When nothing else except the material of the introduction need be considered, it should be short.  Even in momentous matters this is true.  Notice the brevity of the subjoined introduction of a speech upon a deeply moving subject.

    Gentlemen of the Congress: 

The Imperial German Government on the 31st day of January announced to this Government and to the Governments of the other neutral nations that on and after the 1st day of February, the present month, it would adopt a policy with regard to the use of submarines against all shipping seeking to pass through certain designated areas of the high seas, to which it is clearly my duty to call your attention.

    WOODROW WILSON, 1917

The following, though much longer, aims to do the same thing—­to announce the topic of the speech clearly.  Notice that in order to emphasize this endeavor to secure clearness the speaker declares that he has repeatedly tried to state his position in plain English.  He then makes clear that he is not opposed to a League of Nations; he is merely opposed to the terms already submitted for the one about to be formed.  This position he makes quite clear in the last sentence here quoted.

    Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen, My Fellow Americans: 

I am largely indebted to President Lowell for this opportunity to address this great audience.  He and I are friends of many years, both Republicans.  He is the president of our great university, one of the most important and influential places in the United States.  He is also an eminent student and historian of politics and government.  He and I may differ as to methods in this great question now before the people, but I am sure that in regard to the security of the peace of the world and the welfare of the United States we do not differ in purposes.

I am going to say a single word, if you will permit me, as to my own position.  I have tried to state it over and over again.  I thought I had stated it in plain English.  But there are those who find in misrepresentation a convenient weapon for controversy, and there are others, most excellent people, who perhaps have not seen what I have said and who possibly have misunderstood me.  It has been said that I am against any League of Nations.  I am not; far from it.  I am anxious to have the nations, the free nations of the world, united in a league, as we call it, a society, as the French call it, but united, to do all that can be done to secure the future peace of the world and to bring about a general disarmament.

    SENATOR HENRY CABOT LODGE in a debate in Boston,
    1919