The Speechmaker
by Trygve M. Ager

A few years before his death in 1975, Waldemar Ager's son, Trygve, longtime journalist, editor and translator, took the time to make a scrapbook about Waldemar Ager ("Pop") for his three children. Assembling newspaper clippings and letter excerpts and tying them together with his own recollections, Trygve produced a 100-page typewritten narrative. The excerpt below talks about Ager's style of speaking.

       After having spoken early in 1914 at Willmar, Minn., Pop learned of one listener's reaction through a letter from L. 0. Thorpe, the Willmar banker who had been in charge of arrangements for the speech. Thorpe wrote that on the day after Pop's appearance he had asked one man how he liked the speech and had received this reply: "There wasn't much style about that guy, but he sure could deliver the goods."

       I guess that describes Pop's speechmaking pretty well. He was never an imposing figure, being only about 5-foot-9 and always slight of build. His voice carried well, which was an asset at a time before microphones and loudspeakers came into common use. During the summer most of his speeches were given out-of-doors at the club, lodge or church picnics that were so popular then. But even lacking the rich resonance and flowery language of polished orators or the thundering qualities of more avid ones, he could hold the attention of such outdoor crowds for long periods of time. I guess he feared the people would feel they were being cheated unless he spoke for at least an hour.
       He attached little importance to personal appearance: when facing an audience he seemed utterly unaware of tousled hair or shaggy mustache of wilted collar, of a coat sagging at the bulging pockets, of trousers baggy at the knees, of unshined shoes. If people in the audience took note of these things, he soon, made them forget because—probably to overcome his "inelegance"—he had over the years developed a little bag of his own platform tricks.


       He explained this to me once:

I've discovered, that a public speaker can "play" his audience much as a musician plays a big pipe organ. First, of course, you must win your listeners over—get them with you. So you tell them a story or two, get them chuckling and really enjoying themselves. Then you shift to something serious, enough to sort of open the curtains to your real message. The audience, with a few signs of restlessness or inattention, will quickly let you know when it's time to turn back to something humorous—or to an anecdote with a strong element of suspense where you actually feel your listeners hanging onto every word. Next, probably something serious, even sad, and pursuing it until you see eyes moistening and handkerchiefs being raised to the mouth or eyes. That's your sign to turn to something humorous again, giving the people with the handkerchiefs a chance to find relief in laughter. And so on and on. Meanwhile you're delivering your message in short, digestible doses, but saving your strongest appeal for the very end.

       Countless people—farmers, mill workers, carpenters, businessmen and professional men, along with their wives—listened to such speeches and came away with a feeling of having been "all wrung out." Again and again I have encountered men and women who, recalling one of my father's speeches from many years before, have summed it all up by saying: "I never laughed so much in all my life."
       Basically, I suppose, Pop used the techniques of a good story teller, because that's what he was. It just came naturally for him, and he carried in his head a tremendous fund of funny, fascinating stories, ideas and opinions.
       He was also a sentimentalist, and there was nothing phony about his choking up as he reached the climax of a tear-jerking narrative, especially about some poor mother.
 
      What training he had in public speaking came from participation in the programs put on by the Norwegian temperance societies he belonged to in his youth—"Broderbaandet" in Chicago, and "Excelsior" in Eau Claire. Reciting poetry and reading "handwritten newspaper," prepared by himself, were among his early specialties; speechmaking came later.
       In later years when he recalled some of his activities in "Broderbaandet" or "Excelsior" he would speak of it as a "good school"—especially for one who had to drop out of regular school at about the sixth grade. In his case it uncovered talents in speaking, writing and entertaining people that otherwise might have gone by the boards.
       It also gave him a chance to lead, or to "manipulate" people, if I dare use that term. He was a great fellow for hatching ideas and dreaming up projects, then getting others interested and subsequently pushing and pulling until the desired results were achieved.
       One example of this was the raising of funds for erecting monuments at Madison, Wis., and Voss, Norway, in memory of Col. Hans C. Heg, commander of the 15th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment—a Civil War outfit composed almost entirely of Norwegian immigrants. Getting those monuments up and paid for took several years—a lot of speeches and a lot of writing—but it was done, thanks in large part to various individuals and organizations that were persuaded to pitch in and help.
       Another was the idea (but not the money!) for the Sigvald Kvale declamatory contests (in Norwegian)—still being carried on after sixty years or so. To encourage more literary effort by Norwegians in the U. 3., he once went all out to promote a Norwegian-American Book-of-the-Year Club, one that would provide an immediate market for a worthy book, but that idea never got far beyond the talking stage.

       But let's get back to speechmaking.

