THESE VITAL SPEECHES

of his offices, whoever can command
this power is still formidable.”
When we read that passage today,
we think immediately of Churchill
himself—Churchill during the so-called
“Wilderness Years” leading up to World
War II. Churchill was out of office—
shunned, belittled and widely regarded
as finished. Yet by the sheer power of
his rhetoric, he was able to awaken his
countrymen to the Nazi threat and,
ultimately, to become prime minister.
Yes, today we think of Churchill.
But who was Churchill thinking of
when he wrote those words in 1897?
The previous year, 1896, had seen
one of the most dramatic and fiercelycontested
presidential elections in
American history.
The crux of the campaign was the
gold standard. The Republicans were
for the gold standard and monetary
stability. The Democrats wanted a gold
and silver standard—cheaper dollars,
easy money, inflation.
The Democrats had nominated
a little-known, 37-year-old former
congressman named William Jennings
Bryan. Bryan was a spellbinding
orator. He is still remembered for the
white-hot convention speech that won
him the nomination: “You shall not
press down upon the brow of labor this
crown of thorns; you shall not crucify
mankind upon a cross of gold.”
Byran’s incendiary rhetoric ignited
a political prairie fire; he had a real
chance of becoming president. And
he might have made it, but for the
intervention of the one politician in
America who could out-talk him: William
Bourke Cockran.
Cockran was a gold-standard
Democrat. He opposed cheapening
the currency for the same reason that
he opposed tariffs. Both meant higher
prices for working people, while their
wages would stay the same.
Cockran undertook a nationwide
speaking tour on behalf of the Republican
candidate, William McKinley.
When McKinley was elected, Cockran
was called the “Warwick of the
Democratic Party”—after Warwick
the Kingmaker in medieval England.
He was truly “an independent force in
the world”—a man who could make
and unmake presidents by the force of
his eloquence.
Churchill took note. He followed
Cockran’s speaking tour, writing to
him, “please send me press cuttings of
your speeches.”
Churchill says much more in “The
Scaffolding of Rhetoric,” and Cockran’s
influence is evident throughout.
Churchill talks about oratory on the
grand scale. He talks about correctness
of diction—the importance of using
the best possible word.
He talks about rhythm—the use of
“long, rolling and sonorous” sentences
to appeal to the ears of the audience.
He talks about the accumulation of
argument; he says that “The climax
of oratory is reached by a rapid succession
of waves of sound and vivid
pictures.” And he notes the “tendency
to wild extravagance of language” that
is evident in most perorations.
All of this he would have observed
in Cockran.
I’ll give you just one example. I’ve
already mentioned Cockran’s speech
to the Liberal Club in 1903. In this
speech, Cockran moves to his conclusion
with this full-throated aria extolling
the blessings that accrue to Britain
from free trade:
“At this moment, in every quarter
of the globe, forces are at work to supply
your necessities and improve your
condition.
“As I speak, men are tending flocks
on Australian fields and shearing wool
which will clothe you during the coming
winter. On western lands, men are reaping
grain to supply your daily bread.
“In mines deep underground, men
are swinging pickaxes and shovels to
wrest from the bosom of the Earth the
ores essential to the efficiency of your
industry.
“Under tropical skies, dusky hands
are gathering, from bending boughs,
luscious fruits which in a few days will
be offered for your consumption in the
streets of London.
Now don’t those rolling sentences
remind you of Churchill?
But in “The Scaffolding of Rhetoric”
Churchill also talks about simplicity,
47
intimacy and sincerity. He says that
a speaker, wherever possible, should
employ “short, homely words of common
usage.”
He talks about how a speaker can
persuade by means of analogy … an
apt analogy, he says, “appeals to the
everyday knowledge of the hearer.”
And he talks about the importance
of sincerity. For an orator to convince
others, says Churchill, “he must himself
believe.”
Here, let me note another bit of
advice that Cockran gave Churchill:
“Speak the simple truth.”
And, yes, Cockran himself used
simple, down-to-earth language and illustrations
in his speeches—juxtaposed
with his more florid passages.
In the Liberal Club speech from
which I just quoted, Cockran also
said: “I have a farm on Long Island.
I require plows. I am told that if I
don’t have protection from foreign
plows they’ll be dumped on me. If that
means I’ll get plows cheaper than my
own country can produce them … I
say, dump on!”
In 1943, Harold Nicholson summed
up the secret of Churchill’s rhetorical
power in a single, laser-beam insight.
“The winning formula,” he said, “was
the combination of great flights of
oratory with sudden swoops into the
intimate and conversational.”
We see this especially in Churchill’s
great wartime speeches.
I will quote two brief and familiar
examples.
First, his tribute to the RAF during
the Battle of Britain in 1940.
Churchill said:
“The gratitude of every home in
our Island, in our Empire, and indeed
throughout the world … goes out to
the British airmen who, undaunted
by odds, unwearied in their constant
challenge and mortal danger, are turning
the tide of the world war by their
prowess and by their devotion.”
And then:
“Never in the field of human conflict
was so much owed by so many to
so few.”
Second, Churchill’s response
to President Franklin Roosevelt in
CICERO 2016