CHAPTER VI

CLASH OF ARGUMENTS

After you have determined your starting point and defined your terms, the next step—and an important one—is technically termed “the clash of arguments.” This phrase means a careful balancing over against each other of the leading arguments on both sides of the question.

Be sure you have both sides. It is even more important to know the strong sides of your opponent’s case and to be prepared to meet them than to know your own. It was frequently remarked of Lincoln in debate that he summed up his opponent’s case better than the opponent himself did. Lincoln could not have done so, had he not studied every side of his case. He put the arguments opposed to his own in their strongest possible light and prepared an exact answer. So you must do in your debate.

On your question, “Resolved: that the policy of the United States government toward conservation of forests should be strengthened,” the clash of arguments would follow some such form as this:

AFFIRMATIVE CONTENTIONS: NEGATIVE CONTENTIONS:

1. _Conservation is necessary_: 1. _Conservation is unnecessary_:

A. Without it the great lumber A. By an unlimited settlement dealers would obtain upon and barter in timber control of the timber of tracts, enterprise is the country and thus encouraged, individuals and increase the price of communities are financially timber, and dictate as to benefited. its use.

B. To secure an adequate B. Actual rainfall has been rainfall, as a source of largely superseded by supply for rivers, and for irrigation and other water its effect on vegetation. control. The relation of vegetation to rainfall is uncertain anyway.

C. To insure an adequate C. Lumber may be imported supply of lumber, without when there is lack in wasting the growth of this country; the use timber. of concrete, iron and the like will supersede it ultimately anyway.

2. _The present policy of 2. _The present policy of conservation is insufficient conservation needs no because_: additional strength because_:

A. The present penalties are A. Its present penalties are not severe enough to secure oppressive and work proper respect and hardships upon innocent obedience. persons.

B. The territory now covered B. So much land is now by the law is not withdrawn from settlement sufficient to determine under these laws that whether it worthy citizens are should be generally unable to secure applied. homesteads, and land is more valuable to the United States when farmed than when devoted to timber.

C. The present officials C. These officials are now charged with the often intolerant and enforcement of the law have overbearing. To increase insufficient funds and their authority would authority and in some cases intensify this and tend are negligent or corrupt or toward the creation of a both. permanent official class, which is opposed to the spirit of democracy.

For another illustration, let us analyze the question popularly known as the recall of judicial decisions. We will assume that in the first place when your society and that rival society from Greenburg, after the debate was agreed upon, decided to discuss the recall, you got together to determine the exact question. You decided that you would not discuss the recall generally, that you did not care to go into the question of the wisdom of retiring legislators or executive officers before their term had expired. You were simply interested in the question as far as it affected judges. Very well.

When you discussed the matter further you found you were all unwilling to advocate any system which might seem to encourage an attack on the independence of the judiciary and so you agreed that the question should concern not the recall of judges but only the recall of judicial decisions. You felt that while the argument for and against the recall of judges generally would largely center about the necessity of preserving the independence of the judge, in the matter of submitting only his decisions to popular verdict, other considerations could be urged with equal effectiveness. You further felt that all his decisions should not thus be subjected to the people’s vote, but only those tending to construe the constitution, the fundamental law of the land. In this preliminary meeting you therefore narrowed the question down to a form something like this: “Resolved: that the decision of any judge affecting the constitutionality of any civil statute may be reversed by vote of the electors of the district affected by the statute.” Your clash of arguments on this question might read as follows:

AFFIRMATIVE CONTENTIONS: NEGATIVE CONTENTIONS:

_It is wise because_ _It is unwise because_

1. The Constitution is the 1. The Constitution itself expression of the people’s prescribes a method for will and, in the last resort, its interpretation. only the people should decide what that will is or is not.

2. Only the collective wisdom 2. Only a man specially of the people as a whole trained is competent to is competent to judge of such judge of such fundamental fundamentals as principles. constitutional law.

3. It will cause the average 3. Because the average citizen citizen to pay greater is not educated for public attention to the important affairs, it would encourage questions of public concern, control by the bosses, and and thereby increase the other manifestations of dignity of citizenship. demagogy.

