Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (35 page)

In the nineties, he blunted the edge of bitterness and usually adopted a more relaxed, somewhat less partisan demeanor. When the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, the pragmatic Dole presented a contrast to the fiery Speaker Newt Gingrich. His speaking style as well as the substance of his speeches was more attuned to the Senate than the stump: policy-laden, detailed, argumentative with overtones of reasonableness, passion-free, sometimes persuasive, but not especially memorable. His best speeches, including his 1996 farewell to the Senate, lay ahead.

His acceptance address at the 1996 Republican convention in San Diego, drafted by the novelist Mark Helprin, began with a reference to “plain speaking”—in contrast to the soaring rhetoric of his opponent, President Clinton—but contained such felicitous phrases as “the gracious compensations of age” and “Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquillity, faith, and confidence in action.” That bridge metaphor was taken up by Mr. Clinton and turned against Dole, as the President contrasted the seventy-three-year-old challenger’s “bridge to the past” with his own “bridge to the twenty-first century.” Almost as if in anticipation of that counterattack, Dole wrote the headline to his own coverage by pronouncing himself at the end “the most optimistic man in America.”

His speaking style on the stump, however, was staccato, repeating words and phrases for emphasis, and sometimes lamely ending a series of points with “whatever.” Skillful in talk-show appearances, his campaign oratory came across as strident and unfocused; on occasion, however, he would attack ethical lapses with a theme that reverberated later, as in “Where’s the outrage?”

At moments of high drama throughout his career, the seemingly stoic Dole allowed his emotion to show through. His eulogy at the funeral of Richard Nixon on April 27, 1994, brought to the surface a deep emotion at the loss of a friend and mentor. The setting was the Nixon Library and birthplace in Yorba Linda, California; four thousand diehard Nixon supporters and family members were in attendance, along with all of America’s living presidents and first ladies. (President Gerald Ford began his eulogy with “Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President…”)

Dole began with, and in the end reprised, the theme of Nixon as “one of us” (the title of liberal columnist Tom Wicker’s surprisingly admiring biography of Nixon). The end of each of four sentences naming some example of his us-ness was punctuated effectively with “How American.” In defining Nixon’s “silent majority,” Dole described his own political lodestar: “Like them, he valued accomplishment more than ideology.”

Delivering a eulogy to a loved one or a close friend is the greatest strain in oratory, as anyone who has done it knows. Halfway through the final paragraph, Dole began to break down and sobbed his way through the last sentence. Appearing on television with the anthologist a half-hour later, Dole—known more for sarcasm than for sentiment—was slightly, not greatly, embarrassed by the loss of control at the end that had underscored his sincerity: “Just couldn’t make it through. Almost did.”

***

I BELIEVE THE
second half of the twentieth century will be known as the Age of Nixon. Why was he the most durable public figure of our time? Not because he gave the most eloquent speeches, but because he provided the most effective leadership. Not because he won every battle, but because he always embodied the deepest feelings of the people he led.

One of his biographers said that Richard Nixon was one of us, and so he was. He was a boy who heard the train whistle in the night and dreamed of all the distant places that lay at the end of the track. How American.

He was the grocer’s son who got ahead by working harder and longer than everyone else. How American.

He was a student who met expenses by doing research at the law library for thirty-five cents an hour while sharing a rundown farmhouse without water or electricity. How American.

He was the husband and father who said that the best memorial to his wife was her children. How American.

To tens of millions of his countrymen, Richard Nixon was an American hero. A hero who shared and honored their belief in working hard, worshiping God, loving their families, and saluting the flag. He called them the silent majority. Like them, he valued accomplishment more than ideology. They wanted their government to do the decent thing, but not to bankrupt them in the process. They wanted his protection in a dangerous world, but they also wanted creative statesmanship in achieving a genuine peace with honor. These were the people from whom he had come and who have come to Yorba Linda these past few days by the tens of thousands, no longer silent in their grief.

The American people love a fighter, and in Dick Nixon they found a gallant one. In her marvelous biography of her mother, Julie recalls an occasion where Pat Nixon expressed amazement at her husband’s ability to persevere in the face of criticism, to which the president replied, “I just get up every morning to confound my enemies.” It was what Richard
Nixon did after he got up every morning that not just confounded his enemies but turned them into admirers.

It is true that no one knew the world better than Richard Nixon, and as a result, the man who was born in a house his father built would go on to become this century’s greatest architect of peace.

But we should also not underestimate President Nixon’s domestic achievements, for it was Richard Nixon who ended the draft, strengthened environmental and nutritional programs, and committed the government to a war on cancer. He leap-frogged the conventional wisdom to propose revolutionary solutions to health care and welfare reform, anticipating by a full generation the debates now raging on Capitol Hill.

I remember the last time I saw him, at a luncheon held at the Capitol honoring the twenty-fifth anniversary of his first inaugural. Without a note, President Nixon stood and delivered a compelling speech, capturing the global scene as only he could, and sharing his vision of America’s future. When it was over, he was surrounded by Democrats and Republicans alike, each wanting just one more word of Nixonian counsel, one more insight into world affairs.

Afterward the president rested in my office before leaving the Capitol, only he got very little rest. For the office was filled with young Hill staffers, members of the Capitol police, and many, many others, all hoping to shake his hand, get an autograph, or simply convey their special feelings for a man who was truly one of us.

Today our grief is shared by millions of people the world over, but it is also mingled with intense pride in a great patriot who never gave up and who never gave in. To know the secret of Richard Nixon’s relationship with the American people, you need only to listen to his words: “You must never be satisfied with success,” he told us, “and you should never be discouraged by failure. Failure can be sad, but the greatest sadness is not to try and fail, but to fail to try. In the end what matters is that you have always lived life to the hilt.”

