ALL WE SAY by Ben Rhodes
ALL WE SAY by Ben Rhodes
This book reflects on our American History through 15 speeches, starting with Benjamin Franklin advocating for an, “Aye” vote in support of the US Constitution. Ben is in my top five favorite Americans and two others are included in this book with speeches which can be accessed below: Abraham Lincoln and FDR.
When you think of why speeches in the day went on for so long, I have come to appreciate that in 1787 or 1864, they were in fact a form of entertainment as well as education, often with a price attached to attend, not unlike going to a play as they had no radio, TV, or internet. So a short speech might be perceived as a rip off. Lincoln excelled at short succinct and impactful speeches (often more so in retrospect) and FDR for “plain speaking” as exercised in his fireside chats—which were on radio, and free to listen to..
Both of these speeches, Lincoln’s second Inaugural address, given 42 days before his death and FDR’s 1941 State of the Union Speech, were impactful on the nation’s public reflecting on or anticipating a crisis. Both served as a point of reference going forward. Consider timing and the maturity of the Republic: Lincoln’s speech is given when the county was still in adolescence, FDR’s to a country achieving adulthood and ranking well with other more established countries. Lincoln speaks as a father, reflection on the chaos of the war, the inability to reconcile differences within the family if you will, without violence. He speaks as a father or, a partriarch, and uses Biblical language:
“Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
And more familiar, ending with: "With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” I can’t imagine a modern president speaking this way—both the sentiment and the supplication are foreign to our modern ears.
?Obama, maybe?
The voting public was quite restricted by modern standards in 1864—but I think his address went beyond those who could vote. He addressed widows and orphans—a logical point after such a devastating war. His speech was given when so many norms had been blown up—literally —and the city was patrolled partly by all-black army units. This would have been quite impossible just four years before. The vice President of the Confederacy made a speech just prior to Fort Sumter that suggested that the South was at the vanguard of future civilization—something revolutionary — and indirectly the war led to something revolutionary and of anothers' vision.
FDR did not have Lincoln’s gravitas—nor his sense of humor. His was a time of being business-like. In his case the burden of war was not passed, but coming. He was addressing a (young) adult nation which included voting minorities and women of all backgrounds.
FDR’s speech does not attempt to reconcile aggrieved parties within a family as Lincoln had failed to do. His is a speech warning of an inevitable struggle ahead, with world domination an issue for the first time. He not only makes an argument to counter isolationist sentiment, arguably a majority position at the time, a little less than a year before Pearl Harbor, but sets forth principles that he suggested were very “American” and which should guide the country, no matter what. In this sense, he was suggesting a revolution to counter the now decades old Communist version of the word, "revolution." He talks strategy in this speech: We will arm- this will require sacrifice ie doing without and paying more taxes, and need to support those (Great Britain) fighting authoritarian regimes (for us, now) before we get drawn in.
The principles support a vision, which would hopefully guide the strategies of preparing for and then entering war. Those principles sound pretty straightforward to a majority of us as they have guided much of the nation’s vision for 80-odd years. Some are on the ropes. One hopes they won’t be discarded as, “out dated, misguided, out of fashion, or too expensive, not to mention, socialistic.”
They were:
Opportunity for all.
Security for all.
Ending special privilege for the few.
Civil liberties for all.
While he claimed these to be American Rights—these foreshadowed a guiding vision post World War II that would find him not especially helpful to a Great Britain trying to maintain Empire. The vision was to carry through and be world wide.
So how are we doing with that, right?
Recommended:
The Plot to Seize the White House: the Shocking TRUE story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR by Archer and Venzon
The Secret Trial of Robert E Lee, by Fleming
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