FDR’s “Day Of Infamy” Speech: The First Draft
I found this photograph of what is apparently the first draft, with revisions, of President Roosevelt’s December 8 1941 speech to Congress, from the Pearl Harbor Museum, to be quite interesting:
No word on who made the editorial remarks.
According to the FDR Presidential Library at Marist College, which has the original, Roosevelt himself made the emendations.
The substitution of the word “infamy” for “world history” gave the speech its power.
I understood FDR made them and if you look at the simplifications of the language this seems entirely credible. He may have sounded like a upper class Harvard man but FDR was one hell of a speaker. Listen to some of his speeches and fireside chats and they still pass muster today particularly when you compare with the much more histrionic and strained styles of his contemporaries like Long, Al Smith, Landon and others.