Analysis: President Roosevelt's "Call for Sacrifice"

Date: April 28, 1942

Author: Franklin D. Roosevelt

Genre: speech

Summary Overview

President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered this speech to the American people as one of his fireside chats, which were relatively informal radio addresses intended to encourage Americans to feel as though the president was talking to them as a friend. The official name of this speech is “On Our National Economic Policy,” but it later became known as “A Call for Sacrifice” because it addressed the need of the American people to consider the widespread sacrifices they must make in order to win the war. Although the purpose of this speech was to discuss the economic situation in the United States, Roosevelt also gave a summary of the war abroad and shared his concerns about new leadership in Vichy France. The speech ended with stories of American heroism on the battlefield, a reminder to the listening public of why they should sacrifice to support the war effort.

Defining Moment

Roosevelt was one of the first American politicians to understand that mastery of the radio address was crucial to communicating with the nation. By the 1930s, almost 90 percent of American households owned a radio. Roosevelt's first fireside chat was labeled as such by a journalist before a radio address given in May 1933. It evoked the comforting, conversational tone of these speeches. Roosevelt contributed to their writing and often spoke informally, changing the speech as he delivered it. Fireside chats were addressed directly to the American public who were generally addressed as “my friends,” or in this case, “my fellow Americans.” He used simple, direct language intended to appeal to a broad audience, and he referred to himself in the first person and to the listening audience as “we.” Roosevelt's widespread popularity is attributed in part to his ability to reassure and inform the American people through these chats. From 1933 to 1944, Roosevelt delivered thirty such speeches to the American public.

“A Call for Sacrifice” was delivered in April 1942 at a time when the military situation on the ground seemed to be particularly dire. American troops had been forced out of the Philippines, and her last defenders were under siege on the island of Corregidor in Manila Bay. In addition, the Japanese had made extraordinary gains in the Pacific by occupying Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies. Significant raids had been made against the Australian mainland in February and March. Though the Soviet Union had managed to halt Hitler's advances, fighting was still desperate and the outcome far from clear. England and the United States knew that there needed to be another front opened in Western Europe, but supplies and equipment continued to be needed by the Soviet Union and England, and the Allies were not yet ready to launch a large-scale offensive. Roosevelt alluded to another troubling development in Europe when he revealed that the nominally neutral but German-controlled French government at Vichy was taken over by Pierre Laval, who failed to offer even token resistance to German demands for French laborers and the deportation of French Jews. The Allies worried with good reason that French military resources would soon be completely at Germany's disposal.

With war industries pumping billions of dollars into the economy just as goods were becoming scarce, resisting inflation and stabilizing the cost of living was also crucial. Roosevelt suggested a seven-point plan that stabilized prices, wages, and rent and that brought the money earned by individuals back to the war effort through taxes and war bonds. Rationing of goods needed for the war effort or in very short supply, such as rubber and sugar, had already begun, and many more items would soon be added to the list. Ration books contained universal coupons for items like sugar with identical amounts allotted to each American and point rations where points could be used for a variety of needed items. Special permission was needed to buy gasoline, tires, typewriters, and farm equipment. The sacrifice of these goods by Americans at home was described in terms of sacrifices being made on the battlefield and were considered direct contributions to winning the war.

Author Biography

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born in 1882 in Hyde Park, New York. He married Eleanor Roosevelt in 1905. He studied law and entered politics in 1910 as a state senator. In 1912, Roosevelt supported Woodrow Wilson's candidacy at the Democratic National Convention, and when Wilson won, he appointed Roosevelt as assistant secretary of the Navy, a position he held from 1913 to 1920. Roosevelt contracted polio in 1921 and was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Despite this hardship, he was determined to return to public life, and through the use of locking braces, he was able to stand and even walk, though always with great difficulty. Roosevelt held the governorship of New York from 1928 to 1932 when he was elected president of the United States. He led the United States through the Great Depression and greatly expanded the power and reach of the federal government through a series of reforms known as the New Deal. In 1940, with war raging in Europe, Asia, and North Africa, Roosevelt ran for and won an unprecedented third term as president. He won a fourth term in 1944 when the United States was at war, and he held the position until his death in office in 1945.

Document Analysis

Roosevelt begins this radio speech, as he did many of his fireside chats, with a familiar address, “My fellow Americans,” and goes on to speak to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that “we” the nation have suffered. Having thus established the common experience shared with his listeners and the informal tone of his address, Roosevelt notes that though they have been engaged in their common struggle for five months and war production has been gearing up, the war effort has thus far “done little to dislocate the normal lives of most of us.” Now that war has begun in earnest, however, the American public must understand that what they have taken on would be “a tough job—and a long one.” Roosevelt points out that American lives are committed all over the world and that the war effort is vast and all-consuming. He continues this point with a lengthy list of the places around the world where American warships were facing combat at the time. Roosevelt then plunges into an update of the military situation abroad.

Though the United States forces were deployed across the world, the situation was complicated. Roosevelt starts his recap of the military situation with the good news that the Soviets have halted Germany's advance and launched a great counteroffensive, which was destroying German troops and military equipment. The situation in France, however, was cause for concern. Without addressing Laval by name, Roosevelt shares “news of a change in government” in Vichy France and then expresses his fear that the remaining military resources of France would be used by the Axis powers. Of particular concern were the French colonies in North Africa, and Roosevelt argues they must not be allowed to become bases for German offensives. Roosevelt ends this military status report with the bad news. The Allies have “passed through a phase of serious losses” and the Japanese have made significant territorial gains in Asia. Roosevelt concludes that “the war has become what Hitler originally proclaimed it to be—a total war.”

The American people have no illusions that war would be easy and are ready to make the sacrifices needed for victory, Roosevelt argues. Those who could not serve in the military or in the factory would have a chance to prove their determination on the home front. He states, “Everyone will have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary, not only to supply our fighting men, but to keep the economic structure of our country fortified and secure during the war and after the war.” Roosevelt outlines the basic imbalance in the United States economy in simple terms: “You do not have to be a professor of mathematics or economics to see that if people with plenty of cash start bidding against each other for scarce goods, the price of those goods goes up.” His plan to counteract inflation is laid out in seven steps: controlled profits, wages, rent and prices, sale of war bonds, rationing, higher taxes, and discouragement of debt. This is a small price to pay for the great fight they are engaged in, he argues, and he ends his speech with examples of brave deeds performed by Americans across the world.

Glossary

indomitable: that which cannot be subdued or overcome; unconquerable

munitions: materials used in war, especially weapons and ammunition

Vichy: a city in France which became the provisional capital from 1940–1942

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Buhite, Russell D., and David W. Levy, eds. FDR's Fireside Chats. Norman, OK: U of Oklahoma P, 2010. Print.

Ciment, James, and Thaddeus Russell. The Home Front Encyclopedia: United States, Britain, and Canada in World Wars I and II. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2007. Print.

Hirsch, Julius. Price Control in the War Economy. New York: Harper, 1943. Print.

Lambert, Barbara Ann. Rusty Nails and Ration Books: Great Depression and WWII Memories, 1929–1945. Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2002. Print.