Men of the greatest city of the West (Metaphor)
Theodore Roosevelt addresses the dwellers of Chicago “men of the greatest city of the West” in order to show his respect to them and break the ice in the conversation as it was the first utterance of his speech. Moreover, by using this metaphor, he highlights the fact that Chicago has a good infrastructure and citizens have a lot factors to be proud of their city: “men of the State which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, men who preeminently and distinctly embody all that is most American in the American character,”. He hadn’t used the old metaphor which is associated with Chicago (“the city of winds”) in order to show people that for him as a President and for a country as a whole, the city plays an important role for all its achievements.
The man of timid peace (Metaphor)
Americans has always been and will always be the greatest nation in the whole world – Roosevelt convinces people. Because they are strong and hardworking. Whatever would happen – they are not afraid of it, they meet every difficulty with stamina and power. And those people whom President calls “the men of timid peace”, have no right to be called American, because Americans admire only “the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life”. Thus, the metaphor he used embodies the anti-hero of American nation, some misfit who doesn’t deserve to live in the greatest country of the world.
Maternity - the haunting terror of the young wife of the present day (Metaphor)
In his speech President Roosevelt mentions the book by Daudet “powerful and melancholy” writing where he (Daudet) calls the fear of maternity “the haunting terror of the young wife of the present day”. The metaphor represents new American generation of women who don’t regard maternity as their main mission in their life and try to fulfill their ambitions in business. But the President is shocked that this opinion can have a place in literature, he made a rather pessimistic conclusion that “When such words can be truthfully written of a nation, that nation is rotten to the heart's core”.
The blackness of sorrow and despair (Metaphor)
Theodore Roosevelt calls the years before the Civil War, the times of slavery and humiliation of one people by others “blackness of sorrow and despair”. Using this metaphor, he vividly highlights his attitude to that time and emphasizes how great their victory was. The Civil War made a new nation – a nation of free people who are building their future in a free democratic county together, hand by hand, they are people, who believe in one dream and who are realizing this dream together. “Let us, the children of the men who proved themselves equal to the mighty days, let us, the children of the men who carried the great Civil War to a triumphant conclusion, praise the God of our fathers that the ignoble counsels of peace were rejected”.
The architects of our material prosperity (Metaphor)
Roosevelt calls such great representatives of American nation as Lincoln and Grant “the architects of our (American) prosperity”. Thanks to them America is a great country and further generations should never forget those great men who dedicated their lives to their country: “They showed by their lives that they recognized the law of work, the law of strife; they toiled to win a competence for themselves and those dependent upon them; but they recognized that there were yet other and even loftier duties—duties to the nation and duties to the race.” The metaphor is used for enforcing the effect of the speech, in order to cause the feeling of pride and patriotism of the listeners.
