Evening star., 1912-09-15

emotion is. 1t is minglng of proud happiness and
humble gratitude that from other s1tuatlon
so far as know.
For the next month my life was misery. remember
one evening after had delivered what considered to
be highly polished and eloquent utterance patriot
ism before crowd of old soldiers that asked my wife
the way from the hall what she had thought OF the
speech.
"As man." she said frankly @you fairly sensible
and interesting; but the minute you get up on plat
form you utterly hopeless There IS something
forced and strained about you You not only don't
succeed, but it's painful to watch YOU
| said nothing until we reached our room in the
hotel. Then sank down into armchair, put my
elbows my knees and my face in my hands, and
a shall never be able to do it!' said sadly "Theres
talking 1t will simply kill me. The physical
strain and the nervous effort will break me down."
"We' she replied, @you've gone into this thing and
youv got to go through with It. You can't make a
campaign without making speeches :,
Il think IL announce l suggested, that Will not
make any speeches. that the time for oratory in politics
has passed. and that what candidate should do is to
circulate quietly among his constituents and learn to
know their wishes and needs.
OF course did not do that. had to go and learn
by hard knocks My newspaper friend had told me that
it was suicidal to read speech from manuscript.
stuck my first rule of writing out the speech before
hand learning it by heart, and then delivering it as
inspired. l developed tremendous speed in this way
My anxiety to sit down such that my vocal chords
responded in great shape. After awhile when thought
was doing fairly well, invited my friend to hear me
speak at neghboring town. shall never forget his
wretched look after that event.
about that don't know where to begin But I'm going
to tell you this the outset Never make speech with
out starting it by compimenting the town IN which
you're speaking No man can be successful speaker
unless he does that You got to IN the stuff about
the fair city,
a won't do it," objected. a will not descend to
that claptrap and balderdash Besides, that sort of
thing is what all these bum speakers do"
Il don't care about that" he continued. Il wouldn't
go to hear any if thought he wouldn't say
something nice about my town. He that much to
e that
lights and do that much to make himself OF the
crowd You can't make speech 60 without that tar
city talk"
Unless you have thought that over, this may seem
strange to you but my friend was right And tonight @
if were going to make speech in New York or Chi
cago should probably begin it thus:
3Lades and Gentlemen, before l touch the subject
which has brought together this evening | cannot
resist the temptation to tell you how love the aos-
phere the people, and the ideals of New York (or Chi
cago), and with what infinite pleasure always visit
you" and so forth, and SO forth
That sort of thing cannot be dispensed with 1t IS
one of the old reliables of public speaking.
ANOTHER thing my teacher told me this
now, in conclusion and thus make brief ending"
"That's too much,' | said "and can't do It, 1T
sounds like funeral a sermon
He insisted it strongly that asked him to give
me some reason for it. He did, as follows:
ats this way In the course of your speech you give
fellow idea, and his attention runs off with that,
and give another fellow another idea, and his mind
gaops off with that In that way everybody IS muling
over different idea, because mind take and as
simulate all the ideas of speech in the time that
it is spoken When you break off without giving every
body notice. they all get mad It's like waking lot of
people up and expecting them to thank you But, if
you say, And in conclusion, warn the audi
that about to STOP they all come back and
join your final with their wandering wits, and
the whole thing winds up happily That's how get
the applause and make them think they have been right
with you all through the speech
He was right about that too That "And now, in con-
clusion" is something always | would soon
think of leaving that out of speech as would think OF
not brushing my hair in the morning.