How does the FDR plan to revise spirits and restore faith in the American system for ALL?
How does the FDR plan to revise spirits and restore faith in the American system for ALL?
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How does the FDR plan to revise spirits and restore faith in the American system for ALL?
Transcribed Image Text:FDR's First Inaugural Address (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 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 reality of the movement.
Yet our distress comes from no failure or 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 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 leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored
confidence. They have known 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 cannot live.
Transcribed Image Text: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 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 an credits and investments, so that there
will be an end to speculation with other people's money; and there must be provision for an adequate but
sound currency....
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 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 purpose 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....
.... 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....
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