The Making of Arguments Part 6

Always hold yourself ready to amend your proposition, if you can thereby come closer to the question.

Notebook. Enter the exact proposition which you are to argue.

Ill.u.s.tration. Wytown should adopt the commission form of government, in the form now in practice at Des Moines, Iowa.

EXERCISES

1. Make three arguable propositions on the subject, "Entrance examinations for college."

2. Criticize the following propositions and amend them, if necessary, so that they might be argued with profit:

a. Freshmen should be required to keep reasonable hours.

b. The honor system should be introduced everywhere.

c. This city should do more for its boys.

d. The street railway companies in this city should be better regulated.

e. The amateur rules for college athletes are too stringent.

f. Intercollegiate football is beneficial.

19. Definition of Terms. Making a proposition definite is chiefly a process of defining terms which are found in it; but when these are defined you may still in your argument use others which also need definition. In general the definition of terms, whether in the proposition or not, implies finding out just what a term means for the present purpose. Almost every common word is used for some variety of purposes. "Commission," for example, even within the field of government, has two very different meanings:

As applied to state and national administration, the term "commission government" is used in connection with the growing practice of delegating to appointed administrative boards or commissions--the Interstate Commerce Commission, state railroad commissions, tax commissions, boards of control, etc.--the administration of certain special or specified executive functions ...From the standpoint of organization, then, "commission government," as applied to the state, connotes decentralization, the delegation and division of authority and responsibility, and the disintegration of popular control ...As applied to city administration, however, commission government has a very different meaning. In striking contrast to its use in connection with the state, it is used to designate the most concentrated and centralized type of organization which has yet appeared in the annals of representative munic.i.p.al history. Under so-called commission government for cities, the entire administration of the city's affairs is placed in the hands of a small board or council--"commission"--elected at large and responsible directly to the electorate for the government of the city.[7]

Furthermore, even the term "commission government for cities" is not wholly definite, for there are already several recognized types of such government, such as the Galveston type, the Des Moines type, and recent modifications of these. If you are making an argument for introducing a commission government, therefore, you must go still further with your definitions, and specify the distinguishing features of the particular plan which you are urging on the voters, as is done in the definition on page 59. In other words, you must make exactly clear the meaning of the term for the present case.

Your first impulse when you find a term that needs defining may be to go to a dictionary. A little thought will show you that in most cases you will get little comfort if you do. The aim of a dictionary is to give all the meanings which a word has had in reasonable use; what you need in an argument is to know which one of these meanings it has in the present case. If you were writing an argument on the effects or the righteousness of the change wrought in the English const.i.tution by the recent curtailment of the veto power of the House of Lords, and wished to use the word "revolution," and to use it where it was important that your readers should understand precisely what you intended it to convey, you would not burden them with such a definition as the following, from an unabridged dictionary: "Revolution: a fundamental change in political organization, or in a government or const.i.tution; the overthrow or renunciation of one government and the subst.i.tution of another, by the governed." Such a definition would merely fill up your s.p.a.ce, and leave you no further ahead. A dictionary is studiously general, for it must cover all possible legitimate meanings of the word; in an argument you must be studiously specific, to carry your readers with you in the case under discussion.

Moreover, words are constantly being pressed into new uses, as in the case of "commission" (see p. 54); and others have entirely legitimate local meanings. Only a dictionary which was on the scale of the New English Dictionary and which was reedited every five years could pretend to keep up with these new uses. In an unabridged dictionary dated 1907, for example, the full definition of "amateur" is as follows: "A person attached to a particular pursuit, study or science, as to music or painting; especially one who cultivates any study or art, from taste or attachment, without pursuing it professionally." Of what use would such a definition be to you if you were arguing in favor of strengthening or relaxing the amateur rules in college athletics, in which you had to follow through the intricacies of summer baseball and of reimburs.e.m.e.nts for training table and traveling expenses? Such a definition hardly comes in sight of the use of the word which is most in the mouths of college students in America. Words mean whatever careful and accepted writers have used them to mean; and the business of a dictionary is so far as possible to record these meanings. But language, being a living and constantly developing growth, is constantly altering them and adding to them.

