“Scouting is essentially and clearly a program for the development of that unselfish, cooperative attitude of mind,” Roosevelt said. The speech, despite being more than 80 years old, includes comments about Scouting that still hold true today. Millions more non-Scouts no doubt tuned in as well, getting an unexpected earful about Scouting’s awesome power. Many gathered at their troop meeting places to listen together. The listening audience would have included a large percentage of the millions of Scouts and Scouters who were BSA members in 1935.

The ensuing radio address, broadcast from the White House, is now part of the National Archives and can be heard in its entirety here or read at the end of this post. And so instead of an in-person address, Roosevelt made use of “that modern wonder, the radio, to accomplish his purpose,” as the announcer with WABC radio of New York put it.

After that, Roosevelt would’ve hosted Scouts and Scouters for a party on the White House lawn.īut then polio happened. Thousands of Scouts would have lined Constitution Avenue for his official review. 21, Roosevelt was set to address Scouts in person on the Jamboree’s opening day. The BSA agreed, and the cancellation announcement came Aug. and surrounding states, told the BSA that holding a Jamboree might be a bad idea. Public Health Service, consulting with officials from D.C. The culprit was a serious outbreak of infantile paralysis - now better known as polio. Roosevelt said, “sometimes go awry.”Īs excitement builds for the 2017 National Jamboree, I thought we’d look back at the very first Jamboree. “But the best-laid plans,” President Franklin D. Some 30,000 Boy Scouts from every point of the compass were to gather in Washington for the first-ever National Scout Jamboree, set to begin Aug. It was supposed to be the largest gathering of Boy Scouts ever.

Watch shadow of doubt 1935