Franklin D Roosevelt

Tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of FDR's first radio fireside chat. He was inaugurated March 4, 1933, in the middle of a bank panic. The very next day he announced a bank holiday and a plan allowing the banks to re-open. In his fireside chat on the 12th, he discouraged people from withdrawing money from their bank accounts, and in his natural air of confidence and optimism, he assured people that everything was going to be alright. This brings back to me vivid memories. In March 1933 I was a sophomore at K.U. It was the lowest point in my financial life. I had moved into the Tennessee Boarding Club, 1414 Tennessee with Wilford Kraft.
Wiff (as I called him) had gotten a job there as dishwasher. I had no job and very very little money. My dad in Paola had no job and was not able to help me. Although the board at the Tennesse Club was only $3 per week, I could not afford this and ate elsewhere: a free lunch at the Union Building or with some friends on Ohio Street by the Jayhawk restaurant. But later that term I got Wiff's job as dishwasher as he became a waiter and then I got to eat for free at the club. The next Fall I benefited from one of FDR's many New Deal measures by doing part-time work for my political science teacher under the CSEP program. How fortunate we were to have Franklin D. Roosevelt as our president at a very very critical time!