June 22, 2015

Finest Hour 118, Spring 2003

Page 42

By TED HUTCHINSON

Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln: 21 Powerful Secrets of History’s Greatest Speakers, by James C. Humes. Prima, 208 pp., softbound, $14. Member price $12

There is an old saw in the American historical profession: if you want to write a best-selling book, call it Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog, since the title contains every American’s three favorite subjects. A close second, I suppose, would be a how-to book with the names of Lincoln and Churchill on the cover. Though dog lovers and hypochondriacs might stay away, the author would still capture the formidable history buff-hero-orator market.

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This might have been what presidential speechwriter and linguist professor James Humes had in mind with this collection of 21 “power points” to improve public speaking, drawing on the examples and inspiration of leaders from around the globe. Citing personages as different as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Adolf Hitler, Humes argues that public speaking is much more than getting up in front of a group and talking. Instead, he encourages readers to consider how they stand, dress, joke and use props as they deliver any kind of speech.

While Humes’s book is clearly designed for the business professional and CEO, he goes to great length to demonstrate that we all speak in public every day, if only to a few friends or the Rotary Club. And what worked for Lincoln at Gettysburg can work for the reader in the boardroom, or for anyone who needs to speak in public.

For the most part, then, this book works. I found some of the advice, or “power points,” very useful, particularly the chapters on the uses of pauses and poetry in public speaking. Other advice seemed just a little too obvious to be very revealing. Still, the book does a reasonably good job of addressing the deficiencies of many of today’s public speakers, and is breezy and readable into the bargain.

Though depiction of Churchill is not its central theme, the book does have value in shedding light on some of the rhetorical tricks the great man used. Aside from a detailed description of WSC’s props (glasses, bow ties, cigars) Humes’s best chapter is the aforementioned “Power Poetry” section, discussing the way Churchill’s speeches would be printed on the sheets of paper he would hold in his hands. By physically resembling poetry or hymns, what his secretaries called “Speech Form” would force Churchill to slow his delivery, look up from his notes, and appear as if he was not really reading from cues at all. There are fine examples of this in Humes’ book.

Humes admires Churchill’s rhetorical talent and features about as many Churchill anecdotes and examples as all the other cited leaders combined. (Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt are distant seconds, with Lincoln, curiously, warranting mention only eight or nine times.) Although Humes makes a few small errors, such as the dating of Churchill’s “Finest Hour” speech (115-16) and a meeting between Churchill and Eisenhower (154), Speak Like Churchill is useful for those readers who have not carefully considered what made Churchill such a powerful speaker.

For all that is good and useful in this book, there seems to be something left unsaid: that Churchill and the other leaders were not only great speakers, but also great writers. For all the majesty of his oratory, it was the words Churchill spoke that mattered.

It’s true that Churchill was a great speaker because of his poetry and pauses and props; but he is remembered more for the words he spoke, crafted with much revision, continually improved and honed. Those words came not only from a brilliant mind but a brilliant memory, one that recalled the thousands of words he had read and written in his own lifetime. His oratory, we must remember, was only window-dressing that improved the impressive words being spoken.

This lack of recognition of the importance of the actual words being spoken at least partially explains Lincoln’s relative absence from this book. Unlike Churchill, some historians believe Lincoln was not an excellent public speaker, especially in formal situations. Ultimately, however, it matters little how Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. It matters instead what was said.

These ideas would probably not help a book on public speaking. Humes can hardly teach his readers to write as well as Churchill, certainly not in a 200-page book. But it is worth noting that to speak like Churchill one must act like him, and this goes beyond mere mimicking of his personal quirks and mannerisms. To speak like Churchill, it may be suggested that one should read everything one can get one’s hands on, and practice writing as a craft that can always be improved, much as Churchill himself did. Do that and James Humes’s book will truly help you to speak like Churchill.

Mr. Hutchinson is a historian at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston.