ORATORY Makers
of Speeches
ROW
01 01
Martin Lewis The Orator - Madison Square , etching,
25 x 33cms ; Arthur Briscoe, The Orator 1936; an
advertisisement for American Mutual Liability Insurance Company 1940
STRIKE?
ROW 02 The
real thing, the pioneer American socialist Eugene Debs at work in the
USA , c 1910 with a full repertoire of dynamic gestures; C.R.W.Nevinson, The
Workers (Strike Demonstration) lithograph 1919, 17 x 25cms. Nevinson
himself had a stony dislike of anything that smacked of Democracy and a
Mass Movement. The sepulchral building behind the speakers is ominous and
was meant to be."Nevinson is radically anti-democratic, 'What,' he
asks,' has anybody yet succeeded in teaching a mob ? A mob will always
be somebody's tool Better a thousand times that it should be the tool of
the hereditory and futile aristocrat than that of the tedious and inane
professional agitator. The great majority of mankind will inevitably and
invariably be fools ..." K.Hare, London's Latin Quarter 1926 of the
painter C.R.W.Nevinson; advert
for Republican Steel July 1951 read the copy for some characteristic
observations about Socialism in America ; H.M.Bateman's
cartoon for the British magazine The Tatler, c 1925, captioned "A
Little Disinfectant", rather summing up the standard of political comment
among British cartoonists between the wars.
ROW 02 One
of the Cuckoos listed by Baden Powell liable to distort a young man's
directions in life, from Rovering to Success , Herbert
Jenkins, London undated , my edition inscribed 1929. In the Market...."such
was the power of the tub thumper that I only escaped by the skin of
my teeth" and in the Political Arena..."the good, loud voiced
political orator... with the gift of the gab he will bag at one go
a whole crowd of open-mouthed wandering lads..." - "They
fall like ripe plums to his shake and start forthwith to learn either
The Red Flag or By Jingo if we do .., according as he is preaching
red-hot communism or aggressive imperialism. He hypnotises the whole
herd. But he cannot mesmerise the individual fellow who doesn't mean
to be carried away by the rest." p.137 ;1937
advewrtisement for Sound Amplification equipment;
Edgar Jones, The Art of the Orator. 1912 One of the many
handbooks available in the first fifteen years of the century advising
the politician, the after-dinner speaker and the rabble rouser how to make
more effective use of the voice and the brain in making speeches.
"Our Mr.Lloyd George
on Tour - "That's 'im Next the Mayor"
- Well it ain't much like 'is pictures" - "Ah, but you wait
till you 'ear 'im speak."from the same volume as the above, Punch
August 4th, 1909 p.75 18 x 25cms. And a direct reflection of the gathering
unease at the power of the amplified voice to stir up the working classes.
Punch explains (as it was very often wont to do) "Certain ministers,
including the Chancellor of the Exchequer , are reported to have spoken
their political principles into a gramophone."
Humphrey
on the Stump
David Jagger, The Bolshevist, from Drawing and Design 1921 and comparative imagery
Long
of Louisiana seen from behind
Henri Barthelemey illustration
to Count Morin 1921
The
Speech that went wrong, Nuggets 1898
The
Orator on Work, David Wilson, The Passing Show UK 1921
The
Communist orator's Audience 1921 The Passing Show, anti-Bolshevik imagery |