| 1936 State of the Union Address | |
| Time: | Evening |
| Duration: | 50 minutes |
| Venue: | House Chamber, United States Capitol |
| Location: | Washington, D.C. |
| Coordinates: | 38.8897°N -77.0089°W |
| Type: | State of the Union Address |
| Participants: | Franklin D. Roosevelt John Nance Garner Jo Byrns |
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The 1936 State of the Union address was given by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a joint session of the 74th United States Congress on Friday, January 3, 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression.[1] Presiding over this joint session was the House speaker, Jo Byrns, accompanied by John Nance Garner, the vice president, in his capacity as the president of the Senate.
This was the first State of the Union Address to be held in the evening.[2] Roosevelt made a last-minute decision to move the speech to the evening in order to reach the largest possible radio audience. In the speech, Roosevelt discussed what he felt were the accomplishments of his administration and the New Deal up to that point. House Speaker Jo Byrns remarked that the speech "very clearly sets forth the major issues of the coming campaign."
In the closing paragraph of his address, Roosevelt quoted an individual whom he referred to as a "wise philosopher." That individual was Josiah Royce in his 1914 work "A Word for the Times," which Roosevelt quoted by saying
In response to Roosevelt's address, House Minority Leader Bertrand Snell, a Republican from New York, was quoted as saying the speech was "a political speech... and a political hippodrome."