The Day After Pearl Harbor: Word Power And War Power

In early evening, he called in his secretary, Grace Tully. "Sit down, Grace," he said. "I'm going before Congress tomorrow, and I'd like to dictate my message. It will be short."

With that remark Franklin Delano Roosevelt began the process of writing a response to the Japanese attack on the United States the day before. The six-minute speech would become one of the most significant and well-known of the 20th century. Roosevelt wrote and revised the document almost unaided as his lead speech writers, Samuel Rosenman and Robert Sherwood, were in New York City on the day of the attack.

There were three formal drafts each with a number of revisions. Just 24 hours after being notified of the attack Roosevelt stood before a joint session of Congress and a national radio audience to deliver the final version of his call to arms.

These words were meant to be heard.

The words that we know as the "Day of Infamy Speech" are a superb example of the power of brevity, vocabulary, and organization. They remind us of an earlier legendary speech delivered by another president on a crown of a hill in Evergreen Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863. For more information on the Roosevelt speech visit this National Archives and Records Administration link.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC

Text:

Opening quotation, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum

National Archives and Records Administration

Infamy Speech, wikipedia.org