Strong, brave, unafraid of controversy, unyielding in his convictions, living every day of his life to the hilt, the largest figure of our time whose influence will be timeless. That was Richard Nixon. How American. May God bless Richard Nixon and may God bless the United States.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, renowned Roman statesman and orator, is said to have praised Greek historian Thucydides with the observation that “he almost equals the number of his words by the number of his thoughts.”

Cicero himself recognized the power of words. Born in 106
B.C.
, he used his oratorical abilities to raise his social position, serving first as a lawyer and then as a politician. After winning a Roman consulship at the age of forty-three, he became aware of a “conspiracy” by Roman politician Catiline and thwarted Catiline’s attempt to have him assassinated. Two days later, Cicero rose to address the Roman Senate in the first of his four orations against Catiline, using facts gained from a scorned mistress.

With a series of seven probing questions, Cicero began the denunciation of his adversary for scheming against the state. He repeatedly used parallel structure (“the enemies of good men, the foes of the Republic, the robbers of Italy”) and direct address to move from the focus of his attack (“O Catiline”) to those whom he wished to persuade (“O conscript fathers”), leading to the divine apostrophe “O Jupiter” at the speech’s conclusion.

In December of 63
B.C.
, the Roman Senate debated the fate of the conspirators, with Julius Caesar moderately advocating their imprisonment and Cicero and Cato the Younger sternly seeking their execution. The summary judgment carried the day, though Cicero was later exiled for abusing the law; Catiline, who refused to surrender for his execution, was killed on the battlefield the next year, following his forceful speech to rally the troops (see p. 91).

***

WHEN, O CATILINE
, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about
as it does now? Do not the mighty guards placed on the Palatine Hill—do not the watches posted throughout the city—does not the alarm of the people, and the union of all good men—does not the precaution taken of assembling the Senate in this most defensible place—do not the looks and countenances of this venerable body here present, have any effect upon you? Do you not feel that your plans are detected? Do you not see that your conspiracy is already arrested and rendered powerless by the knowledge which everyone here possesses of it? What is there that you did last night, what the night before—where is it that you were—who was there that you summoned to meet you—what design was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is unacquainted?

Shame on the age and on its principles! The Senate is aware of these things; the consul sees them; and yet this man lives. Lives! aye, he comes even into the Senate. He takes a part in the public deliberations; he is watching and marking down and checking off for slaughter every individual among us. And we, gallant men that we are, think that we are doing our duty to the Republic if we keep out of the way of his frenzied attacks.

You ought, O Catiline, long ago to have been led to execution by command of the counsel. That destruction which you have been long plotting against us ought to have already fallen on your own head….

I wish, O conscript fathers, to be merciful; I wish not to appear negligent amid such danger to the state; but I do now accuse myself of remissness and culpable inactivity. A camp is pitched in Italy, at the entrance of Etruria, in hostility to the Republic; the number of the enemy increases every day; and yet the general of that camp, the leader of those enemies, we see within the walls—aye, and even in the senate—planning every day some internal injury to the Republic. If, O Catiline, I should now order you to be arrested, to be put to death, I should, I suppose, have to fear lest all good men should say that I had acted tardily, rather than that any one should affirm that I acted cruelly. But yet this, which ought to have been done long since, I have good reason for not doing as yet; I will put you to death, then, when there shall be not one person possible to be found so wicked, so abandoned, so like yourself, as not to allow that it has been rightly done. As long as one person exists who can dare to defend you, you shall live; but you shall live as you do now, surrounded by my many and trusted guards, so that you shall not be able to stir one finger against the Republic; many eyes and ears shall still observe and watch you as they have hitherto done, though you shall not perceive them.

For what is there, O Catiline, that you can still expect, if night is not able to veil your nefarious meetings in darkness, and if private houses cannot conceal the voice of your conspiracy within their walls—if everything is seen and displayed? Change your mind: trust me: forget the slaughter and conflagration you are meditating. You are hemmed in on all sides; all your plans are clearer than the day to us; let me remind you of them. Do you recollect that on the twenty-first of October I said in the Senate, that on a certain day, which was to be the twenty-seventh of October, C. Manilius, the satellite and servant of your audacity, would be in arms? Was I mistaken, Catiline, not only in so important, so atrocious, so incredible a fact but, what is much more remarkable, in the very day? I said also in the Senate that you had fixed the massacre of the nobles for the twenty-eighth of October, when many chief men of the Senate had left Rome, not so much for the sake of saving themselves as of checking your designs. Can you deny that on that very day you were so hemmed in by my guards and my vigilance that you were unable to stir one finger against the Republic; when you said that you would be content with the flight of the rest, and the slaughter of us who remained? What? When you made sure that you would be able to seize Praeneste on the first of November by a nocturnal attack, did you not find that that colony was fortified by my order, by my garrison, by my watchfulness and care? You do nothing, you plan nothing, think of nothing which I not only do not hear but which I do not see and know every particular of.

Listen while I speak of the night before. You shall now see that I watch far more actively for the safety than you do for the destruction of the Republic. I say that you came the night before (I will say nothing obscurely) into the scythe dealers’ street, to the house of Marcus Lecca; that many of your accomplices in the same insanity and wickedness came there, too. Do you dare to deny it? Why are you silent? I will prove it if you do deny it; for I see here in the senate some men who were there with you.

O ye immortal gods, where on earth are we? in what city are we living? what constitution is ours? There are here—here in our body, O conscript fathers, in this the most holy and dignified assembly of the whole world—men who meditate my death, and the death of all of us, and the destruction of this city, and of the whole world. I, the consul, see them; I ask them their opinion about the Republic, and I do not yet attack, even by words, those who ought to be put to death by the sword….