Instead of Preparing Oratorical Speeches, politicians prefer 'bites'

“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.