FDR, the Rhetoric of Vision, and the Creation of a National Synoptic State

Abstract

Throughout his administration, FDR engaged in a complex set of arguments that worked together to defend democracy in general as a viable form of government; American democracy as the highest expression of democratic government; the primacy of the federal government as the most efficient and effective locus of democratic power; and the executive office as the culmination of the form, efficiency, and locus of that power. My specific concern here is with one form those arguments took, the visual metaphors that permeate FDR's rhetoric. Visuality in FDR's rhetoric is especially intriguing because of the way it interacted with the prevailing political culture in order to underwrite radical shifts in political power by helping FDR persuade the mass public to accept a synoptic view of nationalism and governmental responsibility. These changes have implications for presidents, presidential candidates, and for the citizens whose support they seek.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the Acting Director of the Roosevelt presidential Library, Lynn Bassanese, who went above and beyond helping her with the research for this essay. Michelle Fravenberger and Kirsten Carterby Virginia Lewick, and Sarah Malcolm provided additional help and guidance while the author was at the Library. The author would also like to thank Nathan Atkinson, David Cheshier, Brandon Inabinet, Ray McKerrow and the anonymous reviewers for their efforts in improving the essay. Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the American Political Science Association Conference in September, 2011 and at the Southern Speech Communication Association Conference in April 2012.

Notes

1. Note, for instance, that the 2008 Republican Platform supported a federal language policy and called for improvements in disaster relief, restoration of the national infrastructure, increased job-training, farm aid, government involvement in nurturing new sources of energy and energy technology, and action on health care, education, and perhaps more startling, in regulating Internet content (child pornography and gambling) and in the private lives of citizens (gay marriage and abortion). Regardless of one's political position on these issues, it is hard to argue that this platform signals an interest in reducing the size or scope of the national government. The full text of the platform is available here: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=78545&st=&st1=#axzz1OgT9MKPq.

2. The most consistent critic of such efforts is George C. Edwards, III. See especially his On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit (New York: Oxford, 2006), and The Strategic Presidency: Persuasion and Opportunity in Presidential Leadership (New York: Oxford, 2009). But see also arguments with and modification of his conclusions in Jeffrey E. Cohen, Going Local: Presidential Leadership in the Post-Broadcast Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); B. Dan Wood, The Myth of Presidential Representation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

3. The “modern presidency” conventionally begins with FDR. See Fred I. Greenstein, “Introduction,” in Fred I. Greenstein, ed. Leadership in the Modern Presidency (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 3.

4. Although see Thomas W. Benson, ed. American Rhetoric in the New Deal Era, 1932–1945 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2006); Halford R. Ryan, Franklin D. Roosevelt's Rhetorical Presidency (New York: Greenwood, 1988).

5. Charles Hurd, When the New Deal was Young and Gay (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1965), 10, 24.

6. For a detailed discussion of this point, see A. J. Beitzinger, A History of American Political Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 511–38.

7. For a discussion of this point, see Theodore H. Lowi, The Personal President: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986).

8. Martin J. Medhurst, ed. Before the Rhetorical Presidency (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2008).

9. See Karen S. Hoffman, Popular Leadership in the Presidency: Origins and Practices (Lanham, MA: Lexington Books, 2010); Melvin Laracey, The Presidents and the People: The Partisan Story of Going Public (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2002).

10. John Gunther, Roosevelt in Retrospect (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 23, 134. For a discussion of the press as both subservient to and critical of FDR, see Gary Dean Best, The Critical Press and the New Deal: The Press versus Presidential Power, 1933–1938 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993).

11. Benson, “American Rhetoric in the New Deal Era,” in Benson, American Rhetoric, xi; Adam Cohen, Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days that Created Modern America (New York: Penguin, 2009), 81.

12. Patrick J. Maney, The Roosevelt Presence: The Life and Legacy of FDR (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992), 70, 181. One critic goes so far as to assert that “Roosevelt was built by propaganda.” John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth (New York: Devin Adair, 1948), 279. Others are more moderate in their appraisals. See, for instance, Alan Brinkley, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (New York: Oxford, 2010), 2.

