franklin delano roosevelt:
first fireside chat the banking crisismy friends: i want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the united states about banking -- to talk with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking, but more particularly with the overwhelming majority of you who use banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks.
i want to tell you what has been done in the last few days, and why it was done, and what the next steps are going to be.
i recognize that the many proclamations from state capitols and from washington, the legislation, the treasury regulations, and so forth, couched for the most part in banking and legal terms, out to be explained for the benefit of the average citizen.
i owe this, in particular, because of the fortitude and the good temper with which everybody has accepted the inconvenience and hardships of the banking holiday.
and i know that when you understand what we in washington have been about, i shall continue to have your cooperation as fully as i have had your sympathy and your help during the past week.
first of all, let me state the simple fact that when you deposit money in a bank, the bank does not put the money into a safe deposit vault.
it invests your money in many different forms of credit -- in bonds, in commercial paper, in mortgages and in many other kinds of loans.
in other words, the bank puts your money to work to keep the wheels of industry and of agriculture turning around.
a comparatively small part of the money that you put into the bank is kept in currency -- an amount which in normal times is wholly sufficient to cover the cash needs of the average citizen.
in other words, the total amount of all the currency in the country is only a comparatively small proportion of the total deposits in all the banks of the country.
what, then, happened during the last few days of february and the first few days of march? because of undermined confidence on the part of the public, there was a general rush by a large portion of our population to turn bank deposits into currency or gold -- a rush so great that the soundest banks couldnt get enough currency to meet the demand.
the reason for this was that on the spur of the moment it was, of course, impossible to sell perfectly sound assets of a bank and convert them into cash, except at panic prices far below their real value.
by the afternoon of march third, a week ago last friday, scarcely a bank in the country was open to do business.