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First Inaugural
Address of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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 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 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, 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.
These 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 and 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 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 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 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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