I want to tell you what has been done in the last few days, why it was done, and what the next steps are going to be. I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking-with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking but more particularly with the overwhelming majority who use banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks. See also Banking Federal Reserve System Radio. The chat, which reached an estimated sixty million people, restored public confidence and led to a short-term restabilizing of the American economy. In his reassuring address, Roosevelt outlined the steps the government was taking to secure currency and bring equilibrium back to the banks. On March 12, 1933, the day before the banks were to reopen, President Roosevelt delivered his first "fireside chat" radio address to the American public. On the day after he was inaugurated, President Roosevelt, invoking the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, closed all American banks for a "bank holiday." While the banks were closed, Congress developed a program of rehabilitation for the banks and the Federal Reserve released extra currency. The frantic public was withdrawing its savings in record numbers and the banks, already strapped by the stock market crash, were incapable of supplying enough currency to meet the public's needs. Roosevelt (1882–1945) was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, the American banking system had collapsed. The months surrounding the October 1929 stock market crash saw that market lose $30 billion dollars in value. In an era when presidents had previously communicated with their citizens almost exclusively through spokespeople and journalists, it was an unprecedented step.FIRESIDE CHAT ON THE BANK CRISIS (12 March 1933) Farmers, business owners, men, women, rich, poor-most of them expressed the feeling that the president had entered their home and spoken directly to them. The success of Roosevelt’s chats was evident not only in his victory in three elections, but also in the millions of letters that flooded the White House. After World War II began, he used them to explain his administration’s wartime policies to the American people. Over the course of his historic 12-year presidency, Roosevelt used the chats to build popular support for his groundbreaking New Deal policies, in the face of stiff opposition from big business and other groups. He used simple vocabulary and relied on folksy anecdotes or analogies to explain the often complex issues facing the country. In fact, Roosevelt took great care to make sure each address was accessible and understandable to ordinary Americans, regardless of their level of education. Journalist Robert Trout coined the phrase “fireside chat” to describe Roosevelt’s radio addresses, invoking an image of the president sitting by a fire in a living room, speaking earnestly to the American people about his hopes and dreams for the nation. They reached an astonishing number of American households, 90 percent of which owned a radio at the time. Roosevelt went on to deliver 30 more of these broadcasts between March 1933 and June 1944. The nation was worried, and Roosevelt’s address was designed to ease fears and to inspire confidence in his leadership. was at the lowest point of the Great Depression, with between 25 and 33 percent of the workforce unemployed. The banks would be reopening the next day, Roosevelt said, and he thanked the public for their “fortitude and good temper” during the “banking holiday.”Īt the time, the U.S. Roosevelt began that first address simply: “I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking.” He went on to explain his recent decision to close the nation’s banks in order to stop a surge in mass withdrawals by panicked investors worried about possible bank failures. Roosevelt gives his first national radio address-or “fireside chat”-broadcast directly from the White House. On March 12, 1933, eight days after his inauguration, President Franklin D.
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