lemen, My Fellow Americans:

I am largely indebted to President Lowell for this
opportunity to address this great audience. He and I are
friends of many years, both Republicans. He is the president
of our great university, one of the most important and
influential places in the United States. He is also an
eminent student and historian of politics and government. He
and I may differ as to methods in this great question now
before the people, but I am sure that in regard to the
security of the peace of the world and the welfare of the
United States we do not differ in purposes.

I am going to say a single word, if you will permit me, as to
my own position. I have tried to state it over and over
again. I thought I had stated it in plain English. But there
are those who find in misrepresentation a convenient weapon
for controversy, and there are others, most excellent people,
who perhaps have not seen what I have said and who possibly
have misunderstood me. It has been said that I am against
any League of Nations. I am not; far from it. I am anxious to
have the nations, the free nations of the world, united in a
league, as we call it, a society, as the French call it, but
united, to do all that can be done to secure the future peace
of the world and to bring about a general disarmament.

SENATOR HENRY CABOT LODGE in a debate in Boston,
1919

The Introduction and the Audience. When we turn from the material of
the introduction or the speech we naturally consider the audience.
Just as the salutations already listed in this chapter indicate how
careful speakers are in adapting their very first words to the special
demands of recognition for a single audience, so a study of
introductions to speeches which have been delivered will support the
same principle. A speech is made to affect a single audience,
therefore it must be fitted as closely as possible to that audience in
order to be effective. A city official invited to a neighborhood
gathering to instruct citizens in the method of securing a children's
playground in that district is not only wasting time but insulting the
brains and dispositions of his listeners if he drawls off a long
introduction showing the value of public playgrounds in a crowded
city. His presence before that group of people proves that they accept
all he can tell them on that topic. He is guilty of mak