The Pittsburgh Press (January 4, 1946)
Stokes: Speak up, son
By Thomas L. Stokes
WASHINGTON – Pity the poor politician!
Just when he learns one technique, progress comes along.
Painfully, politicians of our era – including presidential candidates – had to learn to speak over the radio.
Now along comes television.
Now they’ve got to learn to be actors as well – refined actors fit to be thrown on the screen in the American home, which is something different from cutting the usual capers out on the stump somewhere. Facial expression is the thing.
In the privacy of the radio studio the politician doesn’t have to watch himself when he speaks of the glory of motherhood or the innocence of childhood. He can even smirk to himself.
But not when mama and the little brats are sitting there watching his every expression.
It seems to inaugurate this next step in political progress – if that’s what it is – President Truman’s annual address to Congress is going to be televised. The president is new at this. Maybe, if you who have the benefit of television watch carefully, you can tell what he really thinks about Congress by the look on his face.
That might help a lot for the understanding of the folks, and for an understanding of what goes on here.
Television, my friends, might well change the whole course of our politics and of our history.
‘The Crooner’
A nice-sounding radio voice had a lot to do with the unprecedented tenure in office of one Franklin D. Roosevelt – at least that’s what Republicans used to say. They called him, scornfully, “The Crooner.”
Republicans discovered what they were up against that night, right after Mr. Roosevelt came into office, when he talked to the folks in their living rooms about the banks that were closed. He was so reassuring about how he would get their money back for them that he got a head start right there which Republicans were never able to overcome.
How well do political reporters remember this dilemma of Republicans and how they began to subsidize radio teachers.
Alf M. Landon, with his Kansas voice, had quite a time. They found an instructor for him. There comes back memory of those sessions in the club car after speech in his 1936 presidential campaign, when the little group of Kansas editor-sponsors who traveled with him would post-mortem the night’s performance. Finally some bold fellow would set down his glass, throw one leg over the other and pipe cheerily into the surrounding gloom: “Well, boys, you know I believe he was a little better tonight.”
Willkie lost his voice
And Wendell L. Willkie. He had his troubles, too, with that slurring growl he had over the radio. He actually lost his voice once during competition with “The Crooner.” It was at Galesburg, Illinois.
We reporters were sitting in the dining car, ears attuned to the loud-speaker to catch the speech from the rear platform. Out came a terrible croak. Lem Jones, Mr. Willkie’s press officer, was standing under the horn. His face actually went white.
That was when they brought up that voice expert from Hollywood to fix it all up, that fellow who sent the Republican National Committee a bill for $13,000 for his services for the rest of the campaign.
Mr. Truman had to learn radio technique, and quick. Now he’s got to learn to act, too, when he speaks. It’s hard on the pioneer. But who can tell? Maybe that nice grin right into the home will make up for all the troubles he’s had.
Republicans were beginning to lose their worries. Now maybe they’ve got to start worrying again, looking for a face that wins friends in the living room.
Shades of William Jennings Bryan! There was a man! He could stand up in a hall or a field, all by himself, and without mechanical contrivances, give it all to the man in the back row.
Those days are gone forever.