Rhetorical Analysis Of The Banking Crisis

Our 32nd president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his speech, The Banking Crisis, explain to the common man about the legislation that has taken place and the directions the American people will be taking. His purpose is to address his recent decision of closing all banks for an extended holiday. He creates a welcoming tone in order to get through a skeptical audience that had lost hope in the government and had been demoralized by the depressed economy. Roosevelt opens his speech by addressing the citizen of the United States whom he referred as “My friends”, which set up a friendly, and welcoming tone that was much needed during the Great Depression. Listening to his speech, Roosevelt had a very clear, confident, and persuasive tone of a powerful leader, but one undermine aspect of why his speech was so compelling was the choice of words . Choosing from a list of “1,000 most common words in the English dictionary”, it became very easy for the common man to understand the complex

He directly addressed the fears of his audience, responding to those “worrying about State banks not members of the Federal Reserve System” and questions as to why all banks would not open on the same day around the country. Because frantic waves of bank withdrawals had directly contributed to the current crisis, he referred to money hoarding as “an exceedingly unfashionable pastime,” one driven by fear. After stating that banks would open on a rolling basis over the next several weeks, he told his audience that he expected their full cooperation in remedying this “bad banking situation.” He called for the “cooperation of the public,” stating that national “cooperation and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan . . . it is up to you to support and make it work. Together,” Roosevelt concluded, “we cannot