This is a day of national consecration. And I am
certain that on this day 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 people impels.
This is preeminently 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 of vigor has met with that
understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to
victory. And 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 shrunk 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; and 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.
And 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 failure, and have 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 confidence. They
only know the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and
when there is no vision the people perish.
Yes, the money changers have fled from their high
seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the
ancient truths. The measure of that 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, the moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase
of evanescent profits. These dark days, my friends, 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, to our fellow men.
Recognition of that 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 valued 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, and on unselfish performance; without
them it cannot live.
Restoration calls, however, not for changes in
ethics alone. This Nation is asking 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 accomplished 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 great -- greatly needed projects
to stimulate and reorganize the use of our great natural resources.
Hand in hand with that we must frankly recognize
the overbalance 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.
Yes, 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, the State, and the 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,
unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms
of transportation and of communications and other utilities that have a
definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but
it can never be helped by merely talking about it.
We must act. We must act quickly.
And finally, in our progress towards 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, my friends, 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 48
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 in point
of 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 nationally -- narrowly nationalistic. It is
the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the
various elements in and parts of the United States of America -- 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 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 can not 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 a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress
can be made, no leadership becomes effective.
We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our
lives and our property to such discipline, because it makes possible a
leadership which aims at the larger good. This, I propose to offer, pledging
that the larger purposes will bind upon us, bind upon us all as a sacred
obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in times 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, action to this end is
feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors.
Our Constitution is so simple, so 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 ever seen.
It has met every stress of vast expansion of
territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations. And
it is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority
may be wholly equal, 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. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build
out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority,
to bring to speedy adoption.
But, in the event that the Congress shall fail to
take one of these two courses, 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, a permanent national life.
We do not distrust the -- 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 take it.
In this dedication -- 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.