What a dictionary can do for you, therefore, is merely to tell you whether in the past the word has been used with the signification which you wish to give to it; but there are very few cases in which this will be much help to you, for in an argument your only interest in the meaning of a term is in the meaning of that term for the case under discussion.

There are two quite different kinds of difficulty in putting the right interpretation on a statement, and a dictionary can only remove one of these, and by far the less important one. When you meet with a statement containing an unfamiliar word--say, the word "parallax," or "phanerogamous," or "brigantine"--and when you understand all the rest of the statement except that word, then as a general rule the dictionary will help to make the meaning clear. But when the difficulty is caused, not by a word being unfamiliar, but by its being used in a certain context, then the best dictionary in the world is, for your purpose, of no use at all. The nature of every dictionary is necessarily such that it entirely leaves out of account all doubts about meaning which are of this second kind. The most that a dictionary can do is to tell us the meaning of a word in those cases where the context in which it is used is _not_ such as to make the meaning doubtful.[8]

In practice the words which most often need definition are those which are, as it were, shorthand symbols for perhaps a very extensive meaning.

Unless the limits of this extended meaning are clearly marked out you cannot tell whether the minds of your readers are, as the lawyers say, running on all fours with your own or not. This extended meaning may be of various sorts: for example, it may be a large general principle, as in the case of "evolution" or "culture"; or it may be a general system or practice, as in the case of "commission government," "honor system,"

or "high standards for graduation"; or it may be a general cla.s.s of things, persons, or events, as in the case of "secondary school,"

"professional coach," or "murder." When you use any such term in an argument, it is essential that your readers shall have the same set of details, ramifications, or instances in mind as you have yourself. For this purpose you must define the term; or, in other words, you must lay out or display the ramifications and limitations of the principle, the details of the system or practice, or the exact kinds of things, persons, or events, which you have in mind when you use the term. A few examples will make this practical meaning of defining clear.

Sometimes the definition proceeds by careful and specific limitation of the general signification of a word, as in the following example from Bagchot:

I should say that except where it is explained to the contrary, I use the word "toleration" to mean toleration by law. Toleration by society of matters not subject to legal penalty is a kindred subject, on which if I have room I will add a few words; but in the main I propose to deal with the simpler subject, toleration by law.

And by toleration, too, I mean, when it is not otherwise said, toleration in the public expression of opinions; toleration of acts and practices is another allied subject, on which I can, in a paper like this, but barely hope to indicate what seems to me to be the truth, and I should add that I deal only with the discussion of impersonal doctrines: the law of libel, which deals with accusations of living persons, is a topic requiring consideration by itself.[9]

Sometimes the definition is rather an unfolding and displaying of the implications (from the Latin, _implicare_, to fold in) of the term.

Huxley, near the beginning of his three "Lectures on Evolution," made sure by the following definition that his hearers should have a precise idea of what he meant by the term "evolution":

The third hypothesis, or the hypothesis of evolution, supposes that, at any comparatively late period of past time, our imaginary spectator would meet with a state of things very similar to that which now obtains; but that the likeness of the past to the present would gradually become less and less, in proportion to the remoteness of his period of observation from the present day; that the existing distribution of mountains and plains, of rivers and seas, would show itself to be the product of a slow process of natural change operating upon more and more widely different antecedent conditions of the mineral framework of the earth; until, at length, in place of that framework, he would behold only a vast nebulous ma.s.s, representing the const.i.tuents of the sun and of the planetary bodies. Preceding the forms of life which now exist our observer would see animals and plants not identical with them, but like them; increasing their differences with their antiquity and, at the same time, becoming simpler and simpler; until, finally, the world of life would present nothing but that undifferentiated protoplasmic matter, which, so far as our present knowledge goes, is the common foundation of all vital activity.

The hypothesis of evolution supposes that in all this vast progression there would be no breach of continuity, no point at which we could say, "This is a natural process," and "This is not a natural process," but that the whole might be compared to that wonderful process of development which may be seen going on every day under our eyes, in virtue of which there arises, out of the semifluid, comparatively h.o.m.ogeneous substance which we call an egg, the complicated organization of one of the higher animals. That, in a few words, is what is meant by the hypothesis of evolution.[10]

Here Huxley has laid out, in compact form the princ.i.p.al ramifications of the great principle of evolution, giving his hearers something like an outline map of it with its limits and princ.i.p.al divisions.

