My
Countrymen:
When
one surveys the world about him after the great storm,
noting the marks of destruction and yet rejoicing in the
ruggedness of the things which withstood it, if he is an
American he breathes the clarified atmosphere with a
strange mingling of regret and new hope. We have seen a
world passion spend its fury, but we contemplate our
Republic unshaken, and hold our civilization secure.
Liberty within the law and civilization are
inseparable, and though both were threatened we find them
now secure; and there comes to Americans the profound
assurance that our representative government is the
highest expression and surest guaranty of both.
Standing
in this presence, mindful of the solemnity of this
occasion, feeling the emotions which no one may know until
he senses the great weight of responsibility for himself,
I must utter my belief in the divine inspiration of the
founding fathers. Surely there must have been God's intent
in the making of this new-world Republic. Ours is an
organic law which had but one ambiguity, and we saw that
effaced in a baptism of sacrifice and blood, with union
maintained, the Nation supreme, and its concord inspiring.
We have seen the world rivet its hopeful gaze on the great
truths on which the founders wrought. We have seen civil,
human, and religious liberty verified and glorified. In
the beginning the Old World scoffed at our experiment;
today our foundations of political and social belief stand
unshaken, a precious inheritance to ourselves, an
inspiring example of freedom and civilization to all
mankind. Let us express renewed and strengthened devotion,
in grateful reverence for the immortal beginning, and
utter our confidence in the supreme fulfillment.
The
recorded progress of our Republic, materially and
spiritually, in itself proves the wisdom of the inherited
policy of noninvolvement in Old World affairs. Confident
of our ability to work out our own destiny, and jealously
guarding our right to do so, we seek no part in directing
the destinies of the Old World. We do not mean to be
entangled. We will accept no responsibility except as our
own conscience and judgment, in each instance, may
determine.
Our
eyes never will be blind to a developing menace, our ears
never deaf to the call of civilization. We recognize the
new order in the world, with the closer contacts which
progress has wrought. We sense the call of the human heart
for fellowship, fraternity, and cooperation. We crave
friendship and harbor no hate. But America, our America,
the America built on the foundation laid by the inspired
fathers, can be a party to no permanent military alliance.
It can enter into no political commitments, nor assume any
economic obligations which will subject our decisions to
any other than our own authority.
I
am sure our own people will not misunderstand, nor will
the world misconstrue. We have no thought to impede the
paths to closer relationship. We wish to promote
understanding. We want to do our part in making offensive
warfare so hateful that Governments and peoples who resort
to it must prove the righteousness of their cause or stand
as outlaws before the bar of civilization.
We
are ready to associate ourselves with the nations of the
world, great and small, for conference, for counsel; to
seek the expressed views of world opinion; to recommend a
way to approximate disarmament and relieve the crushing
burdens of military and naval establishments. We elect to
participate in suggesting plans for mediation,
conciliation, and arbitration, and would gladly join in
that expressed conscience of progress, which seeks to
clarify and write the laws of international relationship,
and establish a world court for the disposition of such
justiciable questions as nations are agreed to submit
thereto. In expressing aspirations, in seeking practical
plans, in translating humanity's new concept of
righteousness and justice and its hatred of war into
recommended action we are ready most heartily to unite,
but every commitment must be made in the exercise of our
national sovereignty. Since freedom impelled, and
independence inspired, and nationality exalted, a world
super government is contrary to everything we cherish and
can have no sanction by our Republic. This is not
selfishness, it is sanctity. It is not aloofness, it is
security. It is not suspicion of others, it is patriotic
adherence to the things which made us what we are.
Today,
better than ever before, we know the aspirations of
humankind, and share them. We have come to a new
realization of our place in the world and a new appraisal
of our Nation by the world. The unselfishness of these
United States is a thing proven; our devotion to peace for
ourselves and for the world is well established; our
concern for preserved civilization has had its impassioned
and heroic expression. There was no American failure to
resist the attempted reversion of civilization; there will
be no failure today or tomorrow.
The
success of our popular government rests wholly upon the
correct interpretation of the deliberate, intelligent,
dependable popular will of America. In a deliberate
questioning of a suggested change of national policy,
where internationality was to supersede nationality, we
turned to a referendum, to the American people. There was
ample discussion, and there is a public mandate in
manifest understanding.
America
is ready to encourage, eager to initiate, anxious to
participate in any seemly program likely to lessen the
probability of war, and promote that brotherhood of
mankind which must be God's highest conception of human
relationship. Because we cherish ideals of justice and
peace, because we appraise international comity and
helpful relationship no less highly than any people of the
world, we aspire to a high place in the moral leadership
of civilization, and we hold a maintained America, the
proven Republic, the unshaken temple of representative
democracy, to be not only an inspiration and example, but
the highest agency of strengthening good will and
promoting accord on both continents.
