In what has been termed this Goebbels era of vituperation, oratory, which played a valiant part ju other wars, has been permitted little play. "Like the violet, it reveals its beauty only if it is given a chance in the undergrowth and modest though it may be it is extremely sweet and potent in appeal. While the air is full of foul and somewhat maniacal ravings of Nazi and Soviet speakers, whose eloquence seems to draw its inspiration from the sewer, those great rallying cries of past wars are notably absent in the present conflict, although here and there one may find a gem of some value. John Bright's phrase in his Crimean War speech: "The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his gs" is outstanding as a dramatic utterance. Pitt the Younger observed after Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz: "Roll up the map of Europe; it will not be wanted these ten years." Wellington, with dry and sad restraint, said. "Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won." Sir Edward Grey heralded the last World War with this: "The lights are going out all over Europe." Mr. Lloyd George's inspiring phrases in the last war—"A land fit for heroes to live in" and a whole catalogue of others had punch and challenge in them although cynics found much to twist in the critical years after the war had been won. Mr. Winston Churchill, in this war, is attempting to revive the oratory of other great days with the greater opportunities provided by the radio, a far more omniprevalent instrument than was at the disposal of statesmen who addressed only a handful of people in Parliament or at a meeting and relied on the press for wider distribution. Mr. Churchills speech on October 1 was the best "pep" talk the Empire has yet heard and led American opinion to consider it worth two divisions of troops. Since then, beyond formal speeches of no great import beyond dull reporting of events, the Empire has been left waiting in expectancy for speeches which have not materialized. Perhaps it is a phenomenon of our times that there is an inverse ratio between oratory and the expanding means available for conveying it to the public. As one London critic has remarked, the war has produced hardly a phrase which might have not been used by the competent chairman of a company meeting. This is a cruel assessment but because war has lost its glamour and has become a huge business managed affair it possibly should be treated only in terms of a like nature.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.