Inside a High Council text pages_Layout 1 25/10/2013 11:59 Page 91
Chapter Eight
Speeches THE speeches which the candidates give are their only opportunity to lay before the High Council, in a formal way, their thoughts about the generalship and their vision for the future. The speeches are therefore a vital part of the process and it is only natural that the candidates give much thought to what they are going to say – and how they are going to say it. The speech must strike the right note and be the right length. Its delivery can also pose a challenge. Candidates have to speak from a prepared script, which members will have before them during the speech, whereas most of them would normally speak in a freer style from notes. The challenge is therefore how to sound like themselves despite this limitation. The speeches can prove decisive. At the 1929 High Council there were two candidates, Commissioner Edward Higgins, the Chief of the Staff, and Commander Evangeline Booth, the USA National Commander. Because of the special circumstances of that High Council the delegates had already been together for 37 days when it came to speech time and had participated in many discussions. Yet Commissioner Samuel Brengle, who was a member of that High Council, reckoned that it was the speeches that decided the outcome of the election. He recalled that ‘the councillors compared the Commander’s speech with the speech by Commissioner Higgins and many of them, I think, there and then finally decided for Higgins. One most prominent commissioner told me that he was undecided until he heard the two speeches.’1 The Orders of Procedure establish that the order in which the candidates are to speak is determined by ballot, and that after each 91