Mankind
needs a world-wide benediction of understanding. It is
needed among individuals, among peoples, among
governments, and it will inaugurate an era of good feeling
to make the birth of a new order. In such understanding
men will strive confidently for the promotion of their
better relationships and nations will promote the comities
so essential to peace.
We
must understand that ties of trade bind nations in closest
intimacy, and none may receive except as he gives. We have
not strengthened ours in accordance with our resources or
our genius, notably on our own continent, where a galaxy
of Republics reflects the glory of new-world democracy,
but in the new order of finance and trade we mean to
promote enlarged activities and seek expanded confidence.
Perhaps
we can make no more helpful contribution by example than
prove a Republic's capacity to emerge from the wreckage of
war. While the world's embittered travail did not leave us
devastated lands nor desolated cities, left no gaping
wounds, no breast with hate, it did involve us in the
delirium of expenditure, in expanded currency and credits,
in unbalanced industry, in unspeakable waste, and
disturbed relationships. While it uncovered our portion of
hateful selfishness at home, it also revealed the heart of
America as sound and fearless, and beating in confidence
unfailing.
Amid
it all we have riveted the gaze of all civilization to the
unselfishness and the righteousness of representative
democracy, where our freedom never has made offensive
warfare, never has sought territorial aggrandizement
through force, never has turned to the arbitrament of arms
until reason has been exhausted. When the Governments of
the earth shall have established a freedom like our own
and shall have sanctioned the pursuit of peace as we have
practiced it, I believe the last sorrow and the final
sacrifice of international warfare will have been written.
Let
me speak to the maimed and wounded soldiers who are
present today, and through them convey to their comrades
the gratitude of the Republic for their sacrifices in its
defense. A generous country will never forget the services
you rendered, and you may hope for a policy under
Government that will relieve any maimed successors from
taking your places on another such occasion as this.
Our
supreme task is the resumption of our onward, normal way.
Reconstruction, readjustment, restoration all these must
follow. I would like to hasten them. If it will lighten
the spirit and add to the resolution with which we take up
the task, let me repeat for our Nation, we shall give no
people just cause to make war upon us; we hold no national
prejudices; we entertain no spirit of revenge; we do not
hate; we do not covet; we dream of no conquest, nor boast
of armed prowess.
If,
despite this attitude, war is again forced upon us, I
earnestly hope a way may be found which will unify our
individual and collective strength and consecrate all
America, materially and spiritually, body and soul, to
national defense. I can vision the ideal republic, where
every man and woman is called under the flag for
assignment to duty for whatever service, military or
civic, the individual is best fitted; where we may call to
universal service every plant, agency, or facility, all in
the sublime sacrifice for country, and not one penny of
war profit shall inure to the benefit of private
individual, corporation, or combination, but all above the
normal shall flow into the defense chest of the Nation.
There is something inherently wrong, something out of
accord with the ideals of representative democracy, when
one portion of our citizenship turns its activities to
private gain amid defensive war while another is fighting,
sacrificing, or dying for national preservation.
Out
of such universal service will come a new unity of spirit
and purpose, a new confidence and consecration, which
would make our defense impregnable, our triumph assured.
Then we should have little or no disorganization of our
economic, industrial, and commercial systems at home, no
staggering war debts, no swollen fortunes to flout the
sacrifices of our soldiers, no excuse for sedition, no
pitiable slackerism, no outrage of treason. Envy and
jealousy would have no soil for their menacing
development, and revolution would be without the passion
which engenders it.
A
regret for the mistakes of yesterday must not, however,
blind us to the tasks of today. War never left such an
aftermath. There has been staggering loss of life and
measureless wastage of materials. Nations are still
groping for return to stable ways. Discouraging
indebtedness confronts us like all the war-torn nations,
and these obligations must be provided for. No
civilization can survive repudiation.
We
can reduce the abnormal expenditures, and we will. We can
strike at war taxation, and we must. We must face the grim
necessity, with full knowledge that the task is to be
solved, and we must proceed with a full realization that
no statute enacted by man can repeal the inexorable laws
of nature. Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too
much of government, and at the same time do for it too
little. We contemplate the immediate task of putting our
public household in order. We need a rigid and yet sane
economy, combined with fiscal justice, and it must be
attended by individual prudence and thrift, which are so
essential to this trying hour and reassuring for the
future.
The
business world reflects the disturbance of war's reaction.
