Infamy Speech

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

President Roosevelt.

The Infamy Speech was delivered on December 8, 1941 by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, one day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Addressing a joint session of the United States Congress, Roosevelt condemned the attack and called upon Congress to issue a declaration of war against Japan. The speech set out the US Government's response to the Japanese attack and declared America's willingness to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion. It was widely acclaimed across the political spectrum, coined a new figure of speech and has since become regarded as one of the most famous American political speeches of the twentieth century.^[1]

[edit] Text of the speech

The wreck of the USS Arizona on fire after the Japanese attack.

[edit] Commentary on the speech

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his "Day of Infamy" speech to Congress on December 8, 1941. Behind him are Vice President Henry A. Wallace (left) and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. To the right, in uniform in front of Rayburn, is Roosevelt's son James, who escorted his father to the Capitol.

The Infamy Speech was brief, running to just six and a half minutes. Roosevelt's Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, had recommended that the president devote more time to a fuller exposition of Japanese-American relations and the lengthy but unsuccessful effort to find a peaceful solution. However, Roosevelt kept the speech short in the belief that it would have a more dramatic effect.^[2]

The wording of Roosevelt's speech was intended to have a strong emotional impact, appealing to the outrage felt by Americans at the nature of the Japanese attack. Roosevelt purposefully framed the speech around the perceived low moral character of the Japanese government. He drew a sharp contrast between the "righteous might" of the American people and the aggressive and deceitful nature of the Japanese regime. He deliberately avoided the Churchillian approach of an appeal to history. Indeed, the most famous line of the speech originally read "a date which will live in world history"; Roosevelt crossed out "world history" and replaced it with "infamy".^[3] His revised statement was all the stronger for its emphatic insistence that posterity would forever endorse the American view of the attack. It was intended not merely as a personal response by the president, but as a statement on behalf of the entire American people in the face of a great collective trauma. In proclaiming the indelibility of the attack and expressing outrage at its "dastardly" nature, the speech worked to crystallize and channel the response of the nation into a collective response and resolve.^[4]

The first paragraph of the speech was carefully worded to reinforce Roosevelt's portrayal of the United States as the innocent victim of unprovoked Japanese aggression. The wording was deliberately passive. Rather than taking the more usual active voice — i.e. "Japan attacked the United States" — Roosevelt chose to put in the foreground the object being acted upon, namely the United States, to emphasize America's status as a victim.^[5] The theme of "innocence violated" was further reinforced by Roosevelt's recounting of the ongoing diplomatic negotiations with Japan, which the president characterized as having been pursued cynically and dishonestly by the Japanese government while it was secretly preparing for war against the United States.^[6]

Roosevelt consciously sought to avoid making the sort of more abstract appeal that had been issued by President Woodrow Wilson in his own speech to Congress in April 1917, when the United States entered World War I. Wilson had laid out the strategic threat posed by Germany and stressed the idealistic goals behind America's participation in the war. During the 1930s, however, American public opinion had turned strongly against such themes and was wary of — if not actively hostile to — idealistic visions of remaking the world through a "just war." Roosevelt therefore chose to make an appeal aimed much more at the gut level — in effect, an appeal to patriotism rather than to idealism. Nonetheless, he took pains to draw a symbolic link with the April 1917 declaration of war; when he went to Congress on December 8, 1941 he was accompanied by Edith Bolling Wilson, the widow of the late president.^[3]

The "infamy framework" adopted by Roosevelt was given additional resonance by the fact that it followed the pattern of earlier narratives of great American defeats. The Battle of the Alamo in 1836, the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898 had all been the source of intense national outrage and a determination to take the fight to the enemy. Defeats and setbacks were on each occasion portrayed as being merely a springboard towards an eventual and inevitable victory. As Professor Sandra Silberstein observes, Roosevelt's speech followed a well-established tradition of how "through rhetorical conventions, presidents assume extraordinary powers as the commander in chief, dissent is minimized, enemies are vilified, and lives are lost in the defense of a nation once again united under God." ^[7]

The overall tone of the speech was one of determined realism. Roosevelt made no attempt to paper over the great damage that had been caused to the American armed forces, noting (without giving figures, as casualty reports were still being compiled) that "very many American lives have been lost" in the attack. However, he emphasized his confidence in the strength of the American people to face up to the challenge posed by Japan, citing the "unbounded determination of our people." He sought to reassure the public that steps were being taken to ensure their safety, noting his own role as "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy" (the United States Air Force was at this time part of the US Army) and declaring that he had already "directed that all measures be taken for our defense."

