The Presidential Campaign - Term Paper Example

The Rhetorical Situation of Franklin D. Roosevelt's (1932) "Progressive Government" Speech Introduction During the presidential campaign of the 1932 in his so-called “Progressive Government” speech to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, Frank D. Roosevelt appears to be more as an analyst of the role of Government in the economic issues of the countrymen than a mere political orator who makes the mean use of the economic crisis of the country to draw the public sympathy in his own favor. Roosevelt’s success as an orator lies in the fact that he with an unparallel expertise traces out the underlying relation between the connotation of a government and its roles in the progressive public sectors. In lining out such concerns of the government, he puts forth some, though not purely argumentative, axiomatic deduction of the role of government in the human history. Even if his arguments sometimes appears to be boring and tiresome due to some unnecessary details that can easily arouse a bit repulsion of the audience, his performance with the limited time span of an orator prove praiseworthy because the marvelous and time-worthy diction and pursuance of the power of imagery ultimately are designed to retain the attention of his audience. Even more such analytical approach in the political campaign can be excused on the point that it is the particular mindset of his audience, which demands him to be more analytical than usual. Moreover, Roosevelt was aware of the fact that oration can fairly evoke the agitation of his audience but certainly, such the effect agitation does not last long in the mind of the as the oration with the arguments and analysis do. As Halford Ross Ryan (1995) comments, “Delivered to San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club on September 23, 1932, Roosevelt’s so-called “Progressive Government” speech laid the philosophical groundwork for the New Deal” (p.149). It is remarkable that the oratory strategy of the speech was, as usually, such that it continually reminds that Franklin D Roosevelt and at the same time, what he advocates are very different from Hoover and his Government. For example, the imperative tone of the following lines from his speech implies that Hoover’s Government lacks the features that his was going to have: The government should assume the function of economic regulation only as a last resort, to be tried only when private initiative, inspired by high responsibility, with such assistance and balance as government can give, has finally failed. As yet, there has been no final failure, because there has been no attempt, and I decline to assume that this nation is unable to meet the situation. (Roosevelt, 1932, p. 99) Targeted Audiences of the Progressive Government Speech Though Roosevelt delivered the speech to the audience at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, his “Progressive Government” speech was to targeted several types of the audiences: 1. the majority of the lower class and the lower middle-class people who were the victim of the economic frustration and consequently valued the issues the most in the election, 2. the citizen leaders who were concerned with the fundamental problems of government and achievement of progress in government, 3. the considerate and the thoughtful portion of the US society. Roosevelt was able to perceive that argumentative and analytical oration can exert positive effect on the offstage supporters, who do not directly participate in his campaign, more than the agitating speech can. However, in the Progressive Government speech Franklin D Roosevelt can be alleged with the charge of violating the ethics of an orator who is expected to deliver speech on a neutral point of view irrespective of the pessimistic blame on the opponent. It is evident that Franklin D Roosevelt (1932) prepared the moral basis of his prescribed government finding out a serious moral problem in the existing political system of the country in the following sentence, “equality of opportunity as we have know it no longer exists” (p.101). However, not directly, Roosevelt alleged Hoover’s government to a crucial extent in a round about way. As Gordon Lloyd (2006) says in the Introduction of the book “The Two Faces of Liberalism”, “Although Hoover is not mentioned by name, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is, in effect, criticizing Hoover’s understanding of individualism, equality of opportunity, and the purposes of “American System” (p.8). If Roosevelt’s speech is judged irrespective of ethics of oration, he was able to slash a major portion of the vote-bank that contributed to his landslide victory. In the first place the targeted audience of his speech was the “group of citizen leaders interested in fundamental problems of government, and chiefly concerned with achievement of progress in government through non-partisan means” who, as Roosevelt himself says, “has stood in the life of this city and state, and it is perhaps accurate to add, the nation” (Roosevelt, 1932, p. 97). But in general the universality of his ideas of a government and its role in the progressive economic was so versatile that it creates appeal to all those who disagreed and might disagree with him, to those who were affected with the role of the Hoover Government’s economic inactivity and finally to the average Americans whose support he was able to able to bag pointing out the hostility of The Hoover Government to American individualism and individual liberty. Occasion and Situation of the Speech and the Economic Crisis of 1929 At the very beginning of the speech, as Franklin addressed the occasion, it was “in the heat of a political campaign” (Roosevelt, 1932, p. 97). The situation that shaped the outline of the speech was primarily determined by the turmoil in the economic sectors of the country. In the first place, Roosevelt indirectly addressed the stock market crash in 1929 and its impact on the public life. He was fully aware of the fact that the Great Depression was about to set the stage for the progressive government and the fact that it was the pressing necessity to campaign from a platform of "Relief, Recovery, and Reform" (Neustadt, 1990, pp. 23-34). One of the many options that the situation and occasion left available for Roosevelt was to uphold him a position that was exclusively different from what the Hoover Government poses. Therefore, the eulogy that he delivered in his speech was fraught with indirect allegations that work out great impact on the swinging vote-bank. As most other techniques of orations of the political campaign, in this speech, Franklin had to outline his concept of a progressive government. It was the moment when the US society was facing the financial crunch due to the stock market crash and the Great Depression. In his speech, he focuses more on the Government’s role in the economic market highlighting the features of his own concept of the progressive government, in order to work out the two folds purposes. First, it upheld the effectiveness and efficacy of the prescribed role of his government to face the face the crisis in the economic sectors of the country. Second, it pointed out the failure and the reason behind this