13. Ryan, Roosevelt's Rhetorical Presidency, 19.

14. For an interesting study of aural persuasion, see Greg Goodale, Sonic Persuasion: Reading Sound in the Recorded Age (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2011).

15. One biographer refers to him as a “master publicist.” Allan M. Winkler, The Politics of Propaganda: The Office of War Information, 1942–1945 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978), 20. Another says that his influence was “so profound that it changed the English language.” Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (New York: Harper, 2007), 11. On his ability to enact instead of merely promise leadership, see Suzanne M. Daughton, “Metaphorical Transcendence: Images of the Holy War in Franklin Roosevelt's First Inaugural,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 79 (1993): 427–46. On his skill in managing the image of his health, various policies, and his communication in general, see Davis W. Houck, Rhetoric as Currency: Hoover, Roosevelt and the Great Depression (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2001); Davis W. Houck, FDR and Fear Itself: The First Inaugural (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2002); Davis W. Houck & Amos Kiewe, FDR's Body Politics: The Rhetoric of Disability (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2003).

16. Jonathan Alter, The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 256.

17. Vanessa Beasley and Deborah Smith-Howell, “No Ordinary Rhetorical President? FDR's Speechmaking and Leadership,” in Benson, American Rhetoric, 3; Ronald Isetti, “The Moneychangers of the Temple: FDR, American Civil Religion, and the New Deal,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 26 (1996): 678–93; Halford Ross Ryan, “Roosevelt's First Inaugural: A Study in Technique,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 65 (1979): 137–49.

18. Thomas B. Farrell, Norms of Rhetorical Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 86–87.

19. This was true both for domestic and foreign policy. See Jean Edward Smith, FDR (New York: Random House, 2007), 487.

20. Michael Osborn, “I've been to the Mountaintop: The Critic as Participant,” in Texts in Context: Critical Dialogues on Significant Episodes in American Public Rhetoric, ed. Michael Leff and Fred Kauffield (Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1989), 149–66.

21. Davis W. Houck, “Reading the Body in the Text: FDR's 1932 Speech to the Democratic National Convention,” Southern Communication Journal 63 (1997): 20–36.

22. Cara Finnegan, “FSA Photography and the New Deal Visual Culture,” in Benson, American Rhetoric, 115–55; Cara Finnegan, Picturing Poverty: Print Culture and FSA Photography (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 2003), 2.

23. Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, x. See also Lawrence W. Levine and Cornelia R. Levine, ed., The People and the President: America's Conversation with FDR (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2002), 22.

24. Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, x.

25. Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, xi.

26. On the relationship of authenticity to visuality, see Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, xiii.

27. The material conditions of depression and war were also pivotal. I am focusing here not on those conditions but on the rhetoric that helped to authorize the changes they facilitated.

28. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998).

29. On Roosevelt's part in the creation of the national state, see Peri Arnold, Making the Managerial Presidency: Comprehensive Reorganization Planning, 1905–1996 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998).

30. For a personal account of these years, see Benjamin Roth, The Great Depression: A Diary, ed. James Ledbetter and Daniel B. Roth (New York: Public Affairs, 2009).

31. Alter, Defining Moment, 2.

32. Alter, Defining Moment, 2.

33. Alter, Defining Moment, 2.

34. Fiona Venn, The New Deal (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), 7.

35. M. J. Heale, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The New Deal and War (New York: Routledge, 1999), 10.

36. Anthony J. Badger, FDR: The First Hundred Days (New York: Hill & Wang, 2008), 3.

37. Quoted in Cohen, Nothing to Fear, 15.

38. Quoted in Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship (New York: Random House, 2003), 40.

39. For instance, the comment that “prosperity was just around the corner,” widely, if unfairly, associated with Herbert Hoover, helped to undermine his leadership. See, Robert S. McElvaine, The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941 (1989, New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009), 73.

40. This is, of course, a problem associated with the politics of pre-emption. See Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton, revised edition (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997). For the issues specifically faced by Hoover, see pages 260–85.

41. Charles E. Coughlin, “The National Union for Social Justice,” November 11, 1934, in Charles E. Coughlin, A Series of Lectures on Social Justice (Detroit, MI: Condon, 1935), 8.

