The Art of Public Speaking Part 55

6. Is a minimum wage law desirable?

7. Should the eight-hour day be made universal in America?

8. Should the state compensate those who sustain irreparable business loss because of the enactment of laws prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks?

9. Should public utilities be owned by the munic.i.p.ality?

10. Should marginal trading in stocks be prohibited?

11. Should the national government establish a compulsory system of old-age insurance by taxing the incomes of those to be benefited?

12. Would the triumph of socialistic principles result in deadening personal ambition?

13. Is the Presidential System a better form of government for the United States than the Parliamental System?

14. Should our legislation be shaped toward the gradual abandonment of the protective tariff?

15. Should the government of the larger cities be vested solely in a commission of not more than nine men elected by the voters at large?

16. Should national banks be permitted to issue, subject to tax and government supervision, notes based on their general a.s.sets?

17. Should woman be given the ballot on the present basis of suffrage for men?

18. Should the present basis of suffrage be restricted?

19. Is the hope of permanent world-peace a delusion?

20. Should the United States send a diplomatic representative to the Vatican?

21. Should the Powers of the world subst.i.tute an international police for national standing armies?

22. Should the United States maintain the Monroe Doctrine?

23. Should the Recall of Judges be adopted?

24. Should the Initiative and Referendum be adopted as a national principle?

25. Is it desirable that the national government should own all railroads operating in interstate territory?

26. Is it desirable that the national government should own interstate telegraph and telephone systems?

27. Is the national prohibition of the liquor traffic an economic necessity?

28. Should the United States army and navy be greatly strengthened?

29. Should the same standards of altruism obtain in the relations of nations as in those of individuals?

30. Should our government be more highly centralized?

31. Should the United States continue its policy of opposing the combination of railroads?

32. In case of personal injury to a workman arising out of his employment, should his employer be liable for adequate compensation and be forbidden to set up as a defence a plea of contributory negligence on the part of the workman, or the negligence of a fellow workman?

33. Should all corporations doing an interstate business be required to take out a Federal license?

34. Should the amount of property that can be transferred by inheritance be limited by law?

35. Should equal compensation for equal labor, between women and men, universally prevail?

36. Does equal suffrage tend to lessen the interest of woman in her home?

37. Should the United States take advantage of the commercial and industrial weakness of foreign nations, brought about by the war, by trying to wrest from them their markets in Central and South America?

38. Should teachers of small children in the public schools be selected from among mothers?

39. Should football be restricted to colleges, for the sake of physical safety?

40. Should college students who receive compensation for playing summer baseball be debarred from amateur standing?

41. Should daily school-hours and school vacations both be shortened?

42. Should home-study for pupils in grade schools be abolished and longer school-hours subst.i.tuted?

43. Should the honor system in examinations be adopted in public high-schools?

44. Should all colleges adopt the self-government system for its students?

45. Should colleges be cla.s.sified by national law and supervision, and uniform entrance and graduation requirements maintained by each college in a particular cla.s.s?

46. Should ministers be required to spend a term of years in some trade, business, or profession, before becoming pastors?

47. Is the Y.M.C.A. losing its spiritual power?

48. Is the church losing its hold on thinking people?

49. Are the people of the United States more devoted to religion than ever?

50. Does the reading of magazines contribute to intellectual shallowness?

APPENDIX B

THIRTY THEMES FOR SPEECHES

With Source References for Material.