Where you have a practice or system to define, you will be more likely to do it by specifying the chief and essential details of the system, as in the following definition of commission government for cities. It will be noticed that this narrows down the meaning of the term to something like the Des Moines system, as distinguished from the Galveston plan.

A straight commission form of munic.i.p.al government, in the judgment of Dr. Charles W. Eliot, one of its most active advocates, requires a commission composed of five members elected at large, one of whom is called the mayor, acting as chairman of the commission, but with no veto power, or any other special power not shared by the other members of the commission.

The commission so elected is the source of all authority in the city, makes all ordinances, appoints all officials, collects taxes, and makes all appropriations. As set forth by its advocates, the significant features of the plan, in addition to those already mentioned, are:

a.s.signment of the important divisions of the city government to individual members of the commission, or their election thereto by the voters, each being directly responsible for the conduct of his particular department; adequate compensation to the commissioners for their time and labor, the city employing all the commissioners at living salaries, thus elevating the dignity of munic.i.p.al service and making it a public career, and not a mere avocation; regularity, frequency, and publicity of the meetings of the commissioners; all employees above the cla.s.s of day laborers selected from eligible lists based on examinations, oral and written, carefully devised to develop merit and fitness; recommendations after examination by an independent civil service commission; provision for the retention in office of all employees so appointed during good behavior; the power to initiate legislation reserved to the people, this right being known as the initiative; the power to call for a public vote on any measure adopted by the commission before being given effect as law reserved to the people, this being known as the referendum; the power at any time to make any member of the commission stand for reelection reserved to the people, this being known as the recall; the granting of public franchise always to be submitted to the approval of the electors.

There are two other important features: the introduction of the principle of the short ballot and the elimination of ward lines. In the matured judgment of munic.i.p.al students these are considered, together with the concentration of authority, as the most effective features of the system.[11]

Here is a pretty complete display of all the essential details of the system which the author of this definition intended to mean by the term "commission government for cities."

Where the term which is to be defined is the name of a general cla.s.s, whether of persons, things, or events, the definition must show just what persons, things, or events are to be included under the term for the present purpose. Lincoln gave a famous example of this sort of definition in the opening of his address at Cooper Inst.i.tute, February 27, 1860. He took for the text of the first part of his speech a statement of Senator Douglas.

In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York _Times_, Senator Douglas said, "Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now."

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?

What is the frame of government under which we live? The answer must be, "The Const.i.tution of the United States." That Const.i.tution consists of the original, framed in 1787, and under which the present government first went into operation, and twelve subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in 1789.

Who were our fathers that framed the Const.i.tution? I suppose the "thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present government. It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be repeated. I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, as being "our fathers who framed the government under which we live." What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers understood "just as well, and even better, than we do now"?

It is this: Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or anything in the Const.i.tution, forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?

Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this issue--this question--is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood "better than we."

Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, ever acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon it--how they expressed that better understanding.

Here as will be seen, Lincoln took every important word and phrase, and showed exactly what persons and things were included under them. Then he went ahead with his argument with the a.s.surance that his audience and he were treading the same path.

Somewhat similar are the definitions in many cases at law, where the issue is whether the agreed facts in a case come under a certain term or not. The Const.i.tution of the United States provides that "direct taxes"

shall be apportioned among the states in proportion to their population, but makes no such restriction on the levying of "duties," "imposts," and "taxes." When Congress establishes a new form of tax, therefore, such as the income tax or the corporation tax, the Supreme Court is pretty sure to be called on to decide under which of these large const.i.tutional cla.s.ses it falls. In such cases as the Income Tax cases, which decided that the income tax laid in the Act of 1904 was unconst.i.tutional, and in the Corporation Tax cases, which upheld the Act of 1909, both the arguments of counsel and the decision of the court deal wholly with the definition of the term "direct tax." Here the definition takes the form of an examination of previous cases which involved the term, to see whether the present case is like those that have been held to be within it, or like those which have been held to fall outside it. From this comparison of the two sets of cases the essential characteristics of the direct tax are brought to the surface.

A good example of the careful distinctions which must be made in defining a legal term is found in Daniel Webster's famous argument in the White Murder Case, of which an extract will be found below. The question here is just how far the term "murder" shall be extended.

