It's a Pathos-Logos Tag Team

Freshly into his third term in office, FDR probably didn't need to worry about spending too much time convincing the public that he was a respectable guy. As a result, that "please like me" rhetorical device known as "ethos" takes a backseat to its more prominently featured brethren, pathosand logos.

FDR's use of the two rhetorical devices is pretty dense here—he lays them on thick. It's like he has a squirt bottle of ketchup (pathos) in one hand and a squirt bottle of mustard (logos) in the other, and he's squeezing both as hard as he can on a Four Freedoms footlong.

The speech itself starts out with a healthy dose of pathos:

I address you, the members of the 77th Congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union. I use the word "unprecedented," because at no previous time has American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today. (2-3)

Emotions of alarm and grave concern might follow such a serious statement. Vocabulary like "unprecedented" and "threatened" don't exactly strike a cheery note. Instead, they set a tone of seriousness that prepares the listener for an incoming message that will likely be heavy duty.

Throughout, FDR plucks the patriotic heartstrings of the American public and does a fair bit of teasing its post-World War I anxieties. For example, he says:

Even when the World War broke out in 1914, it seemed to contain only small threat of danger to our own American future. But, as time went on, the American people began to visualize what the downfall of democratic nations might mean to our own democracy. (17-18)

Yikes. That's anxiety producing, for sure.

Another example appears later, during his thinly veiled discussion of Nazism, which once again trips the trigger of American anxiety over losing its democracy:

As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed. We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal preach the "ism" of appeasement. We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests. (34-36)

Often, his arguments based in pathos are used to support follow-up arguments that are grounded in logos. In fact, FDR freely switches back and forth. Occasionally, he'll even make a statement that hovers somewhere between the two, either to engage both the emotions and reason of his audience, or to transition from one technique to the other.

Two Rhetorical Devices Are Better Than One

Consider the progression from pathos to logos in the following segments:

Every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment being directly assailed in every part of the world—assailed either by arms, or by secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations that are still at peace. (23)

Here we have some straight-up pathos. The broad generalizations and vague depictions of evil portray a world engaged in a battle of dark versus light. One could even argue that FDR's words are a form of propaganda themselves, meant to elicit a reaction of fear and defensiveness among his listeners. A few lines later:

Therefore, as your President, performing my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress information of the state of the Union," I find it, unhappily, necessary to report that the future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders. (26)

This is a transitional moment when FDR switches language tactics. Think of it as a rhetorical key change. Looking at the words and phrases, what parts of this sentence use pathos, what parts use logos, and what parts use both?

And the hits keep coming:

Armed defense of democratic existence is now being gallantly waged in four continents. If that defense fails, all the population and all the resources of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Austral-Asia will be dominated by the conquerors. Let us remember that the total of those populations and their resources in those four continents greatly exceeds the sum total of the population and the resources of the whole of the Western Hemisphere—many times over. (27-29)

This last example is a bit lengthy, but it's super important. FDR gives an example of what could happen if the Axis powers triumph—a conclusion arrived at through logical reasoning. This is a powerful and scary idea made even more potent because it follows an emotionally charged introduction. It's a perfect example of how FDR uses a pathos-logos combination to drive home a major point.

Though FDR slides back and forth between pathos and logos, in the end, it's pathos that has the final word. From his listing of the Four Freedoms until the end, the speech is propelled by full-on emotional power. However, unlike the earlier instances of pathos that are intended to scare and agitate, the emotional chords of the conclusion are deeply sincere because they echo with the hope of universal freedom and dignity for all.

Shh. It's okay. We all get a little misty-eyed at the end of the "Four Freedoms" speech.