1
00:00:00,600 --> 00:00:09,679
Chapter twenty five, influencing the crowd. Success in business in the last analysis

2
00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:15,640
turns upon touching the imagination of crowds. The reason that preachers in this present

3
00:00:15,759 --> 00:00:21,839
generation are less successful in getting people
to want goodness than business men are in

4
00:00:21,920 --> 00:00:27,519
getting them to want motor cars,
hats, and pianolas is that business men

5
00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:32,640
as a class are more close and
desperate students of human nature, and have

6
00:00:32,799 --> 00:00:39,320
boned down harder to the art of
touching the imaginations of the crowds. Gerald

7
00:00:39,359 --> 00:00:47,479
Stanley Lee crowds. In the early
part of July nineteen fourteen, a collection

8
00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:53,159
of Frenchmen in Paris or Germans in
Berlin was not a crowd in a psychological

9
00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:58,719
sense. Each individual had his own
special interests and needs, and there was

10
00:00:58,759 --> 00:01:03,400
no powerful common eye dear to unify
them. A group then represented only a

11
00:01:03,400 --> 00:01:11,319
collection of individuals. A month later, any collection of Frenchmen or Germans form

12
00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:15,879
the crowd. Patriotism, hate,
a common fear, a pervasive grief had

13
00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:23,120
unified the individuals. The psychology of
the crowd is far different from the psychology

14
00:01:23,159 --> 00:01:29,239
of the personal members that compose it. The crowd is a distinct entity.

15
00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:36,239
Individuals restrain and subdue many of their
impulses at the dictates of reason. The

16
00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:42,359
crowd never reasons, It only feels
as persons. There is a sense of

17
00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:48,319
responsibility attached to our actions, which
checks many of our incitements, but the

18
00:01:48,400 --> 00:01:53,840
sense of responsibility is lost in the
crowd because of its numbers. The crowd

19
00:01:53,920 --> 00:02:00,079
is exceedingly suggestible and will act upon
the wildest and most extreme ideas. The

20
00:02:00,120 --> 00:02:05,680
crowd mind is primitive and will cheer
plans and perform actions which its members would

21
00:02:05,799 --> 00:02:13,199
utterly repudiate. A mob is only
a highly wrought crowd. Ruskin's description is

22
00:02:13,240 --> 00:02:19,439
fitting. You can talk a mob
into anything. Its feelings may be usually

23
00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:23,360
are on the whole, generous and
right, but it has no foundation for

24
00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:28,960
them, no hold of them.
You may tease or tickle it into anything

25
00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:32,800
at your pleasure. It thinks by
infection, for the most part, catching

26
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:38,000
an opinion like a cold and there
is nothing so little that it will not

27
00:02:38,159 --> 00:02:42,919
roar itself wild about when the fit
is on, nothing so great, but

28
00:02:43,039 --> 00:02:49,840
it will forget in an hour when
the fit is past. History will show

29
00:02:49,919 --> 00:02:54,039
us how the crowd mind works.
The medieval mind was not given to reasoning.

30
00:02:54,240 --> 00:03:00,280
The medieval man attached great weight to
the utterance of authority. His religion

31
00:03:00,439 --> 00:03:06,919
touched chiefly the emotions. These conditions
provided a rich soil for the propagation of

32
00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:12,919
the crowd mind. When in the
eleventh century flagellation, a voluntary self scourging

33
00:03:13,159 --> 00:03:20,599
was preached by the monks, substituting
flagellation for reciting penitential psalms was advocated by

34
00:03:20,599 --> 00:03:25,360
the reformers. A scale was drawn
up, making one thousand strokes equivalent to

35
00:03:25,479 --> 00:03:32,000
ten psalms, or fifteen thousand to
the entire psalter. This craze spread by

36
00:03:32,080 --> 00:03:39,599
leaps and crowds. Flagellant fraternities sprang
up. Priests carrying banners led through the

37
00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:46,800
streets great processions, reciting prayers and
whipping their bloody bodies with leaden thongs fitted

38
00:03:46,840 --> 00:03:53,039
with four iron points. Pope Clement
denounced this practice, and several of the

