Calie Gober

Jolynne Berrett

ENGL 1010

19 September 2013

We the People
On September 28, 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt addressed a crowd in Paris, France about
the issue of human rights. During the time communism was on the rise, and that style of
government limited the freedoms of its citizens. In order to combat the lack of rights and liberties
many people were suffering from United Nations Commission on Human Rights created the
Declaration of Human Rights. To help demonstrate the importance of this declaration Roosevelt
gave a powerful speech. Throughout her speech she uses each ethos, pathos, and logos to help
persuade her audience.
Truly, Roosevelt demonstrated her ability to give a powerful speech and show off her
intelligence with her logic. It was not by a coincidence that the decision was made to have the
speech in Paris, France. It was in that city that the Declaration of the Rights of Man was declared
with the memorable slogan liberty, equality, and fraternity, and a city whose history shows
instances of the oppressed overthrowing their tyrannical and oppressive leaders to gain rights and
liberties. In the beginning of Roosevelts speech, she reminds her audience of these occasions;
later she successfully works it back into her own speech as an undertone to serve as a reminder to
stride for freedom and human rights, and to illustrate how the fight for basic human rights and
freedoms is still being fought in the world. She is successful at united the audience by using
plural pronouns. She makes statements that include We, Us and Ours to signify to the
audience that everyone present and everyone being talked about is unified. To help the audience
have a better understanding on how government definitions can differ she makes stark contrasts
between democratic countries and those run by a bourgeois democracy. She does this by
explaining the freedoms we have, and how those freedoms are not true in these other countries.
All of the crucial decisions that Roosevelt made for this speech helped to strengthen her logos.
Granted, Eleanor Roosevelt lacked any formal education, or degrees that would give her
credibility she was successful in making up for it by real world knowledge on how politics
worked, and having a sense of camaraderie with her fellow people. Prior speeches, her wisdom,
and compassion helped her be a credible speaker. Roosevelts actions helped exemplify her merit
as a humanitarian since she was an avid supporter of civil rights movement, someone who took a
stance to help abolish prejudice in American, endorsed the Tuskegee Airmen who would become
the first black combat pilots, and boosted the idea that women should be in the workforce
learning trades and skills that could be useful. It was prudent that this speech have someone of
her caliber behind it for the speech to resonate with the audience. Roosevelts own standing with
the United Nations also helped boost her authority. Two years prior to the speech she was
appointed chairperson of the preliminary United Nations Commission on Human Rights and was
an instrumental role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Being one of the
pivotal that helped make the doctrine, and working with an organization whose main goal was to
insure and protect the rights of all people helped her to establish ethos.
In the beginning of Roosevelts speech, she recounts the memorable events that took
place in Paris, France and almost immediately after transitions into the Preamble of the United
States. By creating this comparison between the fights for liberty and the promise of securing
those rights by a government she is able to establish a connection to herself, the audience, and
free countries. When Roosevelt described the differences in the definitions of freedom that
governments will use she helped give the audience a sense of indignation towards the oppressive
powers, and compassion for those who do not have the same rights and liberties. She uses pathos
to create a since of solidarity, empathy, and outrage.
In final consideration, it was all points of the rhetoric triangle that made Roosevelt such
a powerful speaker. By using a historical place and the history connected to it, being the
influential person for human rights she was, and tapping into the hearts of the audience she was
capable of formulating a persuasive speech.















Works cited
Roosevelt, Eleanor. "The Struggle for Human Rights." Http://www.emersonkent.com. Emerson
Kent, 5 Sept. 2005. Web. 19 Sept. 2013.
<http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/struggle_for_human_rights.htm>.