And with this exposure I take my leave of the Crime against Kansas.  Emerging from all the blackness of this Crime, where we seem to have been lost, as in a savage wood, and turning our backs upon it, as upon desolation and death, from which, while others have suffered, we have escaped, I come now to the Apologies which the Crime has found....

They are four in number, and fourfold in character.  The first is the Apology tyrannical; the second, the Apology imbecile; the third, the Apology absurd; and the fourth, the Apology infamous.  That is all.  Tyranny, imbecility, absurdity, and infamy all unite to dance, like the weird sisters, about this Crime.

    The Apology tyrannical is founded on the mistaken act of
    Governor Reeder, in authenticating the Usurping Legislature,
    etc.

    CHARLES SUMNER:  The Crime against Kansas, 1856

The beginning speaker should not hesitate to make his transitions perfectly clear to his audience.  When they add to the merely bridging use the additional value of serving as short summaries of what has gone before and as sign posts of what is to follow, they are trebly serviceable.  The attempt to be clear will seldom be waste of time or effort.  The obvious statements of the preceding selections, the use of figures, are excellent models for speakers to imitate.  With practice will come skill in making transitions of different kinds, in which the same purposes will be served in various other ways, in what may be considered more finished style.  The next extracts represent this kind of transition.

Sir, like most questions of civil prudence, this is neither black nor white, but gray.  The system of copyright has great advantages and great disadvantages; and it is our business to ascertain what these are, and then to make an arrangement under which the advantages may be as far as possible secured, and the disadvantages as far as possible excluded.  The charge which I bring against my honorable and learned friend’s bill is this, that it leaves the advantages nearly what they are at present, and increases the disadvantages at least fourfold.

    THOMAS B. MACAULAY:  Copyright Bill, 1841

One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race.  No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success.  I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress.  It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.

    BOOKER T. WASHINGTON in a speech at the Atlanta
    Exposition, 1895