1936 Madison Square Garden speech 1936 Madison Square Garden speech The 1936 Madison Square Garden speech was a speech given by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on October 31, 1936, three days before that year's presidential election. In the speech, Roosevelt pledged to continue the New Deal and criticized those who, in his view, were putting personal gain and politics over national economic recovery from the Great Depression. The speech was Roosevelt's last campaign speech before the election. Roosevelt had to wait around 15 minutes for the enthusiastic crowd at Madison Square Garden to calm down before commencing his speech. Most of the speech outlined
Madison Square and Madison Square Park as "Historic Chairs". Two months later, in September, the Seventy-first Regiment Band played "Nearer, My God, to Thee" in the park as recognition of the death by assassination of President William McKinley. The hymn had been McKinley's favorite. In 1908, the "New York Herald" installed a giant searchlight among the girders of the Metropolitan Life Tower to signal election results. A northward beam signaled a win for the Republican candidate, and a southward beam for the Democrat. The beam went north, signaling the victory of Republican William Howard Taft. America's first community Christmas tree was illuminated in Madison Square Park