42. For an insightful analysis of the importance of dictatorship to Roosevelt's rhetoric, see Davis W. Houck and Mihela Nocasian, “FDR's First Inaugural Address: Text, Context, and Reception,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 5 (2002): 649–78.

43. Alter, Defining Moment, 149.

44. Ronald Edsforth, The New Deal: America's Response to the Great Depression (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), 8.

45. McElvaine, Great Depression, 81–82.

46. Heale, Roosevelt, 4.

47. For good overviews of this complicated set of issues, see Wayne S. Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932–1945 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1983); Justin D. Doenecke and Mark A. Stoler, Debating Franklin D. Roosevelt's Foreign Policies, 1935–1945 (Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005).

48. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address at Oglethorpe University,” May 22, 1932, in The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, ed. Samuel I. Rosenman (New York: Random House, 1939), 1: 646. Rosenman edited 13 volumes of papers and addresses; the first 6 were published in 1938 by Random House, the others by Macmillan in 1950. All volumes are abbreviated below as Public Papers.

49. One author reports the number deaths as a result of the war “an unimaginable 50 million people.” Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 621.

50. Ernest K. Lindley, The Roosevelt Revolution First Phase (New York: Viking, 1933), 4.

51. Edsforth, New Deal, 9; Terry Golway, Together We Cannot Fail: FDR and the American Presidency in Years of Crisis (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2009), 40.

52. In his Introduction to the first volume of his presidential papers and addresses, for instance, he wrote, “Consistently I have sought to maintain a comprehensive and efficient functioning of the representative form of democratic government in its modern sense. Consistently I have sought through that form of government to help our people to gain larger social justice.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, “General Introduction,” Public Papers, 1: ix–xix.

53. Scott, Seeing Like a State, 2. This process has been insightfully studied as it played out in China. See Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007), chapter 7.

54. Scott, Seeing Like a State, 51.

55. For a good compendium of research on the relationship between visuality and democracy, see Lester C. Olson, Cara A. Finnegan, and Diane S. Hope, ed. Visual Rhetoric: A Reader in Communication and American Culture (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2008).

56. Yaron Ezrahi traces this phenomenon, at least as far as the United States is concerned, to the insistence on transparency by rhetors such as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. See Yaron Ezrahi, “Technology and the Civil Epistemology of Democracy,” in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, ed. Andrew Feenberg and Alastair Hannay (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 161.

57. Ezrahi, “Technology and the Civil Epistemology of Democracy,” 160.

58. Ezrahi, “Technology and the Civil Epistemology of Democracy,” 163.

59. I am indebted to Nathan Atkinson for his thoughts on this point.

60. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Second Inaugural Address,” January 20, 1937, Public Papers, 6: 1–6.

61. Alter, Defining Moment, 82.

62. Thomas Farrell argues that this period was characterized by a changed understanding of the role of work in American political culture. Farrell, Norms of Rhetorical Culture, 84.

63. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Extemporaneous Address before the Code Authorities of Six Hundred Industries,” March 5, 1934, Public Papers, 3: 123–24.

64. Farrell, Norms of Rhetorical Culture, 89.

65. Roosevelt, “Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1933, Public Papers, 2: 14–15.

66. On the rhetoric of purification, see Chaim Perlman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1971), 439–42.

67. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Annual Message to the Congress,” January 3, 1934, Public Papers, 3: 8.

68. See Houck, “Reading the Body”; Houck and Kiewe, FDR's Body Politics.

69. Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Age of Roosevelt: The Coming of the New Deal (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1959), 5, 10. On his disinterest in radical reform, see also Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (New York: Viking, 1946), 328.

70. Roosevelt, “Inaugural,” Public Papers, 2: 12.

71. Roosevelt used an extraordinary amount of religious language in his public address, prompting biographer James MacGregor Burns to write, “Probably no American politician has given so many speeches that were essentially sermons rather than statements of policy.” James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, 1882–1940 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1956), 476. Citizens responded to him by suggesting that he dispelled darkness and brought light. See Lawton L. Brown, “Letter to the President,” October 16, 1937, Levine and Levine, People and the President, 211.

