| 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
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 itselfónameless, 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. |
1 |
| 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. |
2 |
| 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. |
3 |
| 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 abdicated.
Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court
of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. |
4 |
| 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 know
only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and
when there is no vision the people perish. |
5 |
| 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 the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social
values more noble than mere monetary profit. |
6 |
| 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. |
7 |
| 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 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, on unselfish performance;
without them it cannot live. |
8 |
| Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone.
This Nation asks for action, and action now. |
9 |
| 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 greatly needed projects to stimulate
and reorganize the use of our natural resources. |
10 |
| Hand in hand with this 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. 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. |
11 |
| 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. |
12 |
| There 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. |
13 |
| 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. |
14 |
| 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 all
parts of the United Statesóa 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. |
15 |
| In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to
the policy of the good neighboróthe neighbor who resolutely respects himself
and, because he does so, respects the rights of othersóthe neighbor who
respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in
and with a world of neighbors. |
16 |
| 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 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 possible
a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging
that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with
a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife. |
17 |
| 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. |
18 |
| 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. |
19 |
| 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. |
20 |
| 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. |
21 |
| But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of
these two 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
crisisóbroad 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. |
22 |
| For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the
devotion that befit the time. I can do no less. |
23 |
| We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage
of the 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. |
24 |
| 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 take it. |
25 |
| 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. |
26 |
