Permanence and change in Theodore Roosevelt's conservation jeremiad

In 1908, at the Governors Conference on Conservation, Theodore Roosevelt generated the necessary rhetorical intensity to set in motion a national conservation policy. Because conservation, as Roosevelt conceived it, was a novel policy, he confronted two rhetorical challenges in persuading his audience to accept his initiative. First, he had to create a sense of exigency. Second, he had to formulate a link between his policy and his audience's values and beliefs. To confront these challenges, Roosevelt turned to a subtly crafted jeremiad that presented the need for action and linked conservation with past values, a strategy that Kenneth Burke delineates in his treatment of permanence and change.