Practical English Composition Part 14

CHAPTER XI

REPORTING SPEECHES

"Words are like leaves, and where they most abound Much fruit of sense beneath is seldom found."

POPE.

I. a.s.signment

Report a speech, lecture, or sermon in two hundred words.

II. Explanation

It is easy to obtain the material for this a.s.signment because one has only to attend, listen, and take notes. Indeed, in some instances, speakers are ready and willing to furnish reporters with copies of what they intend to say. The part of the task which requires skill is what is known as boiling down, condensing, or reducing the report to the dimensions required by editors. This involves: first and foremost, a determination not to misrepresent in any way what is said; second, the ability to select the essential points; third, an eye for such detail as may be used to spice the report without making it too long. Too many reporters, in their anxiety to make a good story, observe only the last of these requirements, and in consequence are unjust to speakers. In the arrangement of the material, it is well to begin with a statement of the main point of the speech and to follow it with such details as s.p.a.ce permits.

III. Speech Construction

Every good speech, however long, has only one main point. Its details serve only to ill.u.s.trate and enforce this central theme. The reporter needs to bear this in mind. He must discover the central point, or thesis, before he can write a good report. A knowledge of the principles underlying speech construction is therefore of great value to him, even if not essential. Fortunately, these are comparatively simple. Nearly every good speech, from Demosthenes down, has consisted of the following parts in the following order:

1. _Exordium, or Introduction._ A bridge from the audience to the subject, designed to conciliate and interest.

2. _Status, or Plan._ An outline of what the speaker intends to say.

3. _Statement of Facts._ A presentation of the situation on which the orator intends to found his argument.

4. _Argument._ Here is presented in detail the plan or conclusion which the speaker has in mind, with the reasons in favor of it.

5. _Refutation._ A reply to objections which have been or may be urged against the plan.

6. _Peroration, or Conclusion._ This may be a summary of the speech, a good-humored bit of color, a picture of the benefits to be derived from the adoption of the orator's plan, or an impa.s.sioned appeal for action.

Sermons and political speeches are usually argumentative and hence of this type. Sometimes, however, an orator and his theme are so well known that he omits all except 3 and 4; occasionally all except 4 disappear.

Lectures often contain only 3, as their purpose is only to convey information. Usually, however, a speech without an argument is like a gas engine without gas; it has no "go." The speech that does not aim to get people to do something is usually flat, stale, and unprofitable.

IV. Models

I

LONDON, March 22, 1775.--Conciliation as a means of allaying the present discontent in the American colonies was advocated in the House of Commons to-day by Mr. Edmund Burke. He proposed that Parliament abandon the idea of taxing the colonies, and instead place on the statute book an act acknowledging that the various colonial legislative bodies have the power to grant or refuse aids to the crown. Though his speech, which lasted over three hours, was heard with respect, the measures which he proposed were defeated by a strict party vote, 270 to 78.

Mr. Burke spoke with a dignity and power which have not been surpa.s.sed even by the Earl of Chatham. His mastery of the subject was so complete and the form of his speech so perfect that competent judges p.r.o.nounce it a cla.s.sic. His speech is to be printed at once as a pamphlet.

In outline Mr. Burke said: "As I have studied this American question for years, have held fixed opinions on it since 1766, and have nothing to gain except disgrace if I suggest a foolish solution of the problem, I believe that you will hear me with patience. My speech will consist of the discussion of two questions: (1) Should we attempt to conciliate the Americans?

