The Destiny of Democracy

John W. Westcott

This selection and the one following are given as types of nominat ing speeches at Democratic and Republican national conventions. The extract below is taken from the speech by Judge Westcott, of New Jersey, in nominating President Wilson for a second term, at the National Democratic Convention, St. Louis, 1916. The speech is highly figurative and oratorical in construction, appealing to a wide range of emotions. Ringing tones and strong force are required for effective delivery.

THE commanding fact of the modern age is the spread of intelligence. The schoolhouse has conquered ignorance. The printing press has transformed the purposes and capacities of man. Education has qualified him for a better existence. The. Bible has made him a moralist. Men know that the world is big enough to support the human family in peace and comfort. Men know that the great problem of peace and comfort is not yet solved. They know that it cannot be solved by the savagery of war. They know that its solution is obtainable. only in conditions of peace, reason, and a practical morality. The state of knowledge is the crowning achievement of progress.

The American experiment of self-government has stood the test. The achievements of the American system are known of all men and felt throughout the world. The United States is the world's asylum. Here all races, all conditions, all creeds are assimilated, helped, elevated, and men are made into self

governing men. In America justice has made its greatest progress, because it is progress in which all men have a part. That form of government which affords the fullest opportunity for happiness and comfort is destined to be the universal form. Such is the resistless syllogism of progress. War cannot stop its inevitable march. The opinion of all men is more potential than the opinion of one man. The best opinion of the best men, by the force of example and mutuality of interest, becomes the opinion of all men. American opinion is embodied in a man of peace. American opinion is marching through the world.

Sons of America, keep unsullied the sacred shrine of peace, through whose portals will yet pass arm in arm the crowned head and the humble peasant in silent worship of God.

Out of the ruins and sufferings of the present conflict will arise a temple of justice whose dome will be the blue vault of heaven; its illuminants the eternal stars; its pillars the everlasting hills; its ornaments the woods and bountiful fields; its music the rippling rills, the song of birds, the laughter of happy childhood; its diapason the roar of mills and the hum of industry; its votaries the peoples of the earth; its creed, on which hangs all the law and the prophets, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Above its altars in ineffaceable color will live eternally the vision of its artificer.

Therefore, my fellow-countrymen, not I, but his deeds and achievements; not I, but the spirit and purpose of America; not I, but the prayers of just

men; not I, but civilization itself nominates to succeed himself to the presidency of the United States, to the presidency of a hundred million free people, bound in impregnable union, the scholar, the statesman, the financier, the emancipator, the pacificator, the moral leader of democracy, Woodrow Wilson.

"A Plumed Knight"

Robert G. Ingersoll

This well-known speech, delivered in the Republican National Convention of 1876, has long been a favorite for declaiming. It is given here as a companion selection to the preceding both because of its intrinsic merit and also for the purpose of furnishing students an opportunity to compare the style of the wo speeches. After Ingersoll delivered this speech, the term "Plumed Knight" clung to Blaine during the remainder of his political career. In delivery this declamation demands all the fire and force you can muster: dynamic, ringing tones, shot forth like bullets from a gun. Following the climax at the end of the second paragraph, there is a transition re. quiring slower rate and a change in tone, resulting from the change in emotional appeal, but aside from such momentary changes, the delivery throughout should be with strong force and "explosive"

tones.

THE Republicans of the United States demand as their leader in this great contest of 1876 a man of intelligence, a man of integrity, a man of wellknown and approved political opinions. They demand a statesman. They demand a politician in the highest, broadest, and best sense, a man of superb moral courage. They demand a man who knows that prosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together; that when they come, they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles

and the turning wheels; hand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in hand by the flaming forges; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire, greeted and grasped by the countless sons of toil.

The Republicans of the United States want a man who knows that this government should protect every citizen at home and abroad; who knows that any government that will not defend its defenders and protect its protectors is a disgrace to the map of the world. They demand a man who believes in the eternal separation and divorcement of church and school. They demand a man whose political reputation is spotless. Crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements of its first century, this nation asks for a man worthy of the past and prophetic of the future; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man who has the grandest combination of heart, conscience, and brain beneath her flag. Such a man is James G. Blaine.

This is a grand year-a year filled with the recollections of the Revolution, filled with the proud and tender memories of the past, with the sacred legends of liberty-a year in which the sons of freedom will drink from the fountain of enthusiasm -a year in which the people call for a man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon the field-for the man who, like an intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat.

Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country and the maligner of her honor. For the Republican party to desert this gallant leader now is as though an army should desert their leader upon the field of battle.

Gentlemen of the Convention: In the name of this great Republic, in the name of all her defenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers living; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle; and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings she so vividly remembers, Illinois-Illinois nominates for the President of this country that prince of parliamentarians, that leader of leaders-James G. Blaine.

America and International Peace

Theodore Roosevelt

Mr. Roosevelt is not an orator. Long, sonorous, oratorical periods do not fit his nature and methods. He strikes out straight from the shoulder with a definite aim, and the style of his speeches is direct, forceful talk, with an occasional emphatic gesture. This is the proper interpretation of this declamation for delivery.

No sensible man will advocate our plunging rashly into a course of international knight-errantry; none will advocate our setting deliberately to work to build up a great colonial empire. But neither will any brave and patriotic man bid us shrink from doing our duty merely because this duty in