Question

Read the excerpt from a speech by Eleanor Roosevelt after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. What was her purpose for delivering this speech?
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking to you tonight at a very serious moment in our history. The Cabinet is convening and the leaders in Congress are meeting with the President. The State Department and Army and Navy officials have been with the President all afternoon. In fact, the Japanese ambassador was talking to the president at the very time that Japan's airships were bombing our citizens in Hawaii and the Philippines and sinking one of our transports loaded with lumber on its way to Hawaii.
By tomorrow morning the members of Congress will have a full report and be ready for action.
In the meantime, we the people are already prepared for action. For months now the knowledge that something of this kind might happen has been hanging over our heads and yet it seemed impossible to believe, impossible to drop the everyday things of life and feel that there was only one thing which was important—preparation to meet an enemy no matter where he struck. That is all over now and there is no more uncertainty.
We know what we have to face and we know that we are ready to face it.

1.) to rally people behind the administration’s decision

2.) to consider the reasons why the Japanese decided to attack Pearl Harbor

3.) to comfort people through her religious devotion

4.) to reassure people about her dedication

Answer 1

to consider the reasons why the Japanese decided to attack Pearl Harbor