he wants them, an endless succession of perfectly coined
sentences, conceived with unmatched felicity and delivered without
hesitation in a parliamentary style which is at once the envy and the
despair of imitators."

_Bryan_

William Jennings Bryan is by common consent one of the greatest public
speakers in America. He has a voice of unusual power and compass, and
his delivery is natural and deliberate. His style is generally forensic,
altho he frequently rises to the dramatic. He has been a diligent
student of oratory, and once said:

"The age of oratory has not passed; nor will it pass. The press, instead
of displacing the orator, has given him a larger audience and enabled
him to do a more extended work. As long as there are human rights to be
defended; as long as there are great interests to be guarded; as long
as the welfare of nations is a matter for discussion, so long will
public speaking have its place."

_Roosevelt_

Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most effective of American public
speakers, due in large measure to intense moral earnestness and great
stores of physical vitality. His diction was direct and his style
energetic. He spoke out of the fulness of a well-furnished mind.

Success Factors in Platform Speaking

Constant practise of composition has been the habit of all great
orators. This, combined with the habit of reading and re-reading the
best prose writers and poets, accounts in large measure for the
felicitous style of such men as Burke, Erskine, Macaulay, Bolingbroke,
Phillips, Everett and Webster.

I can not too often urge you to use your pen in daily composition as a
means to felicity and facility of speech. The act of writing out your
thoughts is a direct aid to concentration, and tends to enforce the
habit of choosing the best language. It gives clearness, force,
precision, beauty, and copiousness of style, so valuable in
extemporaneous and impromptu speaking.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF MEMORIZING SPEECHES

Some of the most highly successful speakers carefully wrote out,
revised, and committed to memory important passages in their speeches.
These they dexterously wove into the body of their addresses in such a
natural manner as not to expose their method.

This plan, however, is not to be generally recommended, since few men
have the faculty of rendering memorized parts so as to make them appear
extempore. If you recite rather than speak to an audience, you may b