Of course. I certainly wouldn't take anything away from Dr. King's ability to improvise, based on previously existing phrases. I could even believe that he changed some words, etc, in the strenuous editing process described.
The principle that the ghostwriter does not exist is certainly a well-known principle. It may even be a legal principle. The Supreme Court may endorse it unanimously - the Pope, himself, declare it infallibly correct.
This doesn't necessarily make it a true, valid, good or appropriate principle, however. For instance, there is no real trace of this species of professional ventriloquist in any century but the 20th - and very little before the middle 20th. The first US president to use ghostwriters routinely was FDR, and his listeners were by no means regularly reminded of the practice.
In previous eras, the idea that any public figure, other than an actual actor, would be reciting someone else's words, would have been thought ridiculous and pathetic. Pitt the Younger didn't employ a speechwriter. Nor did Gladstone, Cromwell, Lincoln, Elizabeth I, etc, etc.
> For instance, there is no real trace of this species of professional ventriloquist in any century but the 20th
There's nothing new about speechwriting. Antiphon of Rhamnus(480–411 BC) was a professional speechwriter. Calling them ventriloquists entirely misses the point. The speaker is the one responsible for the words. He doesn't read whatever is put in front of him. He directs the speechwriter to write what the speaker wants to say and is responsible for accepting, rejecting, or modifying it.
George Washington and Andrew Jackson did read others words as their own. Although Lincoln wrote his own speeches, he circulated drafts for comment and incorporated ideas from those comments.
Ok, fine, I wasn't really thinking of ancient Greece. (But you'll note that ancient Greece declined and fell shortly thereafter. Pericles didn't have a speechwriter, either.)
Jackson was notoriously illiterate. Washington was a stuffed shirt whose brain was largely provided by Hamilton. These are examples of the 20th century avant la lettre - neither statesman would have admitted the practice. Dishonorable behavior is not precluded in societies with strong honor codes - as we can see from Dr. King's own academic record.
The principle that the ghostwriter does not exist is certainly a well-known principle. It may even be a legal principle. The Supreme Court may endorse it unanimously - the Pope, himself, declare it infallibly correct.
This doesn't necessarily make it a true, valid, good or appropriate principle, however. For instance, there is no real trace of this species of professional ventriloquist in any century but the 20th - and very little before the middle 20th. The first US president to use ghostwriters routinely was FDR, and his listeners were by no means regularly reminded of the practice.
In previous eras, the idea that any public figure, other than an actual actor, would be reciting someone else's words, would have been thought ridiculous and pathetic. Pitt the Younger didn't employ a speechwriter. Nor did Gladstone, Cromwell, Lincoln, Elizabeth I, etc, etc.