Theodore Roosevelt Ethos Pathos Logos

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Theodore Roosevelt was a man who valued hard work and who, as a kid, evolved to become a man of action. He worked hard to improve his manliness by constantly exercising. After graduating from Harvard, he spent two years on a cattle ranch in Dakota spending his time boxing, wrestling, and swimming. All this shines through in his speech made in Chicago on April 10, 1899 where Roosevelt delivers a speech that preaches the integrity of the ‘strenuous life’. In this speech, Roosevelt plans to generate a life of action into all Americans, invoking in them the idea that with a life of hardship comes “splendid ultimate triumph”. That a “man of timid peace” is only a “cumberer on this earth”. With these lines Roosevelt hopes to make Americans understand that to be the greatest nation we can not just stand …show more content…

When Roosevelt speaks of all we could have avoided without the war in 1861, when he speaks of the lives we could have saved, and the families we could have maintained, he reaches into the audience’s emotions, making them feel heartbroken. This occurs again when he begins to thank God for the suffering and loss that was caused by the ‘great Civil War’, making the audience understand what our country went through during those hard times. Logos is then used in that same paragraph to present the triumphs gained as a result. The abolishment of slavery, the assembling of the Union, and the upcoming of a great nation were all presented using logos as an explanation of why we endured all that pain. This speech demonstrated the mindset during the 20th century, it helped the movement continue forward. During this time there was an increase in industrialization and urbanization as well as college sports. The competitive, hard working attitude that this speech conveys guides the nation in the right direction to become the greatest. Exactly what Roosevelt was hoping to