On June 28th, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) addressed the American public in his fifth fireside chat. At a time where several of his relief and recovery programs were in place and starting to effectively, yet gradually, raise the American public out of the Great Depression, FDR felt the urge to address his critics, who believed the expansion of government control over the economy was an infringement on American private life, and, subsequently, on classical American ideals and principles. The chat itself was titled "On Addressing the Critics,"1 since FDR attempted to assuage the fears of American citizens who saw his extension of government aid as a red flag for a authoritarian take over. During this time of crisis, in the middle of the Great Depression, with the threat of totalitarianism spreading across Europe, the American public was hesitant, yet hopeful of FDR's presidency and use of government. The fireside chats, and specifically, fireside chat 5, effectively portrayed Franklin Roosevelt's presidency as a vehicle for relief, recovery, reform, and reconstruction-an "evolution of progress."2.
In Fireside Chat Five, FDR presents the government as a "process of evolution"3 that is continuing to fulfill the old and tested American ideals, but restructuring them to collaborate with unprecedented modern times. In a transition period from a profit-motivated economic private structure to an era of egalitarian social cohesion and inclusion, serious transformations to the makeup of American capitalism had to be made. The feminist movement earned women the right to vote, and African Americans were only a few decades from the thick of the Civil Rights Movement. The combination of a more complex and diverse society with the economic depression of the 1930 encouraged FDR to recognize that the current structure of capitalism and the American way needed to change "because much of our trouble today and in the past few years has been due to a lack of understanding of the elementary principles of justice and fairness by those in whom leadership in business and finance was placed.
