LAD #26: MLK's I Have a Dream Speech

       Along with men such as Mahatma Gandhi and Steven Biko, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stands out as a prominent civil rights activist, relying upon peaceful protest and civil disobedience. King was an eloquent and persuasive writer and speaker. Two of his most well known works, his letter from Birmingham jail, and his I Have a Dream speech have remained examples for rhetorical strategy and argument for decades. After his opening greeting, he opens his speech with "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation." This is an allusion to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address, the first of many literary devices and argumentative strategies used in the speech. He then employs a parallel structure to convey the idea that although emancipation was the first step towards freeing blacks, they were still not free from inequality. In the next paragraph he uses a metaphor of a bad check to describe the injustices faced by blacks. He urges that now is the time to cash the check. Equality must come now, not gradually. But at the same time he stresses nonviolence on the part of his followers. However, the most memorable part of his speech comes at the end with two parallel structures beginning with "I have a dream" and "Let freedom ring" coupled with vivid imagery and and an overwhelming appeal to pathos.    

LAD #24: Bryan's "Cross of Gold" Speech

          William Jennings Bryan was a democrat from Nebraska. After delivering his famous "Cross of gold Speech" he was nominated by the democratic national convention in Chicago to run as the party's candidate in the 1896, 1900 and 1908 presidential elections. In his speech he labels the "money issue" as the "paramount" issue of the party and of the election. He carefully constructs a swaying argument through his use of rhetoric and literary devices such as imagery, metaphors, and strong diction and syntax. His platform supports the common man, praising those settlers of the west who live with nature, and says that no one should fear the emergence of a tyrant like Robespierre, but what is needed is an Andrew Jackson, to once again remove power from the wealthy elite and place government in the hands of the common man. He defends several principles of his platform such as the income tax, opposition to the national bank currency, the plank against life tenure in office, and most importantly, the coinage of silver, stating to those who disagree with him "You shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold."   

LAD #23: Populist Party Platform

          The populist part was a notable third party that formed in the late eighteenth century. The party was one of the various responses to industrialization, and largely opposed big business. The party believes that America is degenerating as a result of industrialization; corruption is widespread in government; the majority of the workforce is impoverished while the nations wealth and land rests in the hand of a rich few, and silver used for coinage for all of history sits at a depreciated value; workman's very rights are constrained. The party seeks to put an end to falling prices, the formation of combines and rings, the impoverishment of the working class, and once again place the power of government in the hands of the common man.
Platform:
-Unions shall be permanent and perpetual
-Wealth belongs to him who creates it
-Railroads should be regulated by the government
Finance:
-Safe currency, silver coinage, increase $ in circulation, graduated income tax, $ should be kept in hands of people, establishment of postal savings banks by the government.
Transportation:
-the telegraph, telephone, and railroads should be controlled by the government in the interest of the people.
Land:
-Land and natural resources should not be monopolized for speculation, surplus land in the hands of companies and aliens (foreigners) should be reclaimed by the government and given to settlers.

The platform document also contains an expression of sentiments.

LAD #25: Dawes Act (1887)

     The Dawes Act, or Dawes General Allotment Act, was a law passed by congress in 1887, regarding Indian policy, more specifically, how reservations would be divided into sections of land allotted to individuals.  Each head of a family was allotted one-quarter of a section. Each single person over eighteen was allotted one-eighth of a section. Each orphan child under eighteen was allotted one-eighth of a section. Each other single person under eighteen was allotted one-sixteenth of a section. Surplus lands were open to settlement by non-Indians and development of railroads. The act puts an emphasis on individual land ownership, going against the unity and culture previously held by many Indians living in communal villages, and can be viewed as a type of attempt at assimilation, and to further deprive the Indians of their lands.

LAD #22: Mckinley's War Message

     As a result of a desire for imperialism, and yellow journalism, America became involved with the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain. When the USS Maine mysteriously exploded in the harbor of Havana, the influence of yellow journalism blew the incident out of proportion and led to a public outcry for war with Spain.

 McKinley was reluctant to call for war, but the overwhelming public support for it forced him to write congress to declare war. He provides four equally flimsy reasons for going to war; One- "in the cause of humanity" to help Cuba gain independence, Two-to protect the rights of citizens in Cuba, Three- Intervention is justified by serious injury to trade and commerce, and Four- the Maine. As aforementioned, McKinley was not in support of the war and a reluctant tone is detected in his statements; "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." America would prove victorious in the Spanish-American war, but the reasoning and necessity for the war remains questionable.