72. He almost always referred to “religion” and “Christianity” as synonyms, although he would sometimes exert some effort to ground “religion” in the Old Testament and thus include members of the Jewish faith. See, for example, Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat on the War in Europe,” September 3, 1939, Public Papers, 8: 463. On his sectarian openmindedness, see Richard V. Pierard and Robert D. Linder, Civil Religion and the Presidency (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervon Publishing, 1988), 170–71.

73. W. S. Throckmorton, “Letter to the President,” October 17, 1935, President's Personal File 21 (X-Ref's) 21A (AL-AZ) Cont 2; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Alabama, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.

74. T. J. Gross, “Letter to the President,” October 18, 1935, President's Personal File 21 (X-Ref's) 21A (AL-AZ) Cont 2; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Alabama, Roosevelt Library.

75. Roosevelt, “Address Before the National Conference of Catholic Charities,” October 4, 1933, Public Papers, 2: 379.

76. Isetti, “Moneychangers of the Temple.”

77. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address at Denton, Maryland,” September 5, 1938, Public Papers, 7: 513.

78. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The President Urges the Extraordinary Session to Repeal the Embargo Provisions of the Neutrality Law,” September 21, 1939, Public Papers, 8: 521.

79. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Acceptance of the Renomination for the Presidency,” June 27, 1936, Public Papers, 5: 231.

80. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address at San Diego Exposition, San Diego, California,” October 2, 1935, Public Papers, 4: 405–12, 410.

81. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat on the War in Europe,” September 3, 1939, 460–64, Public Papers, 8: 464.

82. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “A Letter to the Pope in the Interest of Paralleling Endeavors for Peace and Alleviating Suffering,” December 23, 1939, Public Papers, 8: 607.

83. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address at Notre Dame University,” December 9, 1935, Public Papers, 4: 495–96.

84. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Message to Congress Asking Additional Appropriations for National Defense,” May 6, 1940, Public Papers, 9: 198.

85. Roosevelt, “Second Inaugural,” 5: 5.

86. See, for example, Hugh Gary, “Letter to the President,” September 28, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (CA-CT) Cont 5; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Colorado, Roosevelt Library; Duncan S. Merwin, “Letter to the President,” October 7, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (CA-CT) Cont 5; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, California, Roosevelt Library. Others also made this connection in other circumstances. See Charles Arthus J. Conlin to Stanley High, June 4, 1936, Good Neighbor League Papers, Correspondence File, General Organization—Barr, Louis D.—GNL Campaigns and Programs—Objectives and Purposes of GNL, Cont 8; Good Neighbor League General Organization Letters to and From the Clergy, Roosevelt Library.

87. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address Broadcast from a Naval Base on the Pacific Coast to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago,” July 20, 1944, Public Papers, 13: 203.

88. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address Delivered at Green Bay, Wisconsin,” August 9, 1934, Public Papers, 3: 372.

89. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Annual Message to Congress,” January 3, 1940, Public Papers, 9: 3.

90. Roosevelt, “Annual Message to Congress,” January 3, 1940, 9: 4.

91. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “A Fireside Chat Discussing Legislation to be Recommended to the Extraordinary Session of the Congress,” October 12, 1937, Public Papers, 6: 430.

92. D. P. Alterman, “Letter to the President,” October 13, 1937, Levine and Levine, People and the President, 214.

93. George H. Allen, “Letter to the President,” April 14, 1938, President's Personal File, 200B (4/14/38: Radio Broadcast; S-Z Pro, A-F Con) Cont 50; File PPF 200B Public Reaction April 14, 1938, Radio Broadcast, Con A-F, Roosevelt Library.

94. Frank C. Reilly, “Telegram to the President,” October 1, 1934, Levine and Levine, People and the President, 119.

95. John H. Small, “Telegram to the President,” September 30, 1934, President's Personal File, 200B (9/30/34: M-Z: 12/10/34 Cont 19; File PPF 200B Public Reaction September 30, 1934, S, Roosevelt Library.

96. See W. O. Laube, “Letter to the President,” October 7, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (Church Officials; Miscellaneous) Cont 35; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Authors and Editors, Roosevelt Library.

97. See Philip R. Dunbar, “Letter to the President,” April 15, 1938, President's Personal File, 200B (4/14/38: Radio Broadcast; S-Z Pro, A-F Con) Cont 50; File PPF 200B Public Reaction April 14, 1938, Radio Broadcast, Con A-F, Roosevelt Library.

