The power of the spoken word, especially when well-delivered and articulated, is immense; and this archive of speeches and rhetoric, developed and maintained by Michael E. Eidenmuller, (an assistant professor of communications at the University of Texas at Tyler) is an excellent way to delve into this subject. The core of the site is a truly comprehensive online speech bank that contains over 5000...

As the month of May passes along, many colleges and universities begin celebrating the time-honored ritual of the commencement ceremony. This year (as with most years), there has been a certain degree of contention surrounding the remarks and ideological beliefs of several commencement speakers. At a graduation ceremony this past Saturday in Rockford College in Illinois, Christopher Hedges, a...

Founded in 1946 by 30 law students returned from the war, the Harvard Law School Forum has remained a nonprofit, student-run organization that sponsors a variety of speakers and panel discussions featuring political, literary, and cultural luminaries from around the world. Over the years, many of these discussions have been broadcast on the radio or otherwise recorded and are now available online...

Speeches can motivate, mourn, and mobilize; after all, "words move humankind for good and for ill." It Was Said, a podcast produced by C13Originals and HISTORY, spotlights famous American speeches that "have been both mirrors and makers of the nation's manners and morals at key moments in our common life." The show is described as a "documentary podcast," as it provides context for "crucial...

For Internauts interested in historical perspective, a selected archive of State of the Union messages of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, along with a complete archive of messages from 1913 is available at the Northwestern University Political Science site.

And Annual Messages/State of the Nation Messages are available for the years 1790-1836 (Washington-Jackson) at George Welling's magnificent "From Revolution to Reconstruction and What Happened Afterwards" site (discussed in the February 9, 1996 Scout Report).

Last night, President Clinton delivered his final State of the Union address. Crafted in partnership with Democratic members of Congress, the very ambitious address was a veritable laundry list of new initiatives and expanded programs, totalling hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending. Coming in at 89 minutes and interrupted 128 times by applause, the speech was the longest State of the...