39
00:03:53,159 --> 00:03:57,639
leaders of those processions had to be
burned at the stake before the frenzy could

40
00:03:57,639 --> 00:04:03,159
be uprooted. All Western and Central
Europe was turned into a crowd by the

41
00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:09,199
preaching of the crusaders, and millions
of the followers of the Prince of Peace

42
00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:14,280
rushed to the Holy Land to kill
the heathen. Even the children started on

43
00:04:14,319 --> 00:04:19,040
a crusade against the Saracens. The
mob spirit was so strong that home affections

44
00:04:19,079 --> 00:04:25,199
and persuasion could not prevail against it, and thousands of mere babes died in

45
00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:30,720
their attempts to reach and redeem the
sacred sepulture. In the early part of

46
00:04:30,759 --> 00:04:36,120
the eighteenth century, the south Sea
Company was formed in England. Britain became

47
00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:42,879
a speculative crowd. Stock in the
south Sea Company rose from one hundred twenty

48
00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:47,519
eight one half points in January to
five hundred fifty in May, and scored

49
00:04:47,600 --> 00:04:55,240
one thousand in July. Five million
shares were sold At this premium. Speculation

50
00:04:55,439 --> 00:05:00,560
ran riot. Hundreds of companies were
organized. One was formed for a wheel

51
00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:05,920
of perpetual motion. Another never troubled
to give any reason at all for taking

52
00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:12,000
the cash of its subscribers. It
merely announced that it was organized for a

53
00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:17,399
design which will hereafter be promulgated.
Owners began to sell The mob called the

54
00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:23,399
suggestion a panic. In suit,
the south Sea Company stock fell eight hundred

55
00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:27,759
points in a few days, and
more than a billion dollars evaporated. In

56
00:05:27,800 --> 00:05:32,879
this era of frenzied speculation, the
burning of the Witches at Salem. The

57
00:05:32,959 --> 00:05:38,399
Klondike gold craze, and the forty
eight people who were killed by mobs in

58
00:05:38,439 --> 00:05:45,879
the United States in nineteen thirteen are
examples familiar to us. In America,

59
00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:51,399
the crowd must have a leader.
The leader of the crowd or mob is

60
00:05:51,399 --> 00:05:58,720
its determining factor. He becomes self
hypnotized with the idea that unifies its members.

61
00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:03,959
His enthusiasts is contagious, and so
is theirs. The crowd acts as

62
00:06:04,040 --> 00:06:10,120
he suggests. The great mass of
people do not have any very sharply drawn

63
00:06:10,199 --> 00:06:15,560
conclusions on any subject outside of their
own little spheres. But when they become

64
00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:18,839
a crowd, they are perfectly willing
to accept ready made, hand me down

65
00:06:18,959 --> 00:06:25,639
opinions. They will follow a leader
at all costs. In labor troubles,

66
00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:30,240
they often follow a leader in preference
to obeying their government. In war,

67
00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:33,439
they will throw self preservation to the
bushes and follow a leader in the face

68
00:06:33,480 --> 00:06:40,040
of guns that fire fourteen times a
second. The mob becomes shorn of will

69
00:06:40,120 --> 00:06:46,680
power and blindly obedient to its dictator. The Russian government, recognizing the menace

70
00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:53,639
of the crowd, mind to its
autocracy formerly prohibited public gatherings. History is

71
00:06:53,759 --> 00:07:01,600
full of similar instances how the crowd
is created to day, the crowd is

72
00:07:01,639 --> 00:07:08,399
as real a factor in our socialized
life as our magnates and monopolies. It

73
00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:12,959
is too complex a problem merely to
them or praise it. It must be

74
00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:17,240
reckoned with and mastered. The present
problem is how to get the most and

75
00:07:17,319 --> 00:07:21,600
the best out of the crowd spirit
and the public speaker finds this to be

76
00:07:21,800 --> 00:07:28,800
peculiarly his own question. His influence
is multiplied if he can only transmute his

77
00:07:28,879 --> 00:07:35,279
audience into a crowd. His affirmations
must be their conclusions. This can be

78
00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:42,199
accomplished by unifying the minds and needs
of the audience and arousing their emotions.

