IT WAS ELEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING IN THE Nebraska panhandle when the new president began to speak. It was a Saturday, the fourth day of March 1933. The wind rose outside, spackling the windows with grit. Emaline and Calla had taped the windows again the night before and hung wet sheets over the doors and windows to keep out the dust, but still it filtered through. Emaline wished Bobby was with her to hear it, but he had grabbed his .22 and left at dawn to go hunting down by the river. She turned the dial to get the station clearly, enchanted not only because Franklin Delano Roosevelt was speaking but because it was possible to listen to him way out here on the High Plains, two thousand miles from Washington. There were preachers who railed against the radio, calling it the instrument of the devil and the serpent of the airwaves. Emaline was sure those preachers had never sat through a winter alone in a farmhouse, with the maddening wind rattling the door. For farm women watching the dust blow in summer and the snow drift against the house in winter, a radio brought a little sweetening into their harsh days. If it was a sin to listen, then she was going to have a lot of company in hell.

She adjusted the volume and leaned closer to hear his words. His voice gave her goose bumps.

This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself…

Emaline felt a shiver of excitement. Surely this was what was needed. A leader who understood how bad things really were, a man who could chart a path out of the wilderness of debt and failure and foreclosure.

In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things.… The means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

A foolish optimist. That would be Herbert Hoover. Hoovervilles had sprung up all over America, named for this inept and insensitive president, shantytowns for the desperate and broken. Now Hoover was gone at last and FDR was saying what millions felt but could not put into words.