must ask himself, Is this the best available testimony that can be adduced? C. TESTIMONY ESPECIALLY VALUABLE All testimony has not the same weight. It will vary with different witnesses and with different circumstances. These fall under four groups: 1. Testimony by the opposition. - Witnesses that belong to one side of the case, say that of the plaintiff, are usually cross-questioned by the opposing attorney in an attempt to elicit information of value to the defendant. Such information has special value in the minds of the jury. So, authors quoted by those arguing one side of a question in a debate may be quoted with telling effect by those maintaining the other side. 2. Unwilling Testimony. By unwilling testimony is meant any concessions or admissions by a witness that are hostile to his interests. If the owner of a line of steamships makes statements in opposition to ship subsidies, or a manufacturer to a protective tariff, this would be taken as strong evidence-unless, of course, it be shown that in some way the witness's interests are not really opposed to his statements, such as his desire to destroy a competing rival or to engage in a new business not needing protection. In the following argument, Senator Albert J. Beveridge shows that while corporations having to do with interstate commerce might naturally be supposed to favor "centralization" as opposed to "States' rights," still their interests sometimes lie in favoring the latter doctrine: Powerful interests which exploit the people and the nation's resources can more easily handle a smaller portion of the American people for their purposes than they can handle the entire eighty millions of the people for their purposes. And if they are defeated in one State-one small subdivision of the American peoplethey always have forty-five other chances. This analysis reveals the heart of the present battle against the people's instinctive effort toward national unity. Every corporation, so great that its business is nation-wide, is championing States' rights. Every railroad that has felt the regulating hand of the nation's Government is earnestly for States' rights. Every trust attorney is declaiming about "the dangers of centralization."... And does anybody doubt that the real reason of those mighty financial interests for engineering this twentieth-century crusade for States' rights is that they believe that by curbing the power of the American people expressed through the people's Congress they can better protect their plans for financial gain? 3. Negative Testimony. This class of evidence, also called "the testimony of silence," consists in "the failure of a witness to mention a fact so striking that he must have noticed it had it occurred." In his speech on "Conciliation" Burke based the following argument on negative testimony: We see the sense of the Crown, and the sense of Parliament, on the productive nature of a revenue by grant. Now search the same journals for the produce of the revenue by imposition. Where is it? Let us know the volume and the page. What is the gross, what is the net produce? To what service is it applied? How have you appropriated its surplus? What, can none of the many skilful index-makers that we are now employing find any trace of it? Well, let them and that rest together. But are the journals, which say nothing of the revenue, as silent on the discontent? Oh no! a child may find it. It is the melancholy burden and blot of every page. 4. Undesigned Testimony. - By undesigned testimony is meant such evidence as a speaker or writer states inadvertently or incidentally, without any thought as to its value or bearing on a question in dispute. To be of value, however, such inadvertence must not amount to any suspicion of carelessness or inaccuracy. In the absence of any such suspicion, undesigned testimony, having behind it no motive or bias, ordinarily carries with it a strong presumption of its truthfulness. Webster makes use of such presumption in the White murder trial, as follows: Mr. Southwick swears all that a man can swear. He has the best means of judging that could be had at the time. He tells you that he left his father's house at halfpast ten o'clock, and as he passed to his own house in Brown Street he saw a man sitting on the steps of the rope-walk; that he passed him three times, and each time he held down his head, so that he did not see his face. That the man had on a cloak, which was not wrapped around him, and a glazed cap. That he took the man to be Frank Knapp at the time; that, when he went into his house, he told his wife that he thought it was Frank Knapp; that he knew him well, having known him from a boy. And his wife swears that he did so tell her when he came home. What could mislead this witness at the time? He was not then suspecting Frank Knapp of anything. He could not then be influenced by any prejudice. If you believe that the witness saw Frank Knapp in this position at this time, it proves the case. Again, in the trial of Mrs. Carman for the shooting of Mrs. Bailey, which occurred in the office of Mrs. Carman's husband, a dictagraph connection with the Carman residence having been installed, the following newspaper excerpt shows a bit of undesigned testimony secured from Mrs. Carman's daughter: Elizabeth's most damaging bit of evidence, however, was given later. It was after she had told that she had come in from play and had gone to the piano to practise. This was at the time when Mrs. Carman had gone upstairs, also when Mrs. Bailey went in to see the doctor. "How long did you stay at the piano?" "About ten minutes, or fifteen," she replied. "Did any one say anything to you about stopping playing?" she was asked. "My mother did." Those three words, uttered out of the innocence of a childish mouth telling the truth, may be the most fatal three words that little Elizabeth Carman may ever utter. The dictagraph, according to experts, is hardest to be heard over when any music is about. The foregoing are some of the tests governing the value of evidence adduced from our common experience with witnesses of all kinds. In general debate the main point to be remembered is, that the value of the evidence produced should be clearly brought out in the course of the argument. In a legal trial, a lawyer has an opportunity of testing evidence by the examination and crossexamination of witnesses. The general debater has no such opportunity. He must usually present his evidence from the published statements of the witnesses, and he must be able to show in a few words why the evidence is to be believed, to point out the difference between second-hand testimony, based upon mere rumor or newspaper gossip, and that derived first-hand from capable and disinterested witnesses. When facts are in dispute, or when the setting forth of the facts is an essential step in the proof of a proposition, the handling of evidence has no small bearing on the effectiveness of an argument. D. COLLECTING EVIDENCE Reading. Prior to determining upon a final line of proof, and sometimes, it may be, before a complete preliminary analysis is worked out, the student will need to do some reading on the question for debate; for questions are rare in which one can depend for arguments solely on his own experience and thought. But in view of two common faults of students in preparing debates, these two corresponding admonitions should be heeded: (1) Do not make reading a substitute for thinking, and (2) Study both sides of the question. |