79
00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:46,959
Their feelings, not their reason,
must be played upon. It is up

80
00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:51,120
to him to do this. Nobly
argument has its place on the platform,

81
00:07:51,519 --> 00:07:58,040
but even its potencies must observe the
speaker's plan of attack to win possession of

82
00:07:58,199 --> 00:08:05,759
his audience. Reread the chapter on
feeling and enthusiasm. It is impossible to

83
00:08:05,800 --> 00:08:11,160
make an audience a crowd without appealing
to their emotions. Can you imagine the

84
00:08:11,240 --> 00:08:16,680
average group becoming a crowd while hearing
a lecture on dry fly fishing or on

85
00:08:16,759 --> 00:08:20,879
Egyptian art? On the other hand, it would not have required world famous

86
00:08:20,879 --> 00:08:26,600
eloquence to have turned any audience in
Ulster in nineteen fourteen into a crowd by

87
00:08:26,639 --> 00:08:33,600
discussing the Home Rule Act. The
crowd spirit depends largely on the subject used

88
00:08:33,759 --> 00:08:41,039
to fuse their individualities into one glowing
whole. Note hour Antony played upon the

89
00:08:41,080 --> 00:08:46,080
feelings of his hearers in the famous
funeral oration given by Shakespeare in Julius Caesar.

90
00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:54,399
From murmuring units, the men became
a unit a mob. Antony's oration

91
00:08:54,600 --> 00:09:01,840
over Caesar's body, Friends, ro
moments, countrymen, lend me your ears.

92
00:09:03,519 --> 00:09:07,039
I come to bury Caesar, not
to praise him. The evil that

93
00:09:07,200 --> 00:09:11,519
men do lives after them. The
good is oft interred with their bones.

94
00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:18,039
So let it be with Caesar.
The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was

95
00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:22,120
ambitious. If it were so,
it was a grievous fault, And grievously

96
00:09:22,279 --> 00:09:28,159
hath Caesar answered it here on the
leave of Brutus and the rest. For

97
00:09:28,279 --> 00:09:35,720
Brutus is an honorable man, So
are they all all honorable men? Come

98
00:09:35,759 --> 00:09:41,879
I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just

99
00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:46,320
to me. But Brutus says he
was ambitious, and Brutus is an honorable

100
00:09:46,360 --> 00:09:52,480
man. He hath brought many captives
home to Rome, whose ransom did the

101
00:09:52,559 --> 00:09:58,879
general Coffus feel? Did this in
Caesar seem ambitious? When that the poor

102
00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:03,039
have cried? Caesar hath wept.
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

103
00:10:03,919 --> 00:10:11,080
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
and Brutus is an honorable man. You

104
00:10:11,159 --> 00:10:15,879
all did see that on the lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

105
00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:22,799
which he did thrice refuse. Was
this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was

106
00:10:22,840 --> 00:10:28,200
ambitious, and sure he is an
honorable man. I speak not to disprove

107
00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:31,000
what Brutus spoke, But here I
am to speak what I do know.

108
00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:37,639
You all did love him once,
not without cause? What cause withholds you

109
00:10:37,720 --> 00:10:43,399
then to mourn for him? Oh
judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,

110
00:10:43,399 --> 00:10:46,879
and men have lost their reason.
Bear with me. My heart is

111
00:10:46,919 --> 00:10:52,159
in the coffin there with Caesar,
and I must pause till it come back

112
00:10:52,200 --> 00:11:00,559
to me. Weeps. First,
Plebeian, methinks there is my much reason

113
00:11:00,639 --> 00:11:07,240
in his sayings. Second, Plebeian, if thou consider rightly of the matter.

114
00:11:07,879 --> 00:11:13,679
Caesar has had great wrong. Third
Plebeian, has he masters? I

115
00:11:13,840 --> 00:11:20,639
fear there will the war's come in
his place? Fourth Plebeian, mark dye

116
00:11:20,799 --> 00:11:24,039
his words. He would not take
the crown. Therefore tis certain he was

117
00:11:24,120 --> 00:11:31,600
not ambitious. First Plebeian. If
it be found so, some will dear

118
00:11:31,639 --> 00:11:37,039
abide it. Second Plebeian, poor
soul. His eyes are red as fire

119
00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:43,919
with weeping. Third Plebeian. There
is not a nobler man in Rome than

120
00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:52,840
Anthony. Fourth Plebeian. Now mark
him. He begins again to speak Anthony.

