To Expose a Fool, HL Mencken, 1925

Who wrote: H.L. Mencken

Audience: Mencken’s primary audience at that time was college students and educated people in general.

Represent: Mencken is portraying Bryan in almost a vagabond-like appearance, in his last days, as someone who is bitter toward the cities and the more liberal ways things are done. He is also emphasizing Bryan’s great respect and ability to identify with people who lived in rural America.

What being said: Mencken starts his essay on Bryan’s interests that are grounded in rural settings; he then gives example of Bryan’s ability to relate easier with country folks. Next, he mentions how Bryan lived a long life, perhaps too long as he went from almost becoming president to living a low and forgettable existence. Mencken discusses Bryan’s long and important political history and how he moves from the cities and into the country where he is left to continue his influence in political teachings.

How being said: Mencken writes about Bryan in a negative and somewhat stereotypical light in his essay, almost how Bryan may have feared that people from the cities may have looked down upon him and others like him living in the country.

What proof: Mencken is giving examples of Bryan’s interest in life, such as his lifelong hobby of “fly catching.” He is giving details of Bryan’s political activities and convictions. He then focuses his attention to Bryan’s final days in a “one-horse Tennessee village” where he began to make his influence felt on the citizens living in rural America.

Defense of the League of Nation, Woodrow Wilson, Sept 1919

Who wrote: President Woodrow Wilson.

Audience: President Wilson was addressing a crowd of people in Pueblo Colorado September 26, 1919, as part of a nationwide tour.

Represent: President Wilson was pleading the case of why having the League of Nations was so important to the world in order prevent future wars between mutual cooperation and arbitration between nations.

What being said: President Wilson places emphasis on how the Covenant of the League of Nations is much more than just a settlement with Germany, but a pact between nations to ensure mutual cooperation and prevent future aggression against one another. He outlines how this will be done through the League of Nations by establishing international laws that protect the rights of nations against from aggression from another. In any such dispute both parties would present documents to a council within the League that would then spend up to six months reviewing both sides claims in the dispute. Both nations would abide by whatever determination is made by the council. After explaining this process of how the League will arbitrate disputes between nations, he carefully refers to Article X to alleviate any concerns about the “territorial integrity” of nations being threatened by the League in order to emphasize how the entire purpose of the League is to protect the rights of these nations.

How being said:
President Wilson is primarily appealing to the emotions of Americans by using the example of the fallen soldiers killed in battle and how the creation of the League would be an effort to not let their sacrifice be in vain.

What proof: President Wilson carefully explains the structure of the League of Nations and how it would work as an arbitrator between nations. He also quotes Articles X and XI to give examples of how the rights of nations are protected. Finally he includes examples of powerful personal experiences such as communicating with the surviving relatives of soldiers killed in the war.

What did the Doughboys find in France?

Basically many American “doughboys” went to France with the idea that war was a noble cause as well as an ultimate adventure. However, once they became engaged in the actual application of warfare in the field reality quickly begins to hit them. The horror of combat proved to be nothing like they had ever imagined. For example, just living day to day in the trenches when there was no fighting going on was a challenge by itself as the reading mentioned that rats the size of cats would be seen everywhere. Poorly trained and inexperienced in the beginning American troops would eventually become as hardened as their allies as well as effective fighters in this “war to end all wars.”

Q. Should the two million American soldiers that made up the AEF have been deployed to Europe much sooner in order to have ended the war?

Q. Why were there tensions between French and American during the war even though the doughboys were there to help?

U.S. History 148

I am so looking forward to have good grade and good friends.