Voice of Courage (page 2 of 2)

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The Beauty of the Basics

Moments before the first Fireside Chat was to air, there was a crisis. No one could find his leather-bound reading copy. Panic ensued for everyone except FDR, who calmly picked up a smudged, mimeographed copy. After sipping from a glass of water, he read the words perfectly on the air.

The beauty of that first prime-time radio speech was its clarity. FDR walked people through the basics of banking without being patronizing. He outlined the process for deciding which banks to open. "He made everyone understand it, even the bankers," Will Rogers quipped later.

In the middle of the speech, Roosevelt said simply, "I can assure you that it is safer to keep your money in a reopened bank than under the mattress." By raising an issue that made so many feel shameful, he lifted the shame -- offering listeners a way to strike a patriotic blow by simply depositing money into a solvent bank. Those who planned instead to withdraw money were gently thrown in with an unsavory lot. Hoarding, the President said, "has become an exceedingly unfashionable pastime."

Then he returned to themes so popular in his inaugural. "Confidence and courage are the essentials in carrying out our plan. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system. Together we cannot fail."

Jim Farley, a top political advisor, wrote that if judged by its impact, this speech may have been the greatest single utterance by an American President. "No other talk ever called forth such a wave of spontaneous enthusiasm and cooperation." With 60 million people listening, the effect was immediate. The next day, Monday, March 13, newspapers reported long lines of Americans anxious to redeposit their money. The New York Stock Exchange, closed for over a week, opened 15 percent higher, the largest one-day surge in more than half a century. Within a week, most of the recently closed banks reopened.

Gerald Ford, about 20 at the time, remembered FDR's Fireside Chats as "big events -- we would all stop and listen." Ronald Reagan's biographer, Lou Cannon, has written that Reagan's "metaphors [were] the offspring of FDR's." And Bill Clinton recalled hearing his grandfather talk about how he sat in rapt attention, "then went to work the next day feeling a little different about the country."

After the first Fireside Chat, FDR relaxed in his office. At 11:30 p.m. he said, "I think it's time for beer." Preparations for a bill to speed the end of Prohibition began that night.

From Reader's Digest - May 2006

 

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