 It's a fireside chat given April 28, 1935 in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room, one of the 27 fireside chats that FDR gave, and it's on the Works Relief Program, when he's really trying to force the Congress to address the issues that didn't get attention in the first two years of his inauguration. You know, historians often talk about the first new deal and the second new deal as if there were clear benchmarks, that there were clear, like, highways down the middle that divided the two. I think it's easier, really, to talk about, when you look at this document, to look at the overarching goals that FDR had for the new deal and what the problems were that he confronted when he came into office. Our responsibility is to all the people in this country. There is a great national crusade to destroy enforced idleness, which is an enemy of the human spirit generated by this depression. FDR believed that confidence and action were essential to confronting the depression individually, collectively, and politically. The purpose of this is to show the American people that the Roosevelt's care, that the economy is fundamentally sound, and that what is just as important as solid government policy is their confidence in themselves and in the government to get through this. Because America is the only society in the history of the world from the beginning of time, the history of the world, not to have a violent revolution and an overthrow of the government when their economy tanked. When FDR comes into office, he is elected in November, 1932, and he will not take office until March. So there's a five month dead time or political vacuum, if you will, where FDR is trying to get a handle on how best to deal with the great crises in the country. Now historians disagree on how pervasive the Great Depression was. What they do agree on is that it's the greatest depression in American history. The day he takes the oath of office, the vast majority of farms in Mississippi were on the auction block. At the same time that this fireside chat will occur, the Midwest will have a horrific dust bowl, and so you had a natural crisis. You had an economic crisis, and you had a great crisis of confidence. The Great Depression starts really the day World War I ends, not just because of the Treaty of Versailles, but because the farm economy goes into the toilet. And so when the farm economy, which is almost 50 percent of the American economy at that point, goes into the toilet, that has a significant impact on people's ability to purchase, to buy goods, and that has a huge impact on inventories, which has a huge impact on manufacturing, which has a huge impact on small business, has a huge impact on bank loans, and so it's a downward cycle. What FDR fundamentally believes is that the Great Depression is as much psychological as it is economic. And so what he wants people to believe is that it can get better. And his fundamental approach, what he will call this great national crusade, is to get business and citizens working together for the common good. Capitalism and government for a united purpose that serves not only small vested interests or business interests or individual selfishness, but the common good. And they're still poor, but the gap is narrowed.