(8) Snow Line

This one is a tough read. Yeah, it's short, but, wow, is it dense.

Eleven sentences are stretched over five paragraphs, and some of those sentences are more than 100 words long. FDR was a wordy guy (just check out all of those fireside chats), but this is impressive even for him.

E.O. 9066 is also challenging because it's written using very official language—just check out that sentence that's all numbers. It's a legal order, after all. It's supposed to be a little bit complicated.

But a lot of the bulk is attributable to repetition. For example, variations of the phrase, "the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders" shows up multiple times. So does, "I hereby further authorize and direct." Try thinking of these phrases as more of a trick for presenting important information. Don't get too caught up in how haughty and formal they sound.