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The lost art of speechmaking: four veteran wordsmiths reveal the secrets of writing and delivering effective speeches

Campaigns & Elections, June-July, 1993 by Mary G. Gotschall

Edward L. Bernays hasn't heard a great speech since William Jennings Bryan railed against the gold standard back in 1912.

Bernays, considered the "father of public relations," is 101 years old. He remembers Teddy Roosevelt's famous address after returning from Cuba with the Rough Riders. And he recalls a few good speeches by FDR.

But in the modern era, there is not a single speaker or speechwriter who impresses Bernays. From his office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he says that modern speeches suffer from a glaring omission. "They are not based on sound psychological principles," says Bernays.

In his view, speeches must have three components:

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* A sense of authority from the speaker;

* Logic -- the basis for acceptance of ideas; and

* Persuasion -- never achieved solely by emotional audience appeals.

"A speech has to be geared to the intelligence level of the audience to be effective," says Bernays. "The average person in America has an IQ of 100. Most people don't understand sentences with more than sixteen words. They can only comprehend one idea per sentence, and they can only understand monosyllabic words."

On the other hand, if you address a group of university professors, you should calibrate your speech accordingly.

"Many political speakers, unfortunately, are not aware or don't give a damn about psychology and either talk over the heads or under the heads of the people they deal with," notes Bernays. "I question whether 90 percent of the politicians have ever read a book on communications."

Bernays thinks many CEOs give poor speeches because they receive mediocre advice from their public relations staff. Most PR professionals lack the psychological knowledge that Bernays thinks is essential, as well as any grounding in the social sciences. "Any dope, any nitwit, any crook can call himself a PR person," complains Bernays, who supports licensing public relations professionals.

Vic Gold, veteran GOP speechwriter, author, and PR expert, mused about the state of speechwriting recently at his home in the Washington, D.C. suburbs. Gold has written speeches for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, Vice President Spiro Agnew, and President George Bush.

"There's been a homogenization of rhetoric," observes Gold. "The impact of TV and the electronic media have caused the decline of speechwriting as an entertainment form. Fifty years ago, it was an entertainment form."

Added to this is the decline of formal education in the classics, the Bible, and Shakespeare. Speakers from the past rooted much of their rhetoric in these traditions; today, it is a rarity.

The result is the current sorry state of American speechgiving, according to Gold.

"If you put William Jennings Bryan or any of our classic speakers on TV, first of all, the PR people would tell them, 'That's over everybody's head'," he observes.

No one wrote speeches for history's great orators, maintains Gold. A prime example was John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America and founder of the CIO.

Reminisces Gold, "I worked with Lewis. He was a great scholar and a student of Shakespeare and the Bible. He memorized entire passages." Once, in 1961, when Lewis was presented with a Shakespeare folio at a dinner reception, he talked on and on. "It was 11:15 at night," recalls Gold. Suddenly, Lewis, apropos of winding down the evening, said in his deep voice, "The hour grows unseemly."

"Only he could have gotten away with saying that," quips Gold.

Similarly, he credits the late Sen. Everett Dirksen and Atlanta's current Mayor Maynard Jackson with a gift for oratory.

"It was natural -- the passion and the rhythm came from them. You can't write that for anybody," comments Gold. "It didn't come from the typewriter of a Bob Shrum or a Peggy Noonan or a Vic Gold looking into Bartlett's Quotations."

"I worked for the last person in politics who was unafraid of rhetoric," he continues. Namely: former vice-president Spiro Agnew. Gold was his press secretary in the 1970 campaign. "He took his speeches seriously. You could write a sentence that held together with 36 words in it. You built up an intensity."

According to Gold, it was Agnew -- and not speechwriter Bill Safire -- who wrote the memorable line "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals," in response to the anti-war demonstrations on college campuses.

Recent White House speechwriters have been talented, says Gold, but they're held down by the "number crunchers -- accountants, engineers -- running Capitol Hill who think they can edit a speech."

Playing Churchill

"I have to get a standing ovation every time I speak," says author, professor, orator, and impersonator James Humes.

Humes has lectured about speechwriting in all 50 states and in 26 countries. He has also authored nine books on the subject and currently teaches a course on it at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. He has written for every Republican president from Eisenhower to Bush. In addition, he played Winston Churchill in a 1985 PBS production he wrote himself.

Business Services Industry

The lost art of speechmaking: four veteran wordsmiths reveal the secrets of writing and delivering effective speeches

Campaigns & Elections, June-July, 1993 by Mary G. Gotschall

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