Protest march against American involvement in World War II. After the Infamy Speech, the American isolationist movement collapsed.

Roosevelt also made a point of emphasizing that "our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger" and highlighted reports of Japanese attacks in the Pacific between Hawaii and San Francisco. In so doing, he sought to silence the isolationist movement which had campaigned so strongly against American involvement in the war in Europe. If the territory and waters of the continental United States — not just outlying possessions such as the Philippines — was seen as being under direct threat, isolationism would become an unsustainable course of action. Roosevelt's speech had the desired effect, with only one Congressman voting against the declaration of war he sought; the wider isolationist movement collapsed almost immediately.

The speech's "infamy" line is often misquoted as "a day that will live in infamy". However, Roosevelt quite deliberately chose to emphasize the date — December 7, 1941 — rather than the day of the attack, a Sunday, which he never mentioned in his speech. He sought to emphasize the historic nature of the events at Pearl Harbor, implicitly urging the American people never to forget the attack and memorialize its date. Ironically, the misquoted term "day of infamy" has become widely used by the media to refer to any moment of supreme disgrace or evil.^[8]

[edit] Impact of the Infamy Speech

President Franklin Roosevelt signing the declaration of war against Japan, December 8, 1941.

Roosevelt's speech had an immediate and long-lasting impact on American politics. Thirty-three minutes after he finished speaking, Congress declared war on Japan, with only one Congressman voting against the declaration of war. The speech was broadcast live by radio and attracted the largest audience in US radio history, with over 81 percent of American homes tuning in to hear the president.^[2] The response was overwhelmingly positive, both within Congress and without. Judge Samuel Irving Rosenman, who served as an adviser to Roosevelt, described the scene:

The White House was inundated with telegrams praising the president's stance ("On that Sunday we were dismayed and frightened, but your unbounded courage pulled us together."^[10]). Recruiting stations were jammed with a surge of volunteers and had to go on 24-hour duty to deal with the crowds seeking to sign up, in numbers reported to be twice as high as after Woodrow Wilson's declaration of war in 1917. The anti-war and isolationist movement collapsed in the wake of the speech, with even the president's fiercest critics falling into line. Charles Lindbergh, who had been a leading isolationist, declared:

Propaganda poster issued by the United States Office of War Information, 1942.

Roosevelt's framing of the Pearl Harbor attack became, in effect, the standard American narrative of the events of December 7, 1941. Hollywood enthusiastically adopted the narrative in a number of war films. Wake Island, the Academy Award-winning Air Force and the 1943 films Man from Frisco and Betrayal from the East all included actual radio reports of the pre-December 7 negotiations with the Japanese, reinforcing the message of enemy duplicity. Across the Pacific, Salute the Marines and Spy Ship used a similar device, relating the progress of US-Japanese relations through newspaper headlines. The theme of American innocence betrayed was also frequently depicted on screen, the melodramatic aspects of the narrative lending themselves naturally to the movies.^[12]

The president's description of December 7 as "a date that will live in infamy" was borne out; the date very quickly became shorthand for the Pearl Harbor attack in much the same way that September 11 became inextricably associated with the 2001 terrorist attacks. The slogans "Remember December 7th" and "Avenge December 7" were adopted as a rallying cry and were widely displayed on posters and lapel pins.^[13] Prelude to War, the first of Frank Capra's Why We Fight film series, urged Americans to remember the date of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, September 18, 1931, "as well as we remember December 7th 1941, for on that date in 1931 the war we are now fighting began." ^[14] The symbolism of the date was highlighted in a scene in the 1943 film Bombardier, in which the leader of a group of airmen walks up to a calendar on the wall, points to the date ("December 7, 1941") and tells his men: "Gentlemen, there's a date we will always remember — and they'll never forget!" ^[15]