failure of the Hoover’s Government. As he says in his speech, The task of government in its relation to business is to assist the development of an economic declaration of rights, an economic constitutional order. This is the common task of statesman and business man. It is the minimum requirement of a more permanently safe order of things. (Roosevelt, 1932, p. 98) It is remarkable that a substantial part of his speech is fraught with the economic functions and responsibilities of the government. It was the expectation of the audience in the tumultuous economic context of the country and Roosevelt was successful to convey the message to them that he and his party were fully aware of their crisis and expectations and his ideas and concepts of the progressive government was to able to face the crisis. In this regard, Halford R. Ryan (1995) comments, Written by Adolph Berle and revised by the Brain Trust, the speech posited a dichotomous choice for voters in 1932: Government could either benefit the rich, and Roosevelt subtly implied that Hoover and the Republican used the government to that end, or government could minister to the people, which FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] invited listeners to conclude was his end and the Democratic Party’s end (149) Factors from Roosevelt’s Life Shaping the Speech The argumentative and historical approaches of Roosevelt in the “Progressive Government” Speech was greatly determined and shaped by the education he received in his student life and his professional life. From 1900 to 1903, he achieved his BA degree in his history at the Harvard University. Then he studied Law at New York's Columbia University. It can be assumed that his arguments deducted from history reveals him as a lawyer who is trying to convince his judge by drawing examples from the history. He also was influenced by his fifth who was also then the president Theodore Roosevelt as a biography it is asserted in the following manner, “It was during his Harvard years that he fell under the spell of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, the progressive champion who advocated a vastly increased role for the government in the nation's economy.” (Bio. True Story, 2009) Throughout the whole speech Roosevelt appears to speak in an axiomatic tone to a great extent and to a crucial extent, in an argumentative tone. Most of his axiomatic ideas are full of indirect assurances of the renewed role of the government that will be able assist the public in their crunch. In order to establish the argumentative and the axiomatic part of the speech he made an in-depth and careful analysis of the history of the related topic of his arguments. For example in order to prove the increasing demand of the progressive of the government, Roosevelt analytically deducted the history of the evolution of the state government as he delineates the progressive government, as Martin Carcasson points out, In his famous speech to the Commonwealth Club during the 1932 presidential campaign, Roosevelt turned the tables on those attacking his ideas as affronts to personal liberty by providing an extensive account of American history that traced the role of government and its necessity to adjust as environmental conditions dictated. (Carcasson, 2004, p. 11) Style of the Progressive Government Speech In the speech, his argumentation begins with finding out the question of the role of a political government. He hits right at the crux of the problem of the question of the responsibility of the popular government in the following sentences, “The issue of government has always been whether individual men and women will have to serve some system of government of economics, or whether a system of government and economics exists to serve individual men and women.” (Roosevelt, 1932, p. 100) Through these sentences, he foreshadows the subject of his speech and allows enough time spans for his audience to mull over the topics. Even prior to such foreshowing, he prepared a neutral vantage point for his speech in order to win the credibility of his audience. In this regard, the particular sentence-structures helped him more than his diction. For example, he asserts, “I want to speak not of politics but of government. I want to speak not of parties, but of universal principles.” (Roosevelt, 1932, p. 97) So through these sentences he ensures enough scope for himself to convince his audience the fact that what he wants to present is not the blame-game of politics, rather what he wants to present is something universal. Here the structures of the sentences are remarkable. “I want to speak not of politics” is a clear negation but following sentence, “but [I want to speak] of government” (Roosevelt, 1932, p. 97) is ultimately reveals the positivism of his oration that rings the heart of his audience. Indeed such style does not allow the audience enough ground to complain, at the same time, the orator agrees with both the positive and the negative side of any controversy. Again, negative-affirmation is present in the following sentence in which he agrees with his friend but with a “but”. Indeed such “but” provoke the audience to think in favour of the orator: Some of my friends tell me that they do not want the Government in business. With this I agree; but I wonder whether they realize the implications of the past. For while it has been American doctrine that the government must not go into business in competition with private enterprises, still it has been traditional particularly in Republican administrations for business urgently to ask the government to put at private disposal all kinds of government assistance. (Roosevelt, 1932, pp. 102) Conclusion The versatility of the “Progressive Government” speech at San Francisco Commonwealth Club was targeted particularly to the thoughtful citizenry who were aware of the problems of the politics of the country, but in general, the average people who were the victims of the economic crisis of 1929 were in the main focus of FDR’s main focus. According to the demand of the situation, the speech had to put stress on the progressive economic role of a government. Beside its choosy diction and style, Roosevelt’s strategy was to alienate the Hoover Government by highlighting the effective features of a progressive government. References Bio. True Story. (2009). Franklin D(elano) Roosevelt Biography. Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9463381 Carcasson, M. (2004). Negotiating the Paradoxes of Poverty: Presidential Rhetoric on Welfare from Johnson to Clinton. Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://repositories.tdl.org/tdl/handle/1969.1/1349 Lloyd , G., Hoover, H. & Roosevelt, F. D. (2006) The two faces of liberalism: how the Hoover-Roosevelt debate shapes the 21st century. New York: M & M Scrivener Press. Neustadt, Richard E. (1990) Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan, 3d ed. New York: Free Press. Roosevelt, D. F. (1932). Commonwealth Club Address. In Howard F. B. (Ed.). (1971). Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1882-1945 New York: Oceana Publications INC. 99-107 Ryan R. H. (1995). U.S. presidents as orators: a bio-critical sourcebook. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group. Read More