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frequently an appeal to low prejudices, class sentiment and prejudice,
base motives, mob instincts will carry a group of people in a certain
direction with as little sense and reason as a flock of sheep display.
Every student can cite a dozen instances of such unwarranted and
unworthy responses to skilful perverted perorations. Answering to its
emotional tone the style of a peroration is likely to rise above the
usual, to become less simple, less direct. In this temptation for the
speaker lies a second danger quite as grave as the one just indicated.
In an attempt to wax eloquent he is likely to become grandiloquent,
bombastic, ridiculous. Many an experienced speaker makes an unworthy
exhibition of himself under such circumstances. One specimen of such
nonsense will serve as a warning.

When the terms for the use of the Panama Canal were drawn up there
arose a discussion as to certain kinds of ships which might pass
through the canal free of tolls. A treaty with Great Britain prevented
tolls-exemption for privately owned vessels. In a speech in Congress
upon this topic one member delivered the following inflated and
inconsequential peroration. Can any one with any sanity see any
connection of the Revolutionary War, Jefferson, Valley Forge, with a
plain understanding of such a business matter as charging tolls for
the use of a waterway? To get the full effect of this piece of
"stupendous folly"--to quote the speaker's own words--the student
should declaim it aloud with as much attempt at oratorical effect as
its author expended upon it.

Now, may the God of our fathers, who nerved 3,000,000
backwoods Americans to fling their gage of battle into the
face of the mightiest monarch in the world, who guided the
hand of Jefferson in writing the charter of liberty, who
sustained Washington and his ragged and starving army amid
the awful horrors of Valley Forge, and who gave them complete
victory on the blood-stained heights of Yorktown, may He
lead members to vote so as to prevent this stupendous
folly--this unspeakable humiliation of the American republic.

When the circumstances are grave enough to justify impassioned
language a good speaker need not fear its effect. If it be suitable,
honest, and sincere, a peroration may be as emotional as human
feelings dictate. So-called "flowery language" seldom is the medium of
deep feeling. The strongest emotions may be expressed in the simple