On March 12, 1933, eight days after his inauguration, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt gives his first national radio address—or
“fireside chat”—broadcast directly from the White House.
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.
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.”
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