Presidential Inaugurations

When I was looking through the words used in the inaugural addresses, I decided to look for instances where certain words coincided. Before I did this, though, I noticed an interesting phenomena. I decided to look at uses of the word "world" in speeches. I found that this word was not used heavily at all until around 1917, when America entered the First World War. Up until this time, America had been an isolationist country that focused on its own integrity and uprising, so this makes sense. However, the use of this word also coincided with the word "America". Presidents really didn't use the word "America" until the time we entered the First World War. This I found very interesting. Although we as a country decided that we would begin to help the world in 1917 and come out of our isolationist rut, presidents began to talk more about our country as we began to talk about the world. This, to me, tells of how America began during this period to expand our ideals unto the world. However, during times that presidents spoke of the world, they spoke more heavily of war and peace, using these specific words more often. Even stranger, presidents who mentioned the word "world" more often used the term "war" more than they used the word "peace". Strikingly, this phenomena does not necessarily coincide with the time periods of the first and second world wars. What can this then tell us about America's vision about the world? Although these instances can not be used to definitively make any real conclusions, it is an interesting idea to ponder that when our presidents, representing us as a country, begin to talk about the world more, they talk less about peace than war, and more about the name of our country. And finally let us consider one more coinciding instance. As the use of the words "world", "America", "war", and "peace" began to rise with the start of the First World War, the use of the words "great", "right", and "duty" began to fall. In fact, the use of these words almost seemed to vanish as soon as 1917. Is this truly telling of the American foreign agenda? I can not say conclusively, but it is, nevertheless, and interesting idea to ponder.