- Eight days after his inauguration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
gave his first national radio address, or “fireside chat” (above), broadcast directly from the White House during the Great
Depression. He began that 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 investor’s worried about possible bank failures. The banks would
be reopening the next day.
Roosevelt thanked the public for their “fortitude and good temper
during what he called the “banking holiday.”