4. To know that his action is 4. It will tend to lessen the likely to be reviewed by the independence of the average public in an authoritative judge—he will listen to way, will increase the care every breath of public and attention the average opinion and hence be unable judge will give such to form an unbiased judgment questions. based only on the law of the case.

5. The method could be easily 5. It burdens the voters applied, e.g., by the unnecessarily and imposes an executive submitting the unwarranted expense upon the question to vote upon a community. petition signed largely enough to show general intent.

6. It presents an orderly 6. It would tend to substitute method of correcting popular prejudice and clamor interpretations of the for calm, dispassionate organic law which are hostile reasoning. to the moral sense of the people, and would afford an outlet for feeling which might otherwise produce revolution or civil war; e.g.: The war between the states, ’60-65, was largely the result of the Dred Scott decision. If a peaceful method of recalling that decision had been provided, the civil war might have been prevented.

7. The public could inform 7. It would be impossible itself of the facts in each properly to acquaint the case through the press and public with the facts and the forums for public arguments necessary to a discussion now so common. proper understanding of each case because of the partisan nature of the public press.

8. While not interfering with 8. Judges are almost invariably the tenure of office of the taken from the legal judge, it would increase the profession, a body of men who respect in which that office by special and constant study is held, because the very and practice are peculiarly study of such questions would fitted for the exercise of convince the public of the this judicial function. It delicate and arduous nature should be left to lawyers. of his work.

=Exclusion of Unessential Matter.=—I do not pretend to have stated all the arguments pro and con on the question before you. I have illustrated simply to you a useful method of arranging them in your own preparation. As you balance them one against the other, you will see that some are important and vitally affect the main question, while others are comparatively unimportant and may be admitted as true or dismissed as trivial or entirely unrelated.

Almost every subject will suggest many arguments which must be admitted. Don’t waste your time in seeking to refute that which you can’t refute and which is not vital to your argument anyway. Your opponent will have a decided advantage over you when he shows the weakness of your attempt, and your main argument will surely suffer. A careful analysis will many times prevent just that trouble and on the other hand your opponent may carefully prepare himself to prove some proposition which you are perfectly willing to admit if you have anticipated his position and are prepared to show that it does not affect your main case.

=The Vital Issues.=—All these various steps in analysis are essential to good debating and if you have taken each step, you have now come to the last—the statement of the special issues. You have seen where the question originated, you have defined its terms, you have put yourself in the place of the other man and know about what he will say, you have excluded from the argument all non-essential matter, and there should now be left the real heart of the question, the actual proposition you are to debate. You can be very sure all this preliminary work is most important—if you have well considered all these steps, you have your debate half won.

In your introductory statement, you will give enough of your analysis to show why you present the points you select as essential. You need not state every step; in fact, in your formal speech, you should not let the machinery be too much in evidence, but in your preliminary work you cannot safely omit one step. So far everything has been preliminary to the argument itself, but you are now ready to build up your actual constructive argument.

In your presentation of your side of the conservation question, for instance, you will mass your facts and arguments about the few really essential points which are left for debate. You will not simply talk about the propositions. You will remember that each point must be proved. You will get not simply the opinions of someone else upon the question; you will get facts. For instance, in the question of the ownership of timber tracts, a part of the conservation problem, it will not be enough to cite what some one thinks about it, but get the actual number of acres owned by corporations. Is that enough? No, show the facts as to the relation of these corporations to one another, or the fact that there is no such relationship, as bearing on the fact of an ownership of these lands by one group. Not opinions, not theories, but _facts_ are what win debates. After you have established your facts, then show how your facts prove your case.

=Don’t Prove What Everybody Knows.=—When you are considering the arrangement and proof, do not waste your time on proof of those facts which are either self-evident or taken for granted. For example, in your discussion of conservation you can take it as self-evident that the policy of the United States government is to aid the people of the United States. You can also take it for granted that the citizens of the United States are moved by love of country and love of home. No doubt you could indulge in some fine writing or fine speaking on these questions, but it is entirely unnecessary to do so. So you need not take time to prove that the government is not deliberately concocting a scheme to injure some of its citizens, nor need you stop to prove that the individual settler loves his forest home if “preëmpting” in good faith and that he should be aided. The mere statement of these two facts proves them.