Sample Speech 11.1

Fireside Chat on the Bank Crisis

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Clearly states purpose at beginning of speech

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. 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 recognize that the many proclamations from State Capitols and from Washington, the legislation, the Treasury regulations, etc., couched for the most part in banking and legal terms, should be explained for the benefit of the average citizen. . . .

First of all let me state the simple fact that when you deposit money in a bank the bank does not put the money into a safe deposit vault. It invests your money in many different forms of credit-bonds, commercial paper, mortgages and many other kinds of loans. . . . In other words the total amount of all the currency in the country is only a small fraction of the total deposits in all of the banks.

Explains banking in very simple terms for listeners unfamiliar with practices

What, then, happened during the last few days of February and the first few days of March? Because of undermined confidence on the part of the public, there was a general rush by a large portion of our population to turn bank deposits into currency or gold—a rush so great that the soundest banks could not get enough currency to meet the demand. The reason for this was that on the spur of the moment it was, of course, impossible to sell perfectly sound assets of a bank and convert them into cash except at panic prices far below their real value.

By the afternoon of March 3 scarcely a bank in the country was open to do business. Proclamations temporarily closing them in whole or in part had been issued by the Governors in almost all the states.

Lays out and explains plan for addressing crisis so listeners feel more comfortable about what’s going on

It was then that I issued the proclamation providing for the nation-wide bank holiday, and this was the first step in the Government’s reconstruction of our financial and economic fabric. ...

Source: From “On the Bank Crisis,” radio address by Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered March 12, 1933. Retrieved from “Fireside Chats by Franklin D. Roosevelt” at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/031233.html.