Fireside Chat Research Paper

“You miners have sons in the Army and Navy and Marine Corps. You have sons who at this very minute -- this split second -- may be fighting in New Guinea, or in the Aleutian Islands, or Guadalcanal, or Tunisia, or China, or protecting troop ships and supplies against submarines on the high seas. We have already received telegrams from some of our fighting men overseas, and I only wish they could tell you what they think of the stoppage of work in the coalmines.” Fireside chats were a tool that President Franklin D. Roosevelt used as a means of reassuring the American people, and boosting morale. The quotation given was spoken by FDR during his Fireside chat on May 2, 1943, which was made in regards to the ongoing strike of the United Mine Workers (UMW). This time of the war was a period of great sacrifice for the American people that were still at home. Many changes had to be made to accommodate the war efforts, and that often left people feeling shortchanged. This Fireside chat was used to appeal to American workers’ sense of patriotism and duty to country. Roosevelt made it appear imperative for all workers to put country ahead of self, and sacrifice for the sake of the greater good. FDR wanted the workers who were striking feel that if they were to stop working they were harming the war efforts abroad, and could be indirectly causing American deaths. The intention of this analysis is to portray that President Roosevelt used this quotation and the “chat” as a whole to appeal to …show more content…
The world must know and it must not forget. It must know and remember the character of the enemy we are overthrowing and make sure that that enemy never again can gain the strength to perpetrate more horrors. It must keep these things in mind as it attacks the problem of what we are going to do with this mentally and morally sick people we are