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One: A Speech at the Beach
- Michigan State University Press
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xvi • preface Bryan’s speech, with its famous peroration, “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold,” thrilled those in attendance at the Democratic convention of 1898 and won for Bryan the presidential nomination of his party. It was a great speech, of a certain kind. But as Altgeld said, once he had escaped from the spell cast by Bryan, what had the orator really said, anyway? What did all of that righteous oratorical eloquent indignation mean? The question is as relevant in our own time. The argument against eloquence has an ancient lineage. To paraphrase Saint Augustine, in The Confessions, “Ideas are not better just because they are better said, not necessarily true because eloquent, nor is a speaker’s soul necessarily better because he is handsome.” In the seventeenth century, Thomas Sprat, member of the Royal Society, and later to become a bishop, wrote about “ the ill Effects of this Superfluity of Talking,” in his History of the Royal Society: “when I consider the means of happy Living, and the causes of their Corruption, I can hardly forbear . . . concluding that Eloquence ought to be banished out of all civil Societies, as a thing fatal to Peace and good Manners . . . nothing may be sooner obtain’d, than this vicious Abundance of Phrase, this Trick of Metaphor, this Volubility of Tongue, which makes such a noise in the world.” These stern thoughts seem strange in our own time, when we take for granted that eloquence is a necessary quality for leadership. The modern cult of thrill-talk began, I believe, with President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address in 1961. When I began writing speeches, in 1968, his speeches were considered the very model of rhetorical excellence. Who can forget: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” The marching cadences, the sheer music of the thing, and the absolute commitment to basic principles are irresistible even today. This is thrill-talk eloquenceinitspureform.Butseenfromthevantagepointofrealistic,achievable American foreign policy goals, what Kennedy said was Inaugural Oratory, the successful, admired brother of that old reprobate Campaign Oratory. Granted, a new president should not be held to facts and figures in his inaugural address. Inspirationalwordsarealwayswelcome,andifthosewordssometimeshavemore preface • xvii music than sense, so be it. But we all cheered Kennedy’s absolute statement about foreign policy. Among those who cheered the loudest were influential members of his own party who, just a few short years after his tragic death, showed that they, at least, were not ready to pay any kind of price or endure any kind of hardship to support the Vietnamese who fought to avoid becoming victims of Communist aggression. And subsequently, over the past decades, we have been told, again and again and again (to use FDR’s phrase), that there are prices that should not be paid, hardships that ought not be endured, and friends who will not be supported to “assure the survival and the success of liberty.” In other words, Kennedy’s thrill-talk had a good beat, it was music you could dance to, and in its way it was magnificent, but it wasn’t true, because it wasn’t achievable. The big problem with thrill-talk like this is that it must be absolute in its claims and does not recognize ifs, ands, or buts, exceptions, qualifications, nuances , or ambiguities (for instance, George H. W. Bush’s “Read my lips: no new taxes” in his 1992 acceptance speech). In my lifetime I have heard presidents, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, speak of a world without war, of an end to poverty, of full employment, of “bringing us together,” of economic growth without unintended side effects, and many more such visions (including “a bridge to the twenty-first century,” whatever that was supposed to mean), couched in eloquent phrases, almost all of them alluding to the American Dream. Each time the vision was offered, most Americans cheered, because the president, by his rhetoric, had thrilled us, inspired us, touched our hearts, even made some of us weep. But after the rhetoric had faded away and reality set in, each time the inevitable disappointment came—the impossible dream that inspired the eloquence was, of course...