121
00:11:52,919 --> 00:11:58,240
But yesterday the word of Caesar might
have stood against the world. Now

122
00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:01,840
lies he there, and none so
poor to do him reverence? O,

123
00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:07,039
Masters, if I were disposed to
stir your hearts and minds to mutiny and

124
00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:13,399
rage, I should do Brutus wrong
and Cassius wrong, who you all know

125
00:12:13,799 --> 00:12:18,399
are honorable men. I will not
do them wrong. I rather choose to

126
00:12:18,399 --> 00:12:22,679
wrong the dead, to wrong myself
and you, than I will wrong such

127
00:12:22,720 --> 00:12:26,879
honorable men. But here's a parchment
with the seal of Caesar. I found

128
00:12:26,879 --> 00:12:31,559
it in his closet. Tis his
will. Let but the commons hear this

129
00:12:31,679 --> 00:12:37,759
testament, which pardon me. I
do not mean to read, and they

130
00:12:37,759 --> 00:12:41,679
would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, and dip their napkins in his sacred

131
00:12:41,799 --> 00:12:48,600
blood. Yea beg a hair of
him for memory and dying mention it within

132
00:12:48,679 --> 00:12:54,559
their wills, bequeathing it as a
rich legacy unto their issue. Fourth Plebeian,

133
00:12:56,279 --> 00:13:01,399
will hear the will? Read it, Mark Antony, all the will,

134
00:13:01,799 --> 00:13:07,679
the will? We will here Ceesar's
will, Antony. Have patience,

135
00:13:07,720 --> 00:13:11,600
gentle friends. I must not read
it. It is not meet you know

136
00:13:11,720 --> 00:13:16,159
how Caesar loved you. You are
not would you are not stones but men,

137
00:13:16,759 --> 00:13:20,840
and being men. Hearing the will
of Caesar, it will inflame you.

138
00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:24,759
It will make you mad. Tis
good? You know not that you

139
00:13:24,799 --> 00:13:28,559
are his heirs? For if you
should, oh, what would come of

140
00:13:28,600 --> 00:13:35,519
it? Fourth Plebean read the will? Will hear it, Antony? You

141
00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:41,759
shall read us the will Seesar's will? Antony? Will you be patient?

142
00:13:41,120 --> 00:13:46,679
Will you stay Awhile I have always
shot myself to tell you of it?

143
00:13:46,440 --> 00:13:52,039
I fear I wrong. The honorable
men whose daggers have stabbed Caesar, I

144
00:13:52,159 --> 00:14:01,480
do fear it. Fourth Plebeon they
were traitors, honorable men, all the

145
00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:09,559
will the testament. Second Plebaean,
they were villains, murderers. The will,

146
00:14:09,879 --> 00:14:15,120
read the will, Antony. You
will compel me then to read the

147
00:14:15,159 --> 00:14:18,879
will. Then make a ring about
the corpse of Caesar, and let me

148
00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:24,039
show you him that made the will. Shall I descend, and will you

149
00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:31,840
give me leave? All come down? Second plebaein descend, He comes down

150
00:14:31,879 --> 00:14:39,000
from the rostrum. Third plebaein you
shall have leave, Fourth plebaein a ring.

151
00:14:39,320 --> 00:14:46,240
Stand round. First plebain stand from
the hearse, stand from the body.

