Masaryk university faculty of education
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- The issue is now with the Congress.
25.McKinley’s speech
McKinley’s speech, though delivered as a written letter, is half the size of Lincoln’s speech, only 3,039 words long, contains 78 sentences with 39 words in a sentence on average. As in Lincoln’s speech, syntax in McKinley’s speech is complex and sentences are long, several with more than 100 words. Unlike Lincoln, there is no special overuse of passive voice or finite clauses, though formal features are prevalent. Similarly as in Lincoln’s speech, the first word of the speech suggests the tone of the speech. Obedient to that precept of the Constitution which commands the President ... it becomes my duty now to address your body with regard to the grave crisis that has arisen in the relations of the United States to Spain by reason of the warfare that for more than three years has raged in the neighboring island of Cuba. Obedient indicates McKinley’s personal attitude toward the task, which is also apparent in linguistic choices throughout his speech. Based on the data in chart 8.5, it is clear that McKinley focused on steps that failed, dedicating 36% of the speech to this topic, following with justification, the issue and our plan with roughly 15% each. His emphasis on steps that failed confirms historical records about McKinley’s hesitance towards declaring war, and his need to provide all possible data to justify his decision. Chart 8.5
The top ten nouns utilized by McKinley are presented in table 8.6, showing similarities as well as differences between Lincoln’s and McKinley’s speeches. Words like government, people, and states are shared by both speakers, and words like Cuba, Spain or island are specific to McKinley’s predicament, however, words like peace, citizens and nation suggest a new wave of thinking, focusing on national values. McKinley also uses recognition eleven times, the majority of which in collocation with the word belligerents, which is his key argument for declaring war. Table 8.6
The speech also contains a large amount of emotive expressions and dramatic language such as virtually paralyzed, struggle unequalled or ravaged by fire and sword, effectively working with frames that evoke powerful images for the audience. This use of emotionally-charged frames is a dominant feature of McKinley’s speech, shown best in the example below: First, in the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there, and which the parties to the conflict are either unable or unwilling to stop or mitigate. This feature is closely connected with the rather plentiful use, in comparison with Lincoln, of binary conceptualizations. Consider the following example: Our people have beheld a once prosperous community reduced to comparative want, its lucrative commerce virtually paralyzed, its exceptional productiveness diminished, its fields laid waste, its mills in ruins, and its people perishing by tens of thousands from hunger and destitution. McKinley juxtaposes prosperity with poverty, lucrative commerce with paralyzed commerce, and so on, as marked in bold in the above example. There are at least seven cases of clear juxtaposition in one paragraph, portraying the conflict in Cuba as bad and depicting the help of the United States as good, often using the appeal to national values as a helpful tool, as in the following example: The forcible intervention of the United States as a neutral to stop the war, according to the large dictates of humanity and following many historical precedents where neighboring states have interfered to check the hopeless sacrifices of life by internecine conflicts beyond their borders, is justifiable on rational grounds. Here McKinley justifies the intervention on the grounds of following many historical precedents in order to stop hopeless sacrifice. There are at least eight instances of strong appeal to American values used for motivation, comparison or justification. McKinley uses parallelism mainly to reiterate his appeal to national values, to re-state the grave situation in Cuba or to describe all the steps that failed in prevention of the intervention. Though McKinley is also quite descriptive and explanatory, he does use presupposition, particularly in sensitive areas. For example, he never really describes what the insurgents in Cuba are rebelling against, but only talks about the horrible situation there and about Spain’s lack of resolve to help the Cubans. He notes many historical precedents as reasons for intervening in the Cuba – Spain conflict, but does not give explicit instances of these precedents, forcing the reader to infer the correct meaning. As for metaphors, McKinley uses them seldom, mainly in the part of his speech where he describes the explosion onboard the Maine, docked in the harbor of Havana. ... brave sailors and marines ... have been hurled to death, grief and want brought to their homes, and sorrow to the nation.
The use of pronouns is depicted in chart 8.7, showing McKinley employs mainly 1st person pronouns, without ever using the pronoun they, for example. The most used pronoun is our (37 instances) and the second most used is I (17 instances). Chart 8.7 When combined with no instances of rhetorical questions and no use of let, let’s, it can be suggested that the use of audience involvement strategies is minimal as compared with other speakers. Deictic pointers in table 8.8 suggest that much like Lincoln, McKinley was placing as much focus on staying within his time and place, using this 15 times and now 6 times, as he was focused on pointing away, using that 14 times and there 6 times. He also refers to himself as the President (twice) and as he (the President) once. Chart 8.8 Surprisingly, McKinley seldom uses repetition (with the pronouns its and our own) and virtually no three part statements. Further, his use of the rule of three is vague, displayed only when using dramatic vocabulary to name several critical issues. Interestingly, he references his previous speeches several times, to further his justification. As for the influence of the media, McKinley, as discussed in section 7, was under pressure from the newspaper, which published scandalous news about the wreckage of the Maine, and consequently from the public, which demanded action. It is also known that he did not want to declare war and procrastinated writing the letter until the last moment. As a consequence, several suggestions can be made. As this was a letter and not a speech, there is no use of sound bites or rhetorical questions and the use of audience involvement strategies is minimal. McKinley uses elaborate and dramatic language to offer justification of a war he clearly did not agree with, using emotional frames, as well as appeals to freedom, human rights, heritage, honor and other typical American values in order to justify waging a war in one country, but declaring a war on another country. Many historians agree that this war was the start of the American imperialist era, where America attempts to save, civilize, humanize, help and protect by the use of force in a foreign territory, much like McKinley’s words confirm:
Finally, there is also appeal toward the city upon a hill idea, when McKinley suggests in an elaborate way that Americans must wage a war if they want to stay true to the principle of their forefathers which were since observed by all previous administrations. I do so because of the intimate connection of the Cuban question with the state of our own Union and the grave relation the course which it is now incumbent upon the nation to adopt must needs bear to the traditional policy of our government if it is to accord with the precepts laid down by the founders of the republic and religiously observed by succeeding administrations to the present day. Not only is this principle never explained fully, but its vagueness assures its variable application for whatever purpose. Once used and delivered in means of reasoning and justification, obedient McKinley brushes off all responsibility and leaves it up to the Congress to decide. The issue is now with the Congress. It is a solemn responsibility. I have exhausted every effort to relieve the intolerable condition of affairs which is at our doors. Prepared to execute every obligation imposed upon me by the Constitution and the law, I await your action. McKinley’s language is complex and often very dramatic, using emotinally and patriotic frames. His discourse is challenging, as many of his sentences are long and complicated. While he does not benefit from the use of audience involvement strategies, he skillfullly uses the appeal to Amercian values to gain public approval for his actions. Download 0.63 Mb. Share with your friends:
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