There are two sorts of murder; the distinction between them it is of essential importance to bear in mind: (1) murder in an affray, or upon sudden and unexpected provocation; (2) murder secretly, with a deliberate, predetermined intention to commit the crime. Under the first cla.s.s, the question usually is, whether the offense he murder or manslaughter, in the person who commits the deed. Under the second cla.s.s, it is often a question whether others than he who actually did the deed were present, aiding and a.s.sisting therein. Offenses of this kind ordinarily happen when there is n.o.body present except those who go on the same design. If a riot should happen in the court-house, and one should kill another, this may be murder, or it may not, according to the intention with which it was done; which is always matter of fact, to be collected from the circ.u.mstances at the time. But in secret murders, premeditated and determined on, there can be no doubt of the murderous intention; there can be no doubt if a person be present, knowing a murder is to be done, of his concurring in the act. His being there is a proof of his intent to aid and abet; else, why is he there?

It has been contended, that proof must be given that the person accused did actually afford aid, did lend a hand in the murder itself; and without this proof, although he may be near by, he may be presumed to be there for an innocent purpose; he may have crept silently there to hear the news, or from mere curiosity to see what was going on. Preposterous, absurd! Such an idea shocks all common sense. A man is found to be a conspirator to commit a murder; he has planned it; he has a.s.sisted in arranging the time, the place, and the means; and he is found in the place, and at the time, and yet it is suggested that he might have been there, not for cooperation and concurrence, but from curiosity! Such an argument deserves no answer. It would be difficult to give it one, in decorous terms. Is it not to be taken for granted, that a man seeks to accomplish his own purposes? When he has planned a murder, and is present at its execution, is he there to forward or to thwart his own design? Is he there to a.s.sist, or there to prevent? But "curiosity"! He may be there from mere "curiosity"! Curiosity to witness the success of the execution of his own plan of murder! The very walls of a court-house ought not to stand, the plowshare should run through the ground it stands on, where such an argument could find toleration.

It is not necessary that the abettor should actually lend a hand, that he should take a part in the act itself; if he be present ready to a.s.sist, that is a.s.sisting.... The law is, that being ready to a.s.sist is a.s.sisting, if the party has the power to a.s.sist, in case of need. It is so stated by Foster, who is a high authority. "If A happeneth to be present at a murder, for instance, and taketh no part in it, nor endeavoreth to prevent it, nor apprehendeth the murderer, nor levyeth hue and cry after him, this strange behavior of his, though highly criminal, will not of itself render him either princ.i.p.al or accessory."

"But if a fact amounting to murder should be committed in prosecution of some unlawful purpose, though it were but a bare trespa.s.s, to which A in the case last stated had consented, and he had gone in order to give a.s.sistance, if need were, for carrying it into execution, this would have amounted to murder in him, and in every person present and joining with him." "If the fact was committed in prosecution of the original purpose which was unlawful, the whole party will be involved in the guilt of him who gave the blow. For in combinations of this kind, the mortal stroke, though given by one of the party, is considered in the eye of the law, and of sound reason too, as given by every individual present and abetting. The person actually giving the stroke is no more than the hand or instrument by which the others strike." The author, in speaking of being present, means actual presence; not actual in opposition to constructive, for the law knows no such distinction. There is but one presence, and this is the situation from which aid, or supposed aid, may be rendered. The law does not say where the person is to go, or how near he is to go, but that he must be where he may give a.s.sistance, or where the perpetrator may believe that he may be a.s.sisted by him. Suppose that he is acquainted with the design of the murderer, and has a knowledge of the time when it is to be carried into effect, and goes out with a view to render a.s.sistance, if need be; why, then, even though the murderer does not know of this, the person so going out will be an abettor in the murder.

20. Definition through the History of the Case. In some cases the easiest way to put before your readers the precise details or limitations implied in a term is through a brief review of the history of the question. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates Lincoln was constantly showing that Douglas's use of the term "popular sovereignty" must be understood in the light of the whole history of the slavery question; that it meant one thing--what Douglas intended it to mean--if the history of the question before 1850 were left out of sight; but that it meant a wholly different thing if the steady encroachment of the slave power from the Missouri Compromise of 1820 on were taken into account.