There's not even a hint of emotion or personality in the Zimmermann Telegram and, whoa, before you get all judgy, it's not Zimmermann's fault.

Zimmermann wrote the thing thinking that only one guy would ever read it and then burn it afterwards. Instead, it's been famous for a full century, countless people have read it, and it's in practically every single book about World War I. If he'd know what was to become of it, he probably would've tried to make it sound more exciting or witty.

Actually, scratch that. If he'd known what was to become of it, he wouldn't have sent it at all.

What makes it effective at connecting with an audience isn't its rhetoric; it's just a straightforward policy suggestion. What we connect with is the fact that we're reading something that we aren't supposed to be reading. The public wasn't meant to see the Zimmermann Telegram. No one was supposed to know how calmly the German government discussed torpedoing ships filled with innocent women and children, or how the violent takeover of three U.S. states could be reduced to a few short facts. The Zimmermann Telegram got its power from shock at what was implied, not from the words themselves.