Well, as for effective, i'd nominate Admiral Dewey of the United States Navy. The German Asiatic squadron was in Manila Bay in 1898 when Dewey arrived to confront the Spaish squadron. The German admiral sent one of his young officers to Dewey's flagship to say that he (the German) could not stand by while he (Dewey) attacked the Spanish. Several of the USN officers reported that Dewey went red in the face, and shouted in the young officer's face: You tell your Admiral if he wants a war, by God, he can have one!
When the Americans and the Spanish engaged, the Germans did not interfere. Pretty effective for such a short speech.
Lincoln's two-minute long Gettysburg Address has always been my favorite speech of all time.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
My favorite fictional political speech of all time is from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar...
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest -
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men -
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
0 Replies
Setanta
1
Reply
Wed 16 May, 2012 05:23 pm
@k copelin,
My source, as i recall it, is William Manchester's American Caesar. I do not have a copy here to consult.
0 Replies
Lustig Andrei
1
Reply
Wed 16 May, 2012 05:26 pm
@Frank Apisa,
Frank Apisa wrote:
Lincoln's two-minute long Gettysburg Address has always been my favorite speech of all time.
Mine, too. I can't think of a more poignant speech made by a politician -- or anyone else, for that matter -- anywhere, at any time. It is virtually perfect in its simplicity, economy of words and emotional appeal. Perfect.
Then again, this one, by Cicero, is hard to beat also. (This is just an excerpt. The full speech to the Roman Senate was much longer and you can look it up in Wikipedia for yourself.)
Quote:
Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? quamdiu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata jactabit audacia? Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, nihil urbis vigiliae, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt? Patere tua consilia non sentis, constrictam jam horum omnium scientia teneri conjurationem tuam non vides? Quid proxima, quid superiore nocte egeris, ubi fueris, quos convocaveris, quid consilii ceperis, quem nostrum ignorare arbitraris?
O tempora, o mores! Senatus haec intellegit. Consul videt; hic tamen vivit. Vivit? immo vero etiam in senatum venit, fit publici consilii particeps, notat et designat oculis ad caedem unum quemque nostrum. Nos autem fortes viri satisfacere rei publicae videmur, si istius furorem ac tela vitemus. Ad mortem te, Catilina, duci iussu consulis iam pridem oportebat, in te conferri pestem, quam tu in nos [omnes iam diu] machinaris.
Patrick Henry to the Virginia House of Burgesses on March 23, 1775:
" . . . Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace.
The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north
will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!
Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?
What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price
of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course
others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! "
Barry Goldwater to the Republican National Convention of 1964,
on "extremism":
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice
and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
It was a good and rousing address all right but I wish people would stop crediting FDR with that now famous phrase "...nothing to fear but fear itself." Whoever his speechwriter was on this one lifted that phrase word-for-word from an essay by LaMontaigne and just translated into English.
No matter. The speech itself inspired a lot of people.
lol I was simply responding to this thread's title. So easy to evaluate Roosevelt critically eighty years later, isn't it? A sales pitch for his New Deal, and a pretty good one,imo.
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