when commoners gradually took power. Interesting is the speech of Queen Elizabeth, titled “To Be a King,” before a genuflecting throng. Instructive is the eloquent denunciation of John Pym, when he accused the Earl of Strafford of treason and other crimes. Pym’s line, “He should perish by the justice of the law which he would have subverted,” resulted in the beheading of Strafford before a crowd of 200,000. Read the speech and reflect: Do you think this line should have been applied to those who subverted our laws?
You move on to the chapter on “Birth of the United States,” featuring famous Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty, or give me death,” and the not-so-famous, “I agree to this Constitution with all its faults” by Benjamin Franklin. History was being shaped. While Americans roused their compatriots on American soil, far-seeing English parliamentarians in Great Britain, like Edmund Burke, spoke of the path of peace and of giving Americans a voice in the English parliament. Shades of the earlier efforts of our leaders seeking Filipino representation in the Spanish Cortes! As history would have it, Burke’s resolution was defeated – leading to inevitable war. The hawks outnumbered the doves. History repeats itself – many times.
A chapter, “The Age of Lincoln,” naturally features Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, now a classic and required memory work in many public speaking classrooms. The editor illuminates that historic moment when mild-mannered Lincoln spoke after a powerful and florid two-hour oration of the celebrated orator of the time Edward Everett.
Here is his account: “Everett’s florid speech is forgotten. Lincoln spoke 270 words in about three minutes, interrupted by applause five times, and made the greatest and noblest speech of modern times, a speech that stands comparison with the Sermon on the Mount or the funeral oration of Pericles.” And, contrary to a common notion, Lincoln’s address “was certainly not written on the back of the envelope,” but drafted and re-drafted right up to the morning of the event.
The book’s final two chapters were, first, devoted to “Women’ Liberation,” revealing to us that it is not the sole domain of Betty Friedan but a distinguished company of courageous women in history.
The onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href=" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" si="'22&k=" onmouseover="window.status=' style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href=" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" si="'22&k=" style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends" onmouseover="window.status= style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends" onmouseover="window.status='book ends'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">book ends'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">book ends'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends">book ends'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=book%20ends"book ends with “A Century of War and Revolution,” giving us Lenin who, it turned out, gave his incendiary speeches in installments, interrupted by roars of approval – and which forever changed Russian political life. And then you have ample time to listen to Winston Churchill, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Vaclav Havel and Nelson Mandela. (These men of eloquence will be a subject of another book review – Brian MacArthur’s companion anthology: “The Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches”.)
From ancient history to recent ones, from the past to the evolving present, speeches will be delivered by political leaders. Executives in business organizations should, too – and should even learn a lesson or two from the tools of rhetoric effectively used by political leaders through centuries. Nothing much has changed. Followers are moved by thoughtfully, carefully and effectively delivered speeches – anywhere. It is hoped that, with this anthology, business executives will realize they should craft a speech beyond the jargon of business or the workaday tone of office memoranda.
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