152
00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:54,080
Second plebaein room for antonye most noble
Antonae, Antony, nay, press

153
00:14:54,159 --> 00:15:01,799
not so upon me stand far off
all stand bad back room, bare back

154
00:15:03,679 --> 00:15:07,919
Anthony. If you have tears prepared
to shed them. Now you all do

155
00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:13,399
know this mantle. I remember the
first time ever Caesar put it on twas

156
00:15:13,399 --> 00:15:20,200
on a summer's evening in his tent. That day he overcame the nervy look

157
00:15:20,360 --> 00:15:24,879
in this place, ran Cassius,
dagger through. See what a rent the

158
00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:31,279
envious Casca made through this the well
beloved Brutus stabbed, And as he plucked

159
00:15:31,320 --> 00:15:35,679
his cursed steel away, mark how
the blood of Caesar followed it as rushing

160
00:15:35,679 --> 00:15:41,679
out of doors to be resolved.
If brutus so unkindly knocked or no,

161
00:15:41,200 --> 00:15:46,720
for Brutus, as you know,
was Caesar's angel judge O U gods,

162
00:15:46,759 --> 00:15:52,279
how Caesar loved him. This was
the most unkindest cut of all. For

163
00:15:52,360 --> 00:15:58,440
when the noble Caesar saw him stabb
ingratitude more strong than traitor's arms, quite

164
00:15:58,559 --> 00:16:03,600
vanquished him, then burst his mighty
heart and in his mantle, muffling up

165
00:16:03,639 --> 00:16:08,240
his face, even at the base
of Pompey's statue, which all the while

166
00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:14,559
ran blood. Great Caesar fell.
Oh what a fall was there, my

167
00:16:14,679 --> 00:16:19,200
countrymen? Then I and you and
all of us fell down, whilst bloody

168
00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:25,840
treason flourished over us. Oh,
now you weep, and I perceive you

169
00:16:25,960 --> 00:16:30,799
feel the dint of pity. These
are gracious drops, kind souls. What

170
00:16:32,240 --> 00:16:37,519
weep you when you but behold our
Caesar's vesture wounded? Look you here,

171
00:16:37,919 --> 00:16:45,200
he is himself marred as you see
by traitors. First plebaein O piteous spectacle,

172
00:16:47,279 --> 00:16:55,600
Second plebaein O noble Caesar, Third
plebein, oh woeful day, fourth

173
00:16:55,639 --> 00:17:06,279
plebein O traitors villains. First plebaein
almost bloody sight, Second plebaein we will

174
00:17:06,319 --> 00:17:17,240
be revenged all revenge about seek burn
fire killed day. Let not at freighter

175
00:17:17,319 --> 00:17:25,680
live, Antony stay, countrymen,
First, plebein peace. There hear the

176
00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:32,240
noble Antony. Second plebain will hear
him. We'll follow him, will die

177
00:17:32,319 --> 00:17:38,440
with him Antony, Good friends,
sweet friends, let me not stir you

178
00:17:38,599 --> 00:17:44,480
up to such a sudden flood of
mutiny. They death have done this deed,

179
00:17:44,519 --> 00:17:48,559
are honorable. What private griefs they
have, alas I know not that

180
00:17:48,720 --> 00:17:53,559
made them do it. They are
wise and honorable, and will no doubt

181
00:17:53,680 --> 00:17:59,160
with reasons answer you. I come, not friends, to steal away your

182
00:17:59,240 --> 00:18:03,880
hearts. I am no orator,
as Brutus is. But as you know

183
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:07,640
me, all a plain blunt man
that love my friend, and that they

184
00:18:07,680 --> 00:18:11,839
know full well that gave me public
leave to speak of him. For I

185
00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:17,599
have neither wit, nor worth,
action or utterance, nor the power of

186
00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:22,200
speech to stirman's blood. I only
speak right on. I tell you that

187
00:18:22,319 --> 00:18:29,319
which you yourselves do know. Show
your sweet Caesar's wounds, poor poor dumb

188
00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:34,200
mouths, and bid them speak for
me. But were I brutus and brutus

189
00:18:34,279 --> 00:18:40,319
Antony there were an Antony would ruffle
up your spirits and put a tongue in

190
00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:44,880
every wound of Caesar, that should
move the stones of Rome to rise and

191
00:18:45,039 --> 00:18:52,839
mutiny. All will mutiny. First
Plebaein will burn the house of Brutus.

