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.
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