98. Many correspondents commented on his “vision” and far-sightedness. See, for example, Walker, M. Sage, “Letter to the President,” September 23, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (CA-CT) Cont 5; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, California, Roosevelt Library; Harry B. Lee, “Letter to the President,” September 27, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (CA-CT) Cont 5; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, California, Roosevelt Library; Paul Tanner, “Letter to the President,” September 26, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (WV Church Officials) Cont 34; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Wisconsin, Roosevelt Library.

99. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fourth Fireside Chat,” October 22, 1933, Public Papers, 2: 420.

100. Roosevelt, “Inaugural,” 2: 15.

101. Maney, Roosevelt Presence, 53. On FDR's lack of an actual program for recovery, see most famously, Burns, Lion and the Fox, 143.

102. Maney, Roosevelt Presence, 69.

103. Manuel Mendes, “Letter to the President,” March 26, 1937, Levine and Levine, People and the President, 179; Gustavus Harkness, “Letter to the President,” March 11, 1937, Levine and Levine, People and the President, 179.

104. Ryan, Rhetorical Presidency, 9.

105. Roosevelt, “Annual Message to Congress,” January 4, 1935, 15–25, Public Papers, 4: 15.

106. On small minorities, see Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Third Fireside Chat,” July 24, 1933, Public Papers, 2: 300. On pettiness, see Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address to the White House Correspondents’ Association,” February 12, 1943, Public Papers, 12: 75. On disproportionate power, see Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Annual Message to Congress,” January 3, 1936, Public Papers, 5: 13.

107. See, for example, Franklin D. Roosevelt, “A Message to Congress on Pure Food and Drugs,” March 22, 1935, Public Papers, 4: 111.

108. Roosevelt, “Third Fireside Chat,” 300.

109. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address Before the American Legion Convention, Chicago, Illinois,” October 2, 1933, Public Papers, 2: 373.

110. Roosevelt, “Pure Food and Drugs,” 111.

111. A number of correspondents used expressions relating to size and proportion in their letters. See F. M. Warden, “Letter to the President,” October 8, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (WV Church Officials) Cont 34; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Wyoming, Roosevelt Library; Paul A. Schoch, “Letter to the President,” October 4, 1934, President's Personal File, 200B 9/30/34: M-Z: 12/10/34 Cont 19; File PPF 200B Public Reaction September 30, 1934, S, Roosevelt Library.

112. These juxtapositions run throughout a number of his speeches, but see, for instance, Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address at Dedication of Boulder Dam,” September 30, 1935, Public Papers, 4.

113. Roosevelt, “Fourth Fireside Chat,” 420.

114. For a discussion of how FDR's physical body served as a rhetoric resource throughout the Roosevelt years, see Houck and Kiewe, FDR's Body Politic.

115. Roosevelt, “A Fireside Chat Discussing Legislation to be Recommended to the Extraordinary Session of the Congress,” 430.

116. He dealt with these fears both directly and indirectly. His direct comments, which do not generally involve ocular metaphors, do not concern me here, but see Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The President Refutes Dictatorship Charges Connected with the Pending Reorganization Bill,” March 29, 1938, 179–92, Public Papers, 7: 79. For an example of public fears of dictatorship, see R. B. Fisher, “Letter to the President,” September 28, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (IA-KS) Cont 11; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Iowa, Roosevelt Library.

117. The Levines write, “Even when people listened alone, the experience could be a communal one.” Levine and Levine, People and the President, 21. See also Goodale, Sonic Persuasion.

118. Glenn B. Coykendall, “Letter to the President,” October 23, 1935, President's Personal File 21 (1934–45; X-Ref's, 1933–43), Cont 1; PPF 21 Church Matters, 1934–43, Roosevelt Library.

119. Thomas C. Darst, “Letter to the President,” October 3, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (Church Officials; Miscellaneous) Cont 35; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Bishops, Roosevelt Library.

