![]() “The newspaper report and the growing knowledge of men have, it is said, led to the decline of rhetoric,” Churchill observed. Writing in 1897 amid an era shaped by rapid communication-the telegraph was the internet of the day-he believed the orator’s capacity to move audiences was more circumscribed than in ages past. Abandoned by his party, betrayed by his friends, stripped of his offices, whoever can command this power is still formidable… A meeting of grave citizens…is unable to resist its influence.”Īnd yet to Churchill the art form seemed at risk. ![]() “He who enjoys it wields a power more durable than that of a great king. Long unpublished, Churchill’s piece, titled “The Scaffolding of Rhetoric,” explored a perennial question: What makes a good speech? “Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory,” Churchill wrote. As a young soldier in India in the closing years of the 19th century, he drafted an essay on the world he hoped to enter: that of politics and public service. ![]() Winston Churchill sensed what was coming.
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