The Art of Public Speaking
political career. Thereafter for fourteen years this chamber was his
home. I use the word advisedly. Nowhere in the world was he so in
harmony with his environment as here; nowhere else did his mind work
with such full consciousness of its powers. The air of debate was native
to him; here he drank delight of battle with his peers. In after days,
when he drove by this stately pile, or when on rare occasions his duty
called him here, he greeted his old haunts with the affectionate zest of
a child of the house; during all the last ten years of his life, filled
as they were with activity and glory, he never ceased to be homesick for
this hall. When he came to the presidency, there was not a day when his
congressional service was not of use to him. Probably no other president
has been in such full and cordial communion with Congress, if we may
except Lincoln alone. McKinley knew the legislative body thoroughly, its
composition, its methods, its habit of thought. He had the profoundest
respect for its authority and an inflexible belief in the ultimate
rectitude of its purposes. Our history shows how surely an executive
courts disaster and ruin by assuming an attitude of hostility or
distrust to the Legislature; and, on the other hand, McKinley's frank
and sincere trust and confidence in Congress were repaid by prompt and
loyal support and cooeperation. During his entire term of office this
mutual trust and regard--so essential to the public welfare--was never
shadowed by a single cloud.
When he came to the presidency he confronted a situation of the utmost
difficulty, which might well have appalled a man of less serene and
tranquil self-confidence. There had been a state of profound commercial
and industrial depression from which his friends had said his election
would relieve the country. Our relations with the outside world left
much to be desired. The feeling between the Northern and Southern
sections of the Union was lacking in the cordiality which was necessary
to the welfare of both. Hawaii had asked for annexation and had been
rejected by the preceding administration. There was a state of things in
the Caribbean which could not permanently endure. Our neighbor's house
was on fire, and there were grave doubts as to our rights and duties in
the premises. A man either weak or rash, either irresolute or
headstrong, might have brought ruin on himself and incalculable harm to
the country.
The least desirable form of glory to a man of his habitual mood and
temper--that of successful war--was nevertheless conferred upon him by
uncontrollable events. He felt it must come; he deplored its necessity;
he strained almost to breaking his relations with his friends, in order,
first to prevent and then to postpone it to the latest possible moment.
But when the die was cast, he labored with the utmost energy and ardor,
and with an intelligence in military matters which showed how much of
the soldier still survived in the mature statesman, to push forward the
war to a decisive close. War was an anguish to him; he wanted it short
and conclusive. His merciful zeal communicated itself to his
subordinates, and the war, so long dreaded, whose consequences were so
momentous, ended in a hundred days.
Mr. McKinley was reelected by an overwhelming majority. There had been
little doubt of the result among well-informed people, but when it was
known, a profound feeling of relief and renewal of trust were evident
among the leaders of capital and industry, not only in this country, but
everywhere. They felt that the immediate future was secure, and that
trade and commerce might safely push forward in every field of effort
and enterprise.
He felt that the harvest time was come, to garner in the fruits of so
much planting and culture, and he was determined that nothing he might
do or say should be liable to the reproach of a personal interest. Let
us say frankly he was a party man; he believed the policies advocated by
him and his friends counted for much in the country's progress and
prosperity. He hoped in his second term to accomplish substantial
results in the development and affirmation of those policies. I spent a
day with him shortly before he started on his fateful journey to
Buffalo. Never had I seen him higher in hope and patriotic confidence.
He was gratified to the heart that we had arranged a treaty which gave
us a free hand in the Isthmus. In fancy he saw the canal already built
and the argosies of the world passing through it in peace and amity. He
saw in the immense evolution of American trade the fulfilment of all his
dreams, the reward of all his labors. He was, I need not say, an ardent
protectionist, never more sincere and devoted than during those last
days of his life. He regarded reciprocity as the bulwark of
protection--not a breach, but a fulfilment of the law. The treaties
which for four years had been preparing under his personal supervision
he regarded as ancillary to the general scheme. He was opposed to any
revolutionary plan of change in the existing legislation; he was careful
to point out that everything he had done was in faithful compliance with
the law itself.
In that mood of high hope, of generous expectation, he went to Buffalo,
and there, on the threshold of eternity, he delivered that memorable
speech, worthy for its loftiness of tone, its blameless morality, its
breadth of view, to be regarded as his testament to the nation. Through
all his pride of country and his joy of its success runs the note of
solemn warning, as in Kipling's noble hymn, "Lest We Forget."
The next day sped the bolt of doom, and for a week after--in an agony of
dread, broken by illusive glimpses of hope that our prayers might be
answered--the nation waited for the end. Nothing in the glorious life
we saw gradually waning was more admirable and exemplary than its close.
The gentle humanity of his words when he saw his assailant in danger of
summary vengeance, "Do not let them hurt him;" his chivalrous care that
the news should be broken gently to his wife; the fine courtesy with
which he apologized for the damage which his death would bring to the
great Exhibition; and the heroic resignation of his final words, "It is
God's way; His will, not ours, be done," were all the instinctive
expressions of a nature so lofty and so pure that pride in its nobility
at once softened and enhanced the nation's sense of loss. The Republic
grieved over such a son,--but is proud forever of having produced him.
After all, in spite of its tragic ending, his life was extraordinarily
happy. He had, all his days, troops of friends, the cheer of fame and
fruitful labor; and he became at last,
"On fortune's crowning slope,
The pillar of a people's hope,
The center of a world's desire."
_WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN_ THE PRINCE OF PEACE[39] (1894)
I offer no apology for speaking upon a religious theme, for it is the
most universal of all themes. I am interested in the science of
government, but I am interested more in religion than in government. I
enjoy making a political speech--I have made a good many and shall make
more--but I would rather speak on religion than on politics. I commenced
speaking on the stump when I was only twenty, but I commenced speaking
in the church six years earlier--and I shall be in the church even after
I am put of politics. I feel sure of my ground when I make a political
speech, but I feel even more certain of my ground when I make a
religious speech. If I addrest you upon the subject of law I might
interest the lawyers; if I discust the science of medicine I might
interest the physicians; in like manner merchants might be interested in
comments on commerce, and farmers in matters pertaining to agriculture;
but no one of these subjects appeals to all. Even the science of
government, tho broader than any profession or occupation, does not
embrace the whole sum of life, and those who think upon it differ so
among themselves that I could not speak upon the subject so as to please
a part of the audience without displeasing others. While to me the
science of government is intensely absorbing, I recognize that the most
important things in life lie outside of the realm of government and that
more depends upon what the individual does for himself than upon what
the government does or can do for him. Men can be miserable under the
best government and they can be happy under the worst government.
Government affects but a part of the life which we live here and does
not deal at all with the life beyond, while religion touches the
infinite circle of existence as well as the small arc of that circle
which we spend on earth. No greater theme, therefore, can engage our
attention. If I discuss questions of government I must secure the
cooeperation of a majority before I can put my ideas into practise, but
if, in speaking on religion, I can touch one human heart for good, I
have not spoken in vain no matter how large the majority may be against
me.
Man is a religious being; the heart instinctively seeks for a God.
Whether he worships on the banks of the Ganges, prays with his face
upturned to the sun, kneels toward Mecca or, regarding all space as a
temple, communes with the Heavenly Father according to the Christian
creed, man is essentially devout.
There are honest doubters whose sincerity we recognize and respect, but
occasionally I find young men who think it smart to be skeptical; they
talk as if it were an evidence of larger intelligence to scoff at creeds
and to refuse to connect themselves with churches. They call themselves
"Liberal," as if a Christian were narrow minded. Some go so far as to
assert that the "advanced thought of the world" has discarded the idea
that there is a God. To these young men I desire to address myself.
Even some older people profess to regard religion as a superstition,
pardonable in the ignorant but unworthy of the educated. Those who hold
this view look down with mild contempt upon such as give to religion a
definite place in their thoughts and lives. They assume an intellectual
superiority and often take little pains to conceal the assumption.
Tolstoy administers to the "cultured crowd" (the words quoted are his) a
severe rebuke when he declares that the religious sentiment rests not
upon a superstitious fear of the invisible forces of nature, but upon
man's consciousness of his finiteness amid an infinite universe and of
his sinfulness; and this consciousness, the great philosopher adds, man
can never outgrow. Tolstoy is right; man recognizes how limited are his
own powers and how vast is the universe, and he leans upon the arm that
_is_ stronger than his. Man feels the weight of his sins and looks for
One who is sinless.
Religion has been defined by Tolstoy as the relation which man fixes
between himself and his God, and morality as the outward manifestation
of this inward relation. Every one, by the time he reaches maturity, has
fixt some relation between himself and God and no material change in
this relation can take place without a revolution in the man, for this
relation is the most potent influence that acts upon a human life.
Religion is the foundation of morality in the individual and in the
group of individuals. Materialists have attempted to build up a system
of morality upon the basis of enlightened self-interest. They would have
man figure out by mathematics that it pays him to abstain from
wrong-doing; they would even inject an element of selfishness into
altruism, but the moral system elaborated by the materialists has
several defects. First, its virtues are borrowed from moral systems
based upon religion. All those who are intelligent enough to discuss a
system of morality are so saturated with the morals derived from systems