60 years later, the continuing resonance of the Infamy Speech was demonstrated following the September 11, 2001 attacks, which many commentators compared with Pearl Harbor in terms of its impact and deadliness.^[16] In the days following the attacks, Dr. Richard Jackson notes that "there [was] a deliberate and sustained effort" on the part of the George W. Bush administration to "discursively link September 11, 2001 to the attack on Pearl Harbor itself",^[17] both by directly invoking Roosevelt's Infamy Speech ^[18] and by re-using the themes employed by Roosevelt in his speech. In Bush's speech to the nation on September 11, 2001, he contrasted the "evil, despicable acts of terror" with the "brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity" that America represented in his view.^[19] Sandra Silberstein draws direct parallels between the language used by Roosevelt and Bush, highlighting a number of similarities between the Infamy Speech and Bush's presidential address of September 11.^[7] Similarly, Emily S. Rosenberg notes rhetorical efforts to link the conflicts of 1941 and 2001 by re-utilizing Second World War terminology of the sort used by Roosevelt, such as using the term "axis" to refer to America's enemies (as in "Axis of Evil").^[3]

[edit] References

1. ^ "FDR's "Day of Infamy" Speech: Crafting a Call to Arms", Prologue magazine, US National Archives, Winter 2001, Vol. 33, No. 4.
2. ^ ^{a b} Robert J. Brown, Manipulating the Ether: The Power of Broadcast Radio in Thirties America, pp. 117-120. McFarland & Company, 1998. ISBN 0786420669
3. ^ ^{a b c} Emily S Rosenberg, A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory. Duke University Press, 2003. ISBN 082233206X
4. ^ Neil J. Smelser, in Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, p. 48. University of California Press, 2004. ISBN ISBN 0520235959
5. ^ James Jasinski, Sourcebook on Rhetoric: key concepts in contemporary rhetorical studies. Sage Publications Inc, 2001. ISBN 0761905049
6. ^ Hermann G. Steltner, "War Message: December 8, 1941 - An Approach to Language", in Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Criticism ed. Thomas W. Benson. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993. ISBN 1880393085
7. ^ ^{a b} Sandra Silberstein, War of Words: Language, Politics, and 9/11, p. 15. Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0415290473
8. ^ "Day of infamy", Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Allusions, ed. Elizabeth Webber, Mike Feinsilber. Merriam-Webster, 1999. ISBN 0877796289
9. ^ Samuel Irving Rosenman, quoted in Brown, ibid, p. 119
10. ^ Quoted in Brown, ibid, p. 119
11. ^ Quoted in Brown, ibid, p. 120
12. ^ Tony Barta, Screening the Past: Film and the Representation of History, pp. 85-87. Praeger/Greenwood, 1998. ISBN 0275954021
13. ^ Robert J. Sickels, The 1940s, p. 6. Greenwood Press, 2004. ISBN 0313312990
14. ^ Quoted by Benjamin L. Alpers, "This Is The Army", in The World War II Reader, ed. Gordon Martel, p. 167. Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0415224020
15. ^ Quoted in Barta, ibid, p. 87
16. ^ See for instance CNN, "Day of Terror - a 21st century 'day of infamy'", September 2001
17. ^ Richard Jackson, Writing the War on Terrorism: language, politics and counter-terrorism, p. 33. Manchester University Press, 2005
18. ^ See e.g. Paul Wolfowitz, "Standup of US Northern Command", speech of October 1, 2002: "Although September 11th has taken its place alongside December 7th as a date that will live in infamy ..."
19. ^ George W. Bush, Address to the Nation of September 11, 2001

[edit] External link

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Infamy Speech

• Transcript (contains some errors and truncations)
• Recording of the speech
• "FDR's "Day of Infamy" Speech: Crafting a Call to Arms" - article from the US National Archives on the speech, with images of Roosevelt's original draft of the text