HISTORIC SPEECHES
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
First
Inaugural Address
March 4, 1933
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
to-day. 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 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. 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.
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.
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 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 can not 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 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.
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 to-day 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.
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.
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 can not
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 all 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 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.
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. 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 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 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. 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.
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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