Rhetorical Element on Speech by Franklin Roosevelt

756 Words4 Pages
After the Attack on the United States by the Japanese, the citizens of the United States viewed the world differently. Even after Japan concluded that it seemed useless to continue existing diplomatic negotiations just one hour after Japanese air squadrons bombed the American Island of Oahu. After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy gave his speech to the nation using ethos, logos, and pathos to convince the nation that going to war with Japan was necessary. ! ! Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew that this war was going to be necessary and the first way he tried to convince people of this was through logos. There are many logical reasons as to why this fight is inevitable. He gives reasons such as, “Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.” to show that they are not the good they are trying to trick people into thinking they are. He used these examples to try to get people angry at them and see that this war is the only way that they can give them what they deserved. Another place that he shows his logic on the subject is when he says, “It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago.” He wanted to show that this battle could not be avoided because it was not an accident on their part. With the distance that they are from Hawaii, they were sure to be planning it because it was easy to get to and they wanted to purposefully anger the United States. Though these two examples are the ones that stood out the most, Roosevelt’s speech was full of logic that he used to try to convince the

More about Rhetorical Element on Speech by Franklin Roosevelt

Open Document