It’s a summer night in Chicago during the Great Depression.
The writer Saul Bellow is walking on the streets of Chicago.1
“The light held after nine o’clock, and the ground was covered with clover,
more than a mile of green between Cottage Grove and Stony Island.
The blight hadn’t yet carried off the elms, and under them drivers had pulled over,
parking bumper to bumper and turned on their radios to hear Roosevelt.
They had rolled down the windows and opened the car doors.
Everywhere the same voice, its odd Eastern accent,
which in anyone else would have irritated Midwesterners.
You could follow without missing a single word as you strolled by.
You felt joined to these unknown drivers,
men and women smoking their cigarettes in silence,
not so much considering the President’s words
as affirming the rightness of his tone and taking assurance from it.”
There were thirty-one fireside chats during the eleven years FDR was president.
The first, addressing the banking crisis,
came just eight days after FDR had become the president.
The last came six days after D-Day.
In each, FDR explained what was going on and what he was doing to make things better.
He used everyday language.
An even, unemotional tone.
He was thoughtful.
No impulsive “shot across the bow” threats.
And he was reassuring.
From a letter a Brooklyn man wrote to the White House:2
“Last evening, as I listened to the President’s broadcast,
I felt that he walked into my home, sat down and in plain and forceful language
explained to me how he was tackling the job I and my fellow citizens gave him.
Needless to say, such forceful, direct and honest action
commands the respect of all Americans.
My humble and sincere gratitude to a great leader.
May God protect him.”
FDR respected the office of the presidency.
And he understood how to use its power
to unite people in a common purpose.
That’s what is needed.
That’s what is sorely missing now.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
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