Fdr Fireside Chat Quotes

No one was a stranger in that crowd. We had all heard FDR's "Fireside Chats" and Edward R. Murrow's "This is London," listened to H.V. Kaltenborn for the evening news, and watched the newsreels before the movies. We'd read Ernie Pyle's columns, planted victory gardens, written V mails, sent care packages, gathered phonograph records for the USO, given up nylon for parachutes, saved bacon grease for explosives, and turned in tin foil, saved from gum wrappers, for ammunition. Most of all, we'd prayed that our loved ones would be safe.

In the weeks following the December Pearl Harbor attack, Bataan and Singapore fell to Japan while German U-boats ravaged American shipping. In one of his famed fireside chats, FDR rather ominously evoked the miserable condition of the Continental Army at Valley Forge and made use of the famed Thomas Paine quote about times that “try men’s souls.” Under the direction of Roosevelt’s government, the National Association of Broadcasters forbade the use of the phrase now for some good news from the radio, as it highlighted the bleak situation.10