(2) If so, how? America is already powerful by virtue of population, commerce, and agriculture. The chief characteristic of the American people is their fierce love of freedom. There are only three ways to deal with this spirit: (1) To remove it by removing its causes; (2) to punish it as criminal; (3) to comply with it as necessary. Its causes are irremovable, being the love of independence which caused their ancestors to leave England; their religion in the North, which is the Protestantism of the Protestant religion; the fact that in the South they hold slaves; the general diffusion among them of education; the circ.u.mstance that they speak English and that an Englishman is the unfittest man on earth to argue another Englishman into being a slave; and the 3000 miles of ocean, between us and them. It cannot be treated as criminal, there being no way to draw up an indictment against a whole nation. Indeed, you have already tried to do this and failed. There remains no way of treating the American spirit except to comply with it as necessary. I propose, therefore, to erect a Temple of British Concord with six ma.s.sive pillars by granting to America in six propositions the identical rights which for generations have been by acts of Parliament secured to Ireland, Wales, Chester, and Durham, except that, owing to the distance of America from England, each colony, instead of sending members to Parliament, shall have the power, through its own legislature, to grant or refuse aids to the Crown. If adopted, these measures, I believe, will subst.i.tute an immediate and lasting peace for the disorders which Lord North's measures have created. The unbought loyalty of a free people, thus secured, will give us more revenue than any coercive measure. Indeed, it is the only cement that can hold together the British Empire."

II

EDINBURGH, Sept. 20, 1887.--Edmund Burke was the theme of a lecture delivered last night before the Edinburgh Philosophical Society by Mr. Augustine Birrell. "n.o.body is fit to govern this country who has not drunk deep at the springs of Burke," said Mr. Birrell, and he backed up this contention with a wealth of wit and argument which delighted and convinced his audience.

The following is a summary of his lecture: "To give a full account of Burke's public life is no part of my plan. I propose merely to sketch his early career, to explain why he never obtained a seat in the cabinet, and to essay an a.n.a.lysis of the essential elements of his greatness. Born in 1729 in Dublin, he grew up with a brother who speculated and a sister of a type who never did any man any serious harm; acquired at school a brogue which death alone could silence; at Trinity College, Dublin, became an omnivorous reader; came in 1750 to London to study law, armed with a cultivated curiosity and no desperate determination to make his fortune; immediately, like the sensible Irishman he was, fell in love with Peg Woffington; for six years rambled everywhere his purse permitted, read everything he could lay his hands on, and talked everlastingly; in 1756 published an 'Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful,' and married Miss Jane Mary Nugent; in 1758 dared at David Garrick's dinner table to contradict Dr. Johnson; in 1765 became a member of Parliament; and for the next sixteen years was the life and soul of the Whig party. When that party, in 1782, finally came into power, Burke's only reward, however, was a minor office, a fact which, in view of his great merits, has amazed posterity.

The explanation is that his contemporaries probably knew him, not as a commanding genius, but as an Irishman who was always in debt, whose relatives were rather disreputable, whose judgment was often wrong, and whose temper was violent. His significance for us grows from the fact that he applied the imagination of a poet of the first order to the business of life. He saw organized society steadily and saw it whole. Perceiving that only a thin crust of conventionality protects organized society from the volcanic heats of anarchy, he was afraid of reformers.

He could not agree to dispense with the protection afforded by the huge mountains of prejudice and the ancient rivers of custom. He was the High Priest of Order. He loved justice and hated iniquity. The world needs his wisdom to-day."

Mr. Birrell's lecture was full of good phrases. For instance:

1. We have the spectacle of Burke in his old age, like another Laoc.o.o.n, writhing and wrestling with the French Revolution.

2. Lubricating religious differences with the sweet oil of the domestic affections.

3. Quaint old landladies wonder maternally why he never gets drunk, and generally mistake him for an author until he pays his bill.

4. I love him for letting me warm my hands at it (his wrath at Gerard Hamilton) after a lapse of a hundred and twenty years.

5. His letters to Arthur Young on the subject of carrots still tremble with emotion.

6. This is magnificent, but it is not farming.

V. Queries

1. What part of the task of reporting a speech is easy? Why?

2. Wherein lies its difficulty?

3. What are the three essentials of a good report?

4. What is the commonest fault in reporting speeches?

5. What arrangement of material is suggested?

6. How many main ideas should a speech contain?

7. Name and describe the six parts of a speech.

8. Are any of them ever omitted? When, how, and by whom?

9. Discuss the value of argument in a lecture.

10. Who was Demosthenes?

11. When did the battle of Lexington occur?

12. Discuss the etymology of "Parliament."