Speeches by The Presiding Officer
On practically all occasions there is a presiding officer whose chief duty is to introduce to the audience the various speakers. The one great fault of speeches of introduction is that they are too long. The introducer sincerely means not to consume too much time, but in the endeavor to do justice to the occasion or the speaker he becomes involved in his remarks until they wander far from his definite purpose.
He wearies the audience before the important speaker begins. An introducer should not become so unconscious of his real task as to fall into this error. In other cases the fault is not so innocent. Many a person called upon to introduce a speaker takes advantage of the chance to express his own opinions.
He drops into the discourtesy of using for his own ends a condition of passive attention which was not created for him. One large audience which had assembled to hear a lecturer was kept from listening to him while for twenty minutes the introducer aired his own pet theories. Of course members of the audience discussed among themselves the inappropriateness of such remarks, but it is doubtful whether any criticism reached the offender.
A newspaper recently had the courage to voice the feelings of audiences.
It seems that a good deal of the time of the audience at the Coliseum the other night was taken by those who introduced the speakers of the evening. We are told in one account of the meeting that the audience was at times impatient of these preliminaries and even howled once or twice for those it had come to hear.... We are informed that all those introducing the speakers said something about not having risen to speak at length, and that one of them protested his inability to speak with any facility. Both these professions are characteristic of those introducing speakers of the evening. Yet, strangely enough, the same always happens. That is, the preliminaries wear the audience out before the people it came to hear can get at it.
In introducing a speaker never be too long-winded. Tactfully, gracefully, courteously, put before the audience such facts as the occasion, the reason for the topic of the speech, the fitness and appropriateness of the choice of the speaker, then present the man or woman. Be extremely careful of facts and names.
A nominating speaker at a great political convention ruined the effect of a speech by confusedly giving several first names to a distinguished man. It is embarrassing to a speaker to have to correct at the very beginning of his remarks a misstatement made by the presiding officer. But a man from one university cannot allow the audience to identify him with another. The author of a book wants its title correctly given. A public official desires to be associated in people's minds with the department he actually controls.
"Be extremely careful of facts and names."
The main purpose of a speech of introduction is to do for the succeeding speaker what the chapter on beginning the speech suggested—to render the audience attentive and well-disposed, to introduce the topic, and in addition to present the speaker.