120. William H. Watts, “Letter to the President,” October 18, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (NY-NJ) Cont 20; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, New Jersey, Roosevelt Library. See also Charles B. Merritt, “Letter to the President,” October 2, 1934, President's Personal File, 200B (9/30/34: M-Z: 12/10/34 Cont 19; File PPF 200B Public Reaction September 30, 1934, M, Roosevelt Library. Opponents also used visual language to describe their reactions to his speeches; one correspondent rebuked Roosevelt for failing to provide “a real picture.” Richard E. Clark, “Telegram to the President,” October 26, 1934, President's Personal File, 200B (9/30/34: M-Z: 12/10/34 Cont 19; File PPF 200B Public Reaction October 24, 1934, Roosevelt Library. Another critic accused him of concealment regarding his treatment of Charles A. Lindbergh. Margaret Oliver, “Letter to the President,” August 10, 1941, Official File 92, Lindbergh, Charles A/OF 93 Colored Matters (Negroes) Box #2 Box #1; OF 92, Charles A. Lindbergh, Aug-Dec 1941. Still others wrote to him offering to help “expose the real motives” of Roosevelt's opponents. See A. Gordon, “Letter to the President,” August 27, 1925, Official File 1144–1157, OF 1150, American Liberty League, August, 1935.

121. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address at Jackson Day Dinner,” January 8, 1940, Public Papers, 9: 31.

122. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The President Urges the Congress to Pass Additional Appropriations for National Defense,” January 12, 1939, Public Papers, 8: 74.

123. Partly, of course, this is an artifact of the fact that Roosevelt was president, and a great deal of interpretive authority comes with that office. It is also notable that many citizens who wrote Roosevelt referred to their narrow perspective and compared it to his larger one. See, for example, Richard G. Deffner, “Letter to the President,” January 6, 1936, President's Personal File 21 (X-Ref's) 21A (AL-AZ) Cont 2; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Arizona, Roosevelt Library; Lewis Thompson Smith, “Letter to the President,” March 2, 1942, Levine and Levine, People and the President, 429.

124. See, for example, Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Securities Bill is Signed. The President Issues a Statement,” May 27, 1933, Public Papers, 2: 213–14; Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Radio Address Before the Pan American Governing Board,” April 15, 1940, Public Papers, 9: 161; Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The President Asks the Congress to Authorize the Arming of Merchant Ships and to Revise the Neutrality Act,” October 9, 1941, Public Papers, 10: 406, 410. Critics were often unhappy about this. See James E. Crowther, “Letter to the President,” September 27, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (CA-CT) Cont 5; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Colorado, Roosevelt Library.

125. That vision transcended geography. One correspondent told the president that “We in this western corner of our great country, believe in you, your vision, your ideals, and your integrity.” Mrs. H. C. St. John, “Letter to the President,” September 30, 1934, President's Personal File, 200B (9/30/34: M-Z: 12/10/34 Cont 19; File PPF 200B Public Reaction September 30, 1934, S, Roosevelt Library. Others urged him to speak more often because of his unifying and persuasive effect. Edwin E, Jones, “Letter to the President,” January 3, 1936, President's Personal File, 200B (1/3/36: H-M) Cont 126; File PPF 200B Public Reaction January 3, 1936, H, Roosevelt Library.

126. On depiction, and the combination of aesthetics and content, see Michael Leff and Andrew Sachs, “Words the Most Like Things: Iconicity and the Rhetorical Text,” Western Journal of Speech Communication 54 (1990): 252–73.

127. David M. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 137.

128. See, for example, Joseph J. Hitov, “Letter to the President,” April 28, 1942, Levine and Levine, People and the President, 449; James J. Dunn, “Letter to the President,” May 16, 1933, Levine and Levine, People and the President, 68; Frank W. Hadley, “Letter to the President,” June 24, 1933, Levine and Levine, People and the President, 83; Nat Baumann, “Letter to the President,” April 14, 1938, Levine and Levine, People and the President, 237.

129. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “A Christmas Address to the Nation,” December 24, 1944, Public Papers, 13: 444.

