Letter from John J. Hearne to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)
(533/1)

I have the honour to refer to President Roosevelt's address to Congress on the 1st March in which he gave an account of the Crimea Conference.

This was Mr. Roosevelt's worst speech since the war began. In so far as it was a formal address at all it was badly constructed. The delivery was that of a speaker who was inexpressibly weary. (Mr. Roosevelt is anything but a slovenly public speaker). He slurred his syllables, and telescoped his words, in almost every sentence throughout the hour long address.

The President was applauded from time to time in the course of his speech. But that portion of it in which he so feebly defended the partition of Poland was received in silence.

Mr. Mackenzie King said (privately) when the speech ended that it was a very bad speech indeed. He deprecated the prima donna reference to de Gaulle. It was no time for that sort of remark.