«This is a day of national
consecration, and I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my
induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision
which the present situation of our nation impels.
This is pre-eminently the
time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we
shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great nation
will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.
So first of all let me
assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear … is fear itself …
nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to
convert retreat into advance.
In every dark hour of our
national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that
understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to
victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in
these critical days. In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common
difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have
shrunken to fantastic levels: taxes have risen, our ability to pay has fallen,
government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income, the means of
exchange are frozen in the currents of trade, the withered leaves of industrial
enterprise lie on every side, farmers find no markets for their produce, the
savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of
unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great
number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark
realities of the moment.
Yet our distress comes from
no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with
the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not
afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty
and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous
use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.
Primarily, this is because
the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own
stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failures and
abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the
court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True, they have tried, but
their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by
failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money.
Stripped of the lure of
profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they
have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored conditions. They
know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.
They have no vision, and
when there is no vision the people perish.
The money changers have
fled their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore
that temple to the ancient truths.
The measure of the
restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than
mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the
mere possession of money, it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of
creative effort.
The joy and moral
stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent
profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that
our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and
to our fellow-men.
Recognition of the falsity
of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the
abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position
are to be values only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit,
and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too
often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish
wrongdoing.
Small wonder that
confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the
sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance.
Without them it cannot live.
Restoration calls, however,
not for changes in ethics alone. This nation asks for action, and action now.
Our greatest primary task
is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely
and courageously.
It can be accompanied in
part by direct recruiting by the government itself, treating the task as we
would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this
employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the
use of our national resources.
Hand in hand with this, we
must frankly recognize the over-balance of population in our industrial centers
and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a
better use of the land for those best fitted for the land.
The task can be helped by
definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the
power to purchase the output of our cities.
It can be helped by
preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss, through foreclosure,
of our small homes and our farms.
It can be helped by
insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the
demand that their cost be drastically reduced.
It can be helped by the
unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical and
unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms
of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a
definitely public character.
There are many ways in
which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it.
We must act, and act quickly.
Finally, in our progress
toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the
evils of the old order: there must be a strict supervision of all banking and
credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other
people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.
These are the lines of
attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed
measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of
the several States.
Through this program of
action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and
making income balance outgo.
Our international trade
relations, though vastly important, are, to point in time and necessity,
secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy.
I favor as a practical
policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore
world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home
cannot wait on that accomplishment.
The basic thought that
guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic.
It is the insistence, as a
first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in and
parts of the United States … a recognition of the old and permanently important
manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer.
It is the way to recovery.
It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will
endure.
In the field of world
policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor … the
neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the
rights of others … the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the
sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.
If I read the temper of our
people correctly, we now realize, as we have never realized before, our interdependence
on each other: that we cannot merely take, but we must give as well, that if we
are to go forward we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice
for the good of Bøê Coêine, becaus =Dêithout such discipline, no progress is made,
no leadership becomes effective.
We are, I know, ready and
willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline because it makes
possibly a leadership which aims at a larger good.
This I propose to offer,
pledging that the larger purposes will hind upon us all as a sacred obligation
with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.
With this pledge taken, I
assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people,
dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.
Action in this image and to
this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from
our ancestors.
Our Constitution is so
simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by
changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form.
That is why our
constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political
mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast
expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world
relations.
It is to be hoped that the
normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to
meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented
demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that
normal balance of public procedure.
I am prepared under my
constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the
midst of a stricken world may require.
But in the event that the
Congress shall fail to take one of these courses, and in the event that the
national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of
duty that will then confront me.
I shall ask the Congress
for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis … broad executive power to
wage a war against the emergency as great as the power that would be given to
me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.
For the trust reposed in me
I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do
no less.
We face the arduous days
that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity, with the clear
consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values, with the clean
satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young
alike.
We aim at the assurance of
a rounded and permanent national life.
We do not distrust the
future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed.
In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous
action.
They have asked for
discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present
instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I will take it.
In this dedication of a
nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of
us. May He guide me in the days to come.»
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