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First Inaugural Address of Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
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First Inaugural Address of President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Saturday, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
Visit Mr. Roosevelt's Website
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The U. S. Constitution