130. Although his purposes are different than mine, John Murphy understands this as a problem of presence. Relying on Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's use of the term, Murphy argues that Roosevelt relied on three argumentative stylistic tactics to make the European war present to Americans and to overcome isolationism. For Murphy, those tactics are analogy, visual language, and shrinking time and space. John M. Murphy, “No End Save Victory: FDR and the End of Isolationism 1936–1941,” in Making the Case: Studies in Public Advocacy in Honor of David Zarefsky, ed. Kathryn Olson, Kirt Wilson, and Michael Pfau (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, in press). On the idea of presence, see Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, New Rhetoric, 115–20.

131. Certainly, those who understood him as “Moses” were making constitutive claims. See, for example, J. A. Hawkes, “Letter to the President,” October 15, 1935, President's Personal File 21A (WV Church Officials) Cont 34; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Wisconsin, Roosevelt Library. This is a particularly interesting letter for while the author wrote FDR that he “welcomed you as a Moses,” he also refused to follow “in the direction” of “a communistic dictatorship.” Others simply promised to “pull together” as a result of one of his speeches. See J. Guy McQuitty, “Letter to the President,” September 30, 1934, President's Personal File, 200B (9/30/34: M-Z: 12/10/34 Cont 19; File PPF 200B Public Reaction September 30, 1934, M, Roosevelt Library. Poet Ruth Albert Cook also noted his ability to unite the nation and to do so on the basis of important inclusions, even if both the unity and the inclusion were, for her, ephemeral. See the poem quoted at length in Levine and Levine, People and the President, 561,

132. Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, ix–xiv.

133. Houck, “Reading the Body.”

134. William Gorham Rice, “Letter to the President,” October 1, 1934, President's Personal File, 200B (9/30/34: M-Z: 12/10/34 Cont 19; File PPF 200B Public Reaction September 30, 1934, Q-R, Roosevelt Library. See also, William F. Pashby, “Letter to the President,” October 1, 1934, President's Personal File, 200B (9/30/34: M-Z: 12/10/34 Cont 19; File PPF 200B Public Reaction September 30, 1934, O-P, Roosevelt Library.

135. E. F. McGrath, “Letter to the President,” September 30, 1934, President's Personal File, 200B (9/30/34: M-Z: 12/10/34 Cont 19; File PPF 200B Public Reaction September 30, 1934, M, Roosevelt Library; emphasis in original. See also, Virginia Miller, “Letter to the President,” March 3, 1933, Levine and Levine, People and the President, 45.

136. Schlesinger, Age of Roosevelt, 1.

137. For a discussion of the role these letters played in FDR's rhetoric, see Gerard A. Hauser, Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1999), 232–67.

138. Maney, Roosevelt Presence, 71.

139. Farrell, Norms of Rhetorical Culture, 89; Davis W. Houck and Mihaela Nocasian, “FDR's First Inaugural Address”; Isetti, “Moneychangers of the Temple,”; McElvaine, Great Depression, 116.

140. McElvaine, Great Depression, 115.

141. See Robert Klara, FDR's Funeral Train: A Betrayed Widow, a Soviet Spy, and a Presidency in the Balance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

142. Burns, The Lion and the Fox, 337–38; Schlesinger, Age of Roosevelt, 567.

143. There were 68 publicists when FDR took office. By 1937, there were over 300. See Best, Critical Press and the New Deal, 8.

144. A number of correspondents, for instance, noted the importance of working together with the president to facilitate national goals. See, for example, Howard A. Clark, “Letter to the President,” no date, President's Personal File 21 (X-Ref's) 21A (AL-AZ) Cont 2; PPF 21A Clergy Letters, Arizona, Roosevelt Library; and of providing local facts to facilitate national policy. See Robert O. McNeal, “Letter to the President,” January 3, 1936, President's Personal File, 200B (1/3/36: H-M) Cont 26; File PPF 200B Public Reaction January 3, 1936, K, Roosevelt Library; F. J. Dillon, “Telegram to the President,” January 4, 1936, President's Personal File, 200B (1/3/36: H-M) Cont 126; File PPF 200B Public Reaction January 3, 1936, H, Roosevelt Library.

145. Shlaes, Forgotten Man, 10–11.

146. Alter, Defining Moment, 256–64.

147. Burns, The Lion and the Fox, 183.

148. Maney, The Roosevelt Presence, 75.

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Notes on contributors

Mary E. Stuckey

Mary E. Stuckey is a Professor at the Department of Communication, Georgia State University