# Roosevelt's May 2, 1943 words to the coal miners, printed as a poster The President of the United States on May 2, 1943, said is a Government Printing Office sheet under an American flag and the Great Seal. It quotes Franklin D. Roosevelt promising not to weaken union rights in the coal fields and saying the miners "will march shoulder to shoulder with their armed forces to victory" (NAID 515206). - Home - Archive - Roosevelt's May 2, 1943 words to the coal miners, printed as a poster The President of the United States on May 2, 1943, said Roosevelt's May 2, 1943 words to the coal miners, printed as a poster A 1943 GPO sheet quotes Roosevelt's May 2 statement: union rights in the coal fields stay, and miners will heed "the clear call to duty." NAID 515206. ## Techniques named on the archive record TestimonialGlittering generalities Date1943Made byPresident of the United States (Franklin D. Roosevelt); U.S. Government Printing OfficeMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 515206; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) President of the United States; U.S. Government Printing Office. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1541 (NAID 515206). Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records. Full record at propagandaarchive.org The President of the United States on May 2, 1943, said is a Government Printing Office sheet under an American flag and the Great Seal. It quotes Franklin D. Roosevelt promising not to weaken union rights in the coal fields and saying the miners "will march shoulder to shoulder with their armed forces to victory" (NAID 515206). ## Two paragraphs in the president's voice There is no picture beyond an American flag and the Great Seal. The rest of the sheet is a quotation, introduced by a dated heading and printed by the Government Printing Office. The archive says the statement was made during a dispute in the coal fields. The President of the United States on May 2, 1943, said . . . “I believe now, as I have all my life, in the right of workers to join unions and to protect their unions. I want to make it absolutely clear that this Government is not going to do anything now to weaken those rights in the coal fields . . . “I believe that the coal miners themselves as Americans will not fail to heed the clear call to duty. Like all other good Americans, they will march shoulder to shoulder with their armed forces to victory.” Transcription in the FRAME record, read from the image and not independently checked. Imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE:1943 O - [illegible]. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 515206, local id 44-PA-1541, Record Group 44. ## A promise, then a summons The first paragraph is a promise about rights: the government will not use the moment to weaken the miners' unions. The second is a summons. It does not argue the miners' grievance or the operators' case. It tells the miners what "good Americans" will do and assumes they are among them. The archive tags testimonial first, since the president's own voice is the whole of the message, and glittering generalities for "duty" and "good Americans." Its purpose field reads "Mobilize or secure compliance," and the audience is "Domestic public." The sheet's ellipses show that the poster quotes only part of what Roosevelt said. The omitted words are not in the record. ## Read it beside the possession order Another 1943 coal-field sheet on this site is a harder document. United States Property! prints Harold L. Ickes's order taking possession of coal mines where a strike or stoppage had occurred or was threatened. One sheet promises that union rights will survive; the other tells the people in the mines that they now serve the government. A free reader is entitled to hold both and ask how the promise looked from inside a mine the government had taken. The record does not give the order's exact date, so this page does not say which sheet came first. The Roosevelt administration essay sets out the war powers the government claimed. The case study on union and open-shop campaigns, 1910–41 covers the fights before the war. ## Sources - FRAME object record, The President of the United States on May 2, 1943, said, 1943. President of the United States (Franklin D. Roosevelt); U.S. Government Printing Office. - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-1541, NAID 515206, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work). Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/presidents-message-coal-miners-1943/