NOTABLE SPEECHES BY NOTABLE SPEAKERS EDITED BY HARR WAGNER AUTHOR OF PACIFIC HISTORY STORIES, PACIFIC NATURE STORIES QUOTATIONS, CURRENT HISTORY, ETC. PREFACE. This book has been compiled for the purpose of placing in permanent and accessible form some of the more notable speeches of the men who have contributed to the intellectual development of California. The aim has been to make a collection of speeches that would be a source of inspiration to students and others. The orations of Cicero, Demosthenes, and Burke may serve better as models of style, but they lack contemporary interest. Thomas B. Reed, in a collection of examples of modern eloquence, in ten volumes of four hundred pages each, failed to find place for any of the speeches of the men of the Greater West. This book shows that in effective oral expression California has plenty of material. The various selections represent the several types of oratory,– the after-dinner remarks, the address of welcome, the eulogy, the occasional oration, the ethical sermon, and the stump speech. The editor has drawn upon all classes for his material, the university president, the ship-builder, the merchant, the farmer, the lawyer, the editor, the judge, the senator, the statesman, the preacher, and the priest. The pages show that he has been non-partisan and non-sectarian. There is nothing more pitiful than an audience of a thousand or more people listening patiently but painfully to some man whose position or prestige has secured him a place on the programme, but whose education in the greatest of all arts the art of oral expression has been neglected. It is not what is said—it is the way it is said — that makes a speaker interesting. To speak the truth-and speak it effectively—is an art worthy of cultivation. California is a land of music, of poetry, of art, and of eloquence. May the splendid examples of the art of public speaking presented here lead the younger generation to study the art of saying things. Senator George F. Hoar, in a recent article, said: |