Los Angeles, 1936  
      In its issue of May 18, 1956, "Washington Posten"—a Norwegian weekly newspaper then being published in Seattle, Wash.—carried an article by one Andreas J. Sørebøe. It was in Norwegian and appeared under the headline: "En l7de mai fest for 30 aar siden.” That translates to "A 17th of May Celebration of 30 Years Ago." I don't suppose I have to remind you that the 17th of May is Norway's national holiday, its "Constitution Day."
       Sørebøe's article began:

One of the most remarkable 17th of May celebrations was that held in Los Angeles, now so many years ago, when the speaker of the day, Waldemar Ager, traveled all the way from Wisconsin. It had probably never happened before, neither in Norway nor in America, that anyone had traveled so far for the purpose of speaking at a 17th of May celebration.

   
Ager speaking in Sycamore Grove Park, Los Angeles, May 15, 1936

Waldemar Ager spoke twice: in Sycamore Grove Park on Sunday afternoon, May 15, where the big celebration took place, and at the Norsemen's Singing Society's celebration the evening of May 17. In the Sunday address Ager talked about preserving one's identity, and said among other things:
 
"The battle the Pilgrim Fathers had to carry on to keep their identity, their language and their traditions, and the battle Norway had to fight to keep its identity, that battle is also being fought among us Norwegians here in Vesterheimen." (literally, the home in the west, i.e. America)

It is not a political battle to organize some traitorous movement to weaken our American society, but one aimed at strengthening it. The purpose is not to upset anything, "but to build up something that will be good for the country—to transplant whatever we might have of national character into this country's cultural life. Religion needs it, music and the arts need it, the spiritual life needs it, our judicial system will profit from it, and nothing, absolutely nothing, will be harmed.

"The Pilgrim Fathers were few and of small means, but they succeeded in fixing their mark on the world's greatest republic by preserving their identity. The Norwegians of 1814 were also few and of small means, but they made a mighty contribution to world culture in the fields of music, literature and science by preserving their identity and their national character."

     In his second address, Sørebøe continued, Ager spoke on the subject of "Mother."

The beautiful word-pictures he painted of "Mother" will not soon be forgotten. The audience listened and eyes grew large and moist, and many there were who wished they could travel by "seven-league-boots and sit again for a little while with Mother.”

The speaker mentioned famous men who honored their mothers. Sen. Knute Nelson on. his travels to and from Washington would plan his trips so he could pay a visit to his mother. She became more than ninety years old, and in later years both mother and son became hard of hearing so towards the end the two could do little else than sit and hold each other's hand.

Afterwards one could hear many flattering comments about the speech, and among those who commented was Mr. Anderson, the former mayor of Watts, now a part of Los Angeles. When Anderson visited his childhood home in Norway, after having spent many years in America, the first thing he did was to kneel down and kiss the stone step in front of the house door where his mother's feet had trod such countless times.

       Well, that Los Angeles episode got to be more "drug out" than I had intended, but I couldn't resist the temptation to impress on you that the community of Watts—scene of so much turbulence and destruction during the racial conflicts of a few years ago—once had a Norwegian mayor.
      

Minneapolis, 1925: the Norwegian Centennial
       For a final (I think) note on this speech-making theme I want to include a few paragraphs from a speech delivered at the Golden Jubilee banquet of Nordmanns Forbundet in Oslo in 1957. The speaker was Carl J. Hambro, a truly remarkable man: newspaper editor, president of the Norwegian parliament (Storting), president for many years of the old League of Nations, and chief architect for the resistance movement that developed both inside and outside Norway following occupation of that country by German troops in 1940. In addition he was throughout his life a key figure in Nordmanns Forbundet, serving, I believe, as its first secretary-general.

       Here are the paragraphs from his 1957 speech:

The high point in Nordmanns Forbundet and in the mutual good will between Norway and .America came in 1925—the year of the tremendous Centennial Jubilee for Norwegian emigration to America. When I spoke that day at the mass meeting on the Minnesota State Fair Grounds, 115,000 Norwegian Americans were packed into the stands. Those who saw this mass of people rise spontaneously to their feet when Norwegian was spoken from the rostrum will never forget it. Present for the event were President Coolidge, the foreign minister (secretary of state) and governors of Norwegian descent from seven states. One detail which impressed everyone was the President's honor guard. . .headed by a small group of Norwegian veterans from the Civil War, all wearing their worn and faded blue uniforms. Another and larger group was made up of Norwegian veterans of the Spanish American War, followed by a third company of Norwegian veterans of World War I.

 Those who attended these festivities will surely remember the address by Waldemar Ager. There had been much hysteria in those years about "hyphenated-Americans." In his talk Ager declared the "hyphen" which unites Norway and America extends back almost a thousand years into history. "I ask you to remember," he said, "that those emigrants whose highest ideal and desire was to be swallowed up in the new society into which they had come are all forgotten. No President comes to honor them and no foreign minister to speak for their country. It is because the Norwegians have desired and have been able to preserve that which was good and noble in their Norwegian cultural heritage that they are honored and remembered in America today."

Photos courtesy Ella Fossum & Eyvind Ager