Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/355

 Oratory and the Lawyer importance

since

the

settlement

of

the slavery controversy, the effect is seen in the absence of public speakers of the ﬁrst ability. Closely connected with this cause is a third, which is the

commercialism of the present day and

the consequent decay of that high, idealistic responsiveness wherein lies the peculiar power of the orator. A great speech is almost as much a creation

of the audience as of the speaker.

A

people whose every thought is intent upon the accumulation of individual wealth are not open either to appeals to lofty sentiment or to the presenta tion of broad schemes of national or racial policy.

Though these reasons may explain

333

Nor has he less opportunity or less incentive than in former times. Upon his presentation still depend the dearest rights of those who are forced to rely upon his ability and skill in defending their lives, liberties and property. And surely these are not of less value now than in the past! In the lawyer's work of asserting human rights in the

ultimate tribunals forensic skill has always been accounted a valuable weapon. But within recent years it has become fashionable with many lawyers and legal journals to ridicule all oratorical attainments—as valuable only to the bombastic holiday speaker.

Part of this disposition is no doubt to be ascribed to a short-sighted prac

the decay of the inﬂuence of the orator,

ticality,

they aﬂ'ord no justiﬁcation to those

philistinism which despises all that is excellent or beautiful in art, and can

who affect to treat the art of oratory with contempt. For though books and newspapers be ever so common, the printed page can never supply the place of the human speech, aided and en forced by gesture and facial expression, and, above all, enspirited by the per sonality of an earnest man who believes in his message, and is eager to impart it to his hearers. It is said of Erskine, Henry Clay and Seargent Prentiss,

that those who heard them speak would turn with impatience from the

printed reports of their speeches. These reports may have been accurate as verbal reports; and yet they were not the speeches. But whatever may be said of the utility of oratorical skill to the modern preacher

or

public

man,

as for

the

lawyer the multiplication of books and papers can never render it of less value to him. Newspapers cannot discuss his points of law before the judge, nor argue his questions of fact to the jury. He must conduct his own case quite

as much as his brother of past ages.

which

overreaches

itself,

a

brook no thought if it be not expressed in the language of the counting-house. An0ther—and perhaps a more com

mom-cause lies in a loose use of the word oratory, due either to carelessness in speech or ignorance of the true meaning of the word.

Many writers,

and even some lawyers, seem to think that oratory means only windy, holiday,

and schoolboy speeches, or the high flown peroration, often tacked on with out logical connection, after the main speech is ended. To them the word is synonymous with irrelevancy and ex travagance. Only recently a Judge of the Supreme Court of New York was quoted as advising a law class to “eschew eloquence and stick to the facts." As if oratory and eloquence were some thing different from the facts with which they had nothing to do! “Oratory,” says Quintilian (15 Inst.

38), “is the art of speaking well." Prof. Webster deﬁnes it as "The art of an orator; the art of public speaking in an eloquent or effective manner; the ex