FDR Fireside Chat Reference In Scott's Tower Calendar

Laurence Glavin lglavin@mail.com
Tue Mar 12 14:11:46 EDT 2013


March 12 gets a special note in Scott's 2013 Tower Calendar because it's the date when FDR inaugurated his Fireside
Chats on the radio. My not-yet-depeted memory bank lit up and I recalled that Harper's Magazine ran one of those
short blurbs that follow the Harper's Index(tm; really: it IS trademarked) a few years ago. Content in Harper's is behind
an impregnable paywall, but after a Google(tm) search, I found a reference to it from the August, 2010 issue.
FDR asked people to send him letters or telegrams in response to his radio addresses, and one listener did not
hesitate to write: "PLEASE STOP TALKING WE WANT TO HEAR SOME MUSIC" (telegrams are all-caps).
Here's a website that refers to the Harper's article and a few other responses:

http://www.freag.net/en/t/15x4y/fireside_chats_

In those days, there were far fewer radio stations and virtually all of them had "variety" formats so
the distressed writer of this telegram would have to wait for quite a few years before some radio
stations that were "all-music" would appear. I wonder if he (or she, but likely he) lived that long.


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