The Rhetoric of Theodore Roosevelt 26th president: 1901-1909

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The Rhetoric of Theodore Roosevelt26th
president 1901-1909
(Inauguration, 1905)
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• Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we
  have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really
  to be a great nation, we must not merely talk we
  must act big.
• -Teddy Roosevelt

(Giving one of many speeches from a train)
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Roosevelts Philosophy

• Roosevelt saw the presidency as a bully pulpit
  which allowed him to preach his ideals to the
  people.
• He also saw a clearly-defined hierarchy in the
  government and an almost organic unity in
  society. Society was a body made up of arms,
  legs, and other parts. The brain was the
  President of the United States.

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Roosevelt Conservation

• "Optimism is a good characteristic, but if
  carried to an excess, it becomes foolishness. We
  are prone to speak of the resources of this
  country as inexhaustible this is not so."
• -7th Annual Message to Congress, Dec. 3, 1907

(Teddy Roosevelt John Muir, Yosemite
Valley, CA)
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• Since conservation, as Roosevelt conceived it,
  was a novel policy, he confronted two rhetorical
  challenges in persuading his audience to accept
  his initiative. First, he had to create a sense
  of exigency, an urgency to resolve the
  environmental crisis. Second, he had to
  formulate a nexus between conservation and values
  and attitudes that his audience embraced.
• -Buehler, Permanence and Change in Theodore
  Roosevelts Conservation Jeremiad

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• Roosevelt pointed out need for change without
  blaming citizens for the damage that had already
  been done.
• As a rhetorical leader Roosevelt took his case
  to the public and promoted conservation not only
  as a legislative initiative but also as a moral
  imperative. (Dorsey)
• Framed the purpose of conservation as the
  continuation of growth and prosperity, invoking
  both permanence and change.
• Redefined classic Frontier Myth

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Roosevelt the Good Citizen What is true for
the individual is true for the nation.

• stressed the importance of the virtues and the
  everyday tasks of the common man before expanding
  these ideals from the individual to the state
  level
• called for an active audience

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• We in our turn have an assured confidence that
  we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted
  and enlarged to our children and our children's
  children. To do so we must show, not merely in
  great crises, but in the everyday affairs of
  life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of
  courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above
  all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which
  made great the men who founded this Republic in
  the days of Washington, which made great the men
  who preserved this Republic in the days of
  Abraham Lincoln.
• Inaugural Address, March 4, 1905