192
00:18:53,960 --> 00:19:02,480
Third Plebaein away, Then come seek
the conspirators. Antony. Yet hear me,

193
00:19:02,599 --> 00:19:10,000
countrymen, yet hear me speak all
peace? Ho hear Antony, most

194
00:19:10,119 --> 00:19:15,720
noble Antony, Antony, Why friends
you go to? Do you know not

195
00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:22,440
what? Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved
your loves? Alas you know not?

196
00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:26,359
I must tell you. Then you
have forgot the will I told you of

197
00:19:29,119 --> 00:19:36,240
Plebeyan's most true the will. Let
stay and hear the will, Antony.

198
00:19:37,119 --> 00:19:41,119
Here is the will, and un
the Caesar's seal to every Roman citizen.

199
00:19:41,240 --> 00:19:49,839
He gives to every several men seventy
five drachmas. Second Plebean, most noble

200
00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:59,119
Caesar will revenge his death. Third
Plebean, Oh Royal Caesar, Antony,

201
00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:07,359
Here me with patience, all peace, Hoe Anthony. Moreover, he hath

202
00:20:07,480 --> 00:20:14,079
left you all his walks, his
private arbors, and new planted orchards on

203
00:20:14,119 --> 00:20:18,720
this side Tiber. He hath left
them you and to your heirs forever common

204
00:20:18,799 --> 00:20:26,640
pleasures to walk abroad and recreate yourselves. Here was a Caesar when comes such

205
00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:33,680
another. First Plebeian never never come
away away, will burn his body in

206
00:20:33,759 --> 00:20:40,440
the holy place, and with the
bronze fire the traitor's houses take up the

207
00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:48,240
body. Second Plebeian, go fetch
fire. Third Plebeian pluck down benches.

208
00:20:48,359 --> 00:20:57,200
Third Plebeian pluck down benches. Fourth
Plebeian pluck down forms windows, anything excellant

209
00:20:57,319 --> 00:21:04,079
citizens with the body. Antony,
now let it work mischief. Thou art

210
00:21:04,079 --> 00:21:12,279
a foot, Take thou what curse
thou wilt? To unify single auditors into

211
00:21:12,319 --> 00:21:18,880
a crowd. Express their common needs, aspirations, dangers, and emotions.

212
00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:23,279
Deliver your message so that the interests
of one shall appear to be the interests

213
00:21:23,319 --> 00:21:30,000
of all. The conviction of one
man is intensified in proportion as he finds

214
00:21:30,039 --> 00:21:36,440
others sharing his belief and feeling.
Antony does not stop with telling the Roman

215
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:41,920
populace that Caesar fell. He makes
the tragedy universal. Then I, and

216
00:21:42,160 --> 00:21:48,319
you and all of us fell down, whilst bloody treason flourished over us.

217
00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:56,359
Applause Generally, a sign of feeling
helps to unify an audience. The nature

218
00:21:56,400 --> 00:22:00,680
of the crowd is illustrated by the
contagion of applause. Recently, a throng

219
00:22:00,759 --> 00:22:06,720
in a New York moving picture and
board Willehouse had been applauding several songs,

220
00:22:07,279 --> 00:22:11,079
and when an advertisement for tailored skirts
was thrown on the screen, some one

221
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:18,039
started the applause, and the crowd, like sheep, blindly imitated until some

222
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:22,440
one saw the joke and laughed.
Then the crowd again followed a leader and

223
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:30,440
laughed at and applauded its own stupidity. Actors sometimes start applause for their lines

224
00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:34,319
by snapping their fingers. Some one
the first few rows will mistake it for

225
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:41,960
faint applause, and the whole theater
will chime in. An observant auditor will

226
00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:47,359
be interested in noticing the various devices
a monologist will use to get the first

227
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:52,720
round of laughter and applause. He
worked so hard because he knows an audience

228
00:22:52,759 --> 00:22:56,920
of units is an audience of indifferent
critics. But once get them to laughing

229
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:02,000
together, and each single laughing to
sweeps a number of others with them,

230
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:07,079
until the whole theater is a roar
and the entertainer has scored. These are

231
00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:11,440
meretricious schemes. To be sure,
and do not savior in the least of

232
00:23:11,519 --> 00:23:17,559
inspiration. But crowds have not changed
in their nature in a thousand years.

