Monday, March 16, 1998
WRITER: Phil Williams, 706/542-8501, [email protected]
CONTACT: Cal Logue, 706/542-3247, [email protected]
NEW BOOK CHRONICLES RANGE, DEPTH OF IMPORTANT AND REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN SPEECHES FROM 1937-1997
ATHENS, Ga. ñ Oratory has an ancient and honored history. The Greeks practiced it, studied it, wrote about it. Americans, too, have a storied tradition of speech making, from the saber-rattling of Revolutionary patriots to the stirring cadences of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Now, a new book brings together for the first time some of the most important American speeches of the 20th century.
"The book is concerned with human values," said Cal Logue, a professor of speech communication at the University of Georgia and editor of the volume. "I didn't want it to be a museum piece."
The book, Representative American Speeches, 1937-1997, is a selection from an annual anthology called Representative American Speeches, which has been published for 60 years by the H. W. Wilson Company. As editor, Logue had to sift through more than 1,250 speeches to select the final 151 that are printed in the current volume.
From the beginning, Logue had a clear idea of what he wanted. To be included, a speech had to address a significant issue for the 20th century, had to confront an issue of concern to us now and in the 21st century and had to concern what kind of country we are now and what we want to be.
The most famous speeches by Americans during the period are included. The words of Rev. Martin Luther King's Aug. 28, 1963, speech in Washington ñ "I Have a Dream" ñ take up barely two pages but remain powerful. President Franklin Roosevelt's War Address on Dec. 8,
1941, with its memorable description of a "date which will live in infamy," is less than a full page in length but received a six-minute standing ovation when it was delivered ñ ending only, as Logue notes, when Roosevelt left the House chamber.
Less-well-known speeches also have vigor, some years after being delivered. Wendell Willkie, the Republican nominee for president in 1940, gave a speech in 1942 about the destruction by Nazi forces of the town in Lidice, Czechoslovakia. In reprisal for the assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi leaders orders all males in Lidice killed. The women were sent to concentration camps and the children taken away. The town was leveled.
"Because a hangman was killed, Lidice lives," said Willkie. "Because the lanterns of Lidice have been blacked out, a flame has been lit which can never be extinguished."
Speeches included in the volume range across the political spectrum, from Shirley Chisholm to Newt Gingrich, and are divided by topic. What they have in common, however, is a sense of immediacy and importance.
"There is a tremendous difference between a well-executed essay and a speech," said Logue, who has himself been teaching American public address since 1967. "A speech is an interaction between the speaker and the audience, the setting and the time. A speech mirrors the audience and is also a repository of cultural values."
One serious problem in selecting speeches from the yearly anthology was the serious under-representation of women, African-Americans and other minorities from the early years. Despite that problem, Logue was able to select, from later years, speeches by such well-known Americans as Barbara Jordan, Margaret Chase Smith, Marian Wright Edelman, Ralph Bunche, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and Henry Louis Gates.
Among other speeches and speech-makers in the anthology:
*President Ronald Reagan speaking in 1981 for less government
*Secretary of State George Marshall at Harvard University outlining a framework for helping Europe recover from World War II (which would become the "Marshall Plan")
*Anthropologist Margaret Mead in 1973 calling for Americans to change their basic lifestyles and to exploit the Earth less
*Secretary of State Dean Rusk in 1965 defending the policy of the U.S. in Viet Nam.
"Free expression is the lifeblood of democracy," wrote Logue in the book's introduction. "The character of communication in society gauges democracy's well-being."
Some of the speeches are largely forgotten today. Others, such as President John F. Kennedy's "Ich Bin Ein Berliner" speech and General Douglas MacArthur's "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech have remained a well-known part of the culture. In the book's more than 750 pages, however, is a wealth of information across a broad spectrum of American life for the past 60 years.
For Logue, the work continues, since he and Prof. Jean DeHart of Appalachian State University now edit the yearly Representative Speeches anthologies as well.
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