The Effect of Oratory

I wanted to outline for you, my readers, the merits of reading a speech and I find the words of someone in the past stimulating on the subject.

An oration, to be fully appreciated, must be heard, not read. Much of what gave it force and effect is lost when it is committed to print. The living personality is gone the flashing eye, the vibrating voice, the impetuous gesture, the passionate declamation, the swaying and sweeping energy of eloquence which at times gives to meaningless words a controlling force. Much is lost, but by no means all. The real flesh and blood of the oration is left its logic, its truth, its quality as a product of the intellect. When thus read, apart from the personal influence of the orator and with cool and judicial mind, the sophistry, the emptiness, of many showy orations become pitifully evident, while the true merit of the really great effort grows doubly apparent. No longer taken captive by the speaker's manner and the external aids to eloquence, the reader can calmly measure and weigh his words and thoughts, with competence to reject the vapid example of speech-making and give it’s just pre-eminence to the truly great oration.

From what is above said it should be evident that the powers of the orator are not alone those of pure reasoning, of logic reduced to its finest elements. No example of oratory should be judged from such a point of view. An orator is essentially a partisan. He takes sides almost necessarily, and is apt to employ any means at his command to give the supremacy to his own side of the question at issue. He is the counterpart, not of the judge who calmly and logically weighs the two sides of the case to be decided and seeks to avoid preference to either but of the advocate, whose aim it is to convince the jury that his own side is the correct one, and who does this by employing every sophistry, every trick of speech and argument, every device to add to the strength of his client's case and lessen that of his opponent. But ordinarily the orator, partisan though he may be, has a wider audience than a jury, and a higher sense of duty to himself and his hearers than is usually to be found in a jury trial. Though it may be his purpose rather to convince than to prove, and though he may not hesitate to help his side of the argument by oratorical devices and skillful deceptions, he must have an earnest belief in the strength and cogency of his own cause or he can scarcely hope to succeed. No man can serve God and Mammon. The great oration must come from the heart and not from the lips. Yet it is not enough for a man to believe in his cause; his cause as well as his belief must be strong. The speech which does not ring true to a judicious reader is defective either in its cause or its advocate. Sophistry may weigh well on the platform, but it becomes hollow and empty in the cabinet, and the merit of no oration can be justly decided upon until it has been put to the test of the reader's mind.

While, therefore, the idea is widely entertained that an oration must be heard to be truly appreciated, this conception is far from correct. There are two things to be considered in judging every oration; the real quality and merit of the thought expressed, and the effect of delivery the speaker's powers of elocution and the magnetic influence of voice and personality. The latter has often an immense effect, and the hearer frequently leaves the presence of the orator convinced against the decision of his own intellect, taken captive by the personal powers of the speaker. To learn what the oration really contains and what force it has as a pure expression of human thought, it must be read and weighed by the mind of the auditor when in a cool and critical state. Under such conditions the verdict is often changed and the weakness and emptiness of what may have seemed irrefutable arguments are exposed.

For this reason it may be held that no one should decide as to the true merit of an oration until he has read it, and the really great orations can be enjoyed by the reader centuries even after they were delivered.

Quoted from The World’s Great Orators and Their Orations, 1917, by Charles Morris.