233
00:23:17,599 --> 00:23:22,279
And the one law holds for the
greatest preacher and the pettiest stump speaker.

234
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:27,160
You must fuse your audience or they
will not warm to your message. The

235
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:32,799
devices of the great orator may not
be so obvious as those of the vote

236
00:23:32,799 --> 00:23:37,720
wilmonologist, but the principle is the
same. He tries to strike some universal

237
00:23:37,839 --> 00:23:44,440
note that will have all his hearers
feeling alike at the same time. The

238
00:23:44,559 --> 00:23:48,880
evangelist knows this when he has the
soloist sing some touching song just before the

239
00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:55,240
address, or he will have the
entire congregation sing. And that is the

240
00:23:55,240 --> 00:24:00,000
psychology of now everybody sing, for
he knows that they who will not join

241
00:24:00,079 --> 00:24:04,960
in the song are as yet outside
the crowd. Many a time has the

242
00:24:06,039 --> 00:24:11,160
popular evangelist stopped in the middle of
his talk when he felt that his hearers

243
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:15,240
were units instead of a molten mass. And a sensitive speaker can feel that

244
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:22,200
condition most depressingly and suddenly demanded that
everyone arise and sing or repeat aloud a

245
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:27,119
familiar passage, or read in unison. Or perhaps he has subtly left the

246
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:33,000
thread of his discourse to tell a
story that from long experience he knew would

247
00:24:33,039 --> 00:24:40,440
not fail to bring his hearers to
a common feeling. These things are important

248
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:45,200
resources for the speaker, and happy
is he who uses them worthily, and

249
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:51,480
not as a despicable charlatan. The
difference between a demagogue and a leader is

250
00:24:51,519 --> 00:24:56,960
not so much a matter of method
as of principle. Even the most dignified

251
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:02,359
speaker must recognize the eternal laws of
human nature. You are by no means

252
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:07,319
urged to become a trickster on the
platform. Far from it. But don't

253
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:11,799
kill your speech with dignity. To
be icily correct is as silly as to

254
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:18,400
rant. Do neither, but appeal
to those world old elements in your audience

255
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:22,799
that have been recognized by all great
speakers, from Demosthenes to sam Small,

256
00:25:23,279 --> 00:25:29,319
and see to it that you never
debase your powers by arousing your hearers unworthily.

257
00:25:30,599 --> 00:25:36,079
It is as hard to kindle enthusiasm
in a scattered audience as to build

258
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:41,960
a fire with scattered sticks. An
audience to be converted into a crowd must

259
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:45,440
be made to appear as a crowd. This cannot be done when they are

260
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:51,960
widely scattered over a large seating space, or when many empty benches separate the

261
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:59,359
speaker from his hearers. Have your
audience seated compactly how many a preacher has

262
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:04,279
bemoaned the enormous edifice over which what
would normally be a large congregation has scattered

263
00:26:04,319 --> 00:26:11,799
in chilled and chilling solitudes Sunday after
Sunday. Bishop Brooks himself could not have

264
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:18,839
inspired a congregation of one thousand souls
seated in the vastness of Saint Peter's at

265
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:23,680
Rome, in that colossal sanctuary.
It is only on great occasions which bring

266
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:29,640
out the multitudes, that the service
is before the high altar. At other

267
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:36,960
times, the smaller side chapels are
used. Universal ideas so charged with feeling,

268
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:44,279
helped to create the crowd atmosphere.
Examples liberty, character, righteousness,

269
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:52,160
courage, fraternity, altruism, country
and national heroes. George Cohen was making

270
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:59,160
psychology practical and profitable when he introduced
the flag and flag songs into his musical

271
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:04,799
comedies. Cromwell's regiments prayed before the
battle and went into the fight singing hymns.

272
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:12,119
The French corpse singing the Marseilles in
nineteen fourteen charged the Germans as one

273
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:22,480
man such unifying devices aroused the feelings, make soldiers fanatical mobs and alas more

274
00:27:22,559 --> 00:27:27,279
efficient murderers. End of Section twenty
five