The Rhetoric of Harry Truman Mandy Reynolds

1
The Rhetoric of Harry TrumanMandy Reynolds
2
The Rhetorical President

• 2-pronged Wilsonian concept of the rhetorical
  presidency
• First, the President should employ oratory to
  create an active public opinion that, if
  necessary, will pressure the Congress into
  accepting his programSecond, in order to reach
  and move the public, the character of the
  rhetoric must tap the publics feelings and
  articulate its wishes. Rhetoric does not instill
  old and established principles as much as it
  seeks to infuse a sense of vision into the
  Presidents particular legislative program.
• The Rise of the Rhetorical Presidency

3
Plain Spoken

• Prosaic, Truman asked only that the speech be as
  brief as possible and that his statements be
  accurate.
• Not a gifted speaker, achieved a symbiosis
  between his delivery choice of language that
  worked well for him in confrontational
  situations.
• Wood-Chop gesture, communicated a man hewing to
  the line of right and letting the chips fall
  where they may
• short, punchy style of speaking seemed more like
  a drill sergeantsthan a presidents. Yet
  Trumans unvarnished delivery diction had a
  certain effectiveness.

4

• Ordinary diction
• the simple soul must be presented with simple
  speeches.
• People dont listen to a speaker just to admire
  his techniques or his manner they go to learn.
  They want the meat of the speechnot oratorical
  trimmings.
• Organized his speeches in a deductive fashion,
  stating his thesis and then warrant it with
  supporting arguments and evidence.

5
Supernation Rhetoric

• Cold War rhetoric pits light of democracy against
  darkness of communism
• new note of the quasi-apocalyptic transformation
  of the world in a final battle with demonic
  communism
• Dante Germino
• President depicts the supernation in Manichean
  terms, which is to view ones own side as the
  repository of all goodness and the other of all
  evil
• President distorts the connotative and denotative
  meanings of freedom, dividing the world into free
  and enslaved.

6
Crisis Rhetoric

• Announces new facts leading to the new
  situation or crisis what remains is the
  question of how to act, not whether to act.
• devil/angel, good/bad, black/white dichotomies
• Publics Response to foreign policy matters is
  one of emotion rather than intellect

7
The Truman DoctrineMarch 12, 1947
8
Supernation, Crisis Rhetoric
The Truman Doctrine

• Problem-Solution Arrangement
• Employed a contrapuntal structure to advance 10
  themes repeatedly, each interlaced with the
  others in various combinations
• Sense of mission, hostility towards communism as
  threat to freedom, desire to combat forces of
  evil
• Image of global emergency
• 3 goals
• Prove the soviet threat was serious
• Only US could handle the threat
• Establish that it would become basic US policy to
  accept the responsibility for this type of threat

9

• The free peoples of the world look to us for
  support in maintaining their freedoms. If we
  falter in our leadership, we may endanger the
  peace of the world. And we shall surely endanger
  the welfare of this nation.

10

• The speech held more power over the mass public
  precisely because it did not present new forms of
  belief, but instead, served to reinforce already
  established beliefs.
• Bonnie Jefferson

11
InauguralJanuary 20, 1949
12

• Focused almost entirely on foreign issues
• I accept the presidency with a resolve to do
  all the I can for the welfare of this Nation and
  for the peace of the worldIt is fitting
  therefore, that we take this occasion to proclaim
  to the world the essential principles of the
  faith by which we live, and to declare our aims
  to all peoples.

13
Juxtaposition of Communism Democracy

1. Communism believes that man is so weak that he
   requires the rule of strong masters, but
   democracy believes that man has the moral and
   intellectual capacityto govern himself.
2. Communism subjects individuals to invidious state
   controls whereas democracy protects the right of
   the individual.
3. Communism maintains that social wrongs can be
   corrected only by violence whereas democracy
   acheives social justicethrough peaceful
   change.
4. Communism holds that the world is so widely
   divided into opposing classes that war is
   inevitable, but Democracy holds that free
   nations can settle differences justly and
   maintain a lasting peace.

14
4 PointsOur program for peace and freedom will
emphasize four major courses of action.

• First, we will continue to give unfaltering
  support to the United Nations and related
  agencies, and we will continue to search for ways
  to strengthen their authority and increase their
  effectiveness.
• Second, we will continue our programs for world
  economic recovery. Economic recovery and peace
  itself depend on increased world trade.
• Third, we will strengthen freedom-loving nations
  against the dangers of aggression.
• Fourth, we must embark on a bold new program for
  making the benefits of our scientific advances
  and industrial progress available for the
  improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas

15

• Our allies are the millions who hunger and
  thirst after righteousness.

16
Farewell Address

• I have had hardly a day in office that has not
  been dominated by this all-embracing struggle --
  this conflict between those who love freedom and
  those who would lead the world back into slavery
  and darkness