Herein flows the lifeblood of material existence. The
economic mechanism is intricate and its parts
interdependent, and has suffered the shocks and jars
incident to abnormal demands, credit inflations, and price
upheavals. The normal balances have been impaired, the
channels of distribution have been clogged, the relations
of labor and management have been strained. We must seek
the readjustment with care and courage. Our people must
give and take. Prices must reflect the receding fever of
war activities. Perhaps we never shall know the old levels
of wages again, because war invariably readjusts
compensations, and the necessaries of life will show their
inseparable relationship, but we must strive for normalcy
to reach stability. All the penalties will not be light,
nor evenly distributed. There is no way of making them so.
There is no instant step from disorder to order. We must
face a condition of grim reality, charge off our losses
and start afresh. It is the oldest lesson of civilization.
I would like government to do all it can to mitigate;
then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in
concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved. No
altered system will work a miracle. Any wild experiment
will only add to the confusion. Our best assurance lies in
efficient administration of our proven system.
The
forward course of the business cycle is unmistakable.
Peoples are turning from destruction to production.
Industry has sensed the changed order and our own people
are turning to resume their normal, onward way. The call
is for productive America to go on. I know that Congress
and the Administration will favor every wise Government
policy to aid the resumption and encourage continued
progress.
I
speak for administrative efficiency, for lightened tax
burdens, for sound commercial practices, for adequate
credit facilities, for sympathetic concern for all
agricultural problems, for the omission of unnecessary
interference of Government with business, for an end to
Government's experiment in business, and for more
efficient business in Government administration. With all
of this must attend a mindfulness of the human side of all
activities, so that social, industrial, and economic
justice will be squared with the purposes of a righteous
people.
With
the nation-wide induction of womanhood into our political
life, we may count upon her intuitions, her refinements,
her intelligence, and her influence to exalt the social
order. We count upon her exercise of the full privileges
and the performance of the duties of citizenship to speed
the attainment of the highest state.
I
wish for an America no less alert in guarding against
dangers from within than it is watchful against enemies
from without. Our fundamental law recognizes no class, no
group, no section; there must be none in legislation or
administration. The supreme inspiration is the common
weal. Humanity hungers for international peace, and we
crave it with all mankind. My most reverent prayer for
America is for industrial peace, with its rewards, widely
and generally distributed, amid the inspirations of equal
opportunity. No one justly may deny the equality of
opportunity which made us what we are. We have mistaken
unpreparedness to embrace it to be a challenge of the
reality, and due concern for making all citizens fit for
participation will give added strength of citizenship and
magnify our achievement.
If
revolution insists upon overturning established order, let
other peoples make the tragic experiment. There is no
place for it in America. When World War threatened
civilization we pledged our resources and our lives to its
preservation, and when revolution threatens we unfurl the
flag of law and order and renew our consecration. Ours is
a constitutional freedom where the popular will is the law
supreme and minorities are sacredly protected. Our
revisions, reformations, and evolutions reflect a
deliberate judgment and an orderly progress, and we mean
to cure our ills, but never destroy or permit destruction
by force.
I
had rather submit our industrial controversies to the
conference table in advance than to a settlement table
after conflict and suffering. The earth is thirsting for
the cup of good will, understanding is its fountain
source. I would like to acclaim an era of good feeling
amid dependable prosperity and all the blessings which
attend.
It
has been proved again and again that we cannot, while
throwing our markets open to the world, maintain American
standards of living and opportunity, and hold our
industrial eminence in such unequal competition. There is
a luring fallacy in the theory of banished barriers of
trade, but preserved American standards require our higher
production costs to be reflected in our tariffs on
imports. Today, as never before, when peoples are seeking
trade restoration and expansion, we must adjust our
tariffs to the new order. We seek participation in the
world's exchanges, because therein lies our way to widened
influence and the triumphs of peace. We know full well we
cannot sell where we do not buy, and we cannot sell
successfully where we do not carry. Opportunity is calling
not alone for the restoration, but for a new era in
production, transportation and trade. We shall answer it
best by meeting the demand of a surpassing home market, by
promoting self-reliance in production, and by bidding
enterprise, genius, and efficiency to carry our cargoes in
American bottoms to the marts of the world.
We
would not have an America living within and for herself
alone, but we would have her self-reliant, independent,
and ever nobler, stronger, and richer. Believing in our
higher standards, reared through constitutional liberty
and maintained opportunity, we invite the world to the
same heights. But pride in things wrought is no reflex of
a completed task. Common welfare is the goal of our
national endeavor. Wealth is not inimical to welfare; it
ought to be its friendliest agency. There never can be
equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human
plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of
industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free
from the great blotches of distressed poverty. We ought to
find a way to guard against the perils and penalties of
unemployment. We want an America of homes, illumined with
hope and happiness, where mothers, freed from the
necessity for long hours of toil beyond their own doors,
may preside as befits the hearthstone of American
citizenship. We want the cradle of American childhood
rocked under conditions so wholesome and so hopeful that
no blight may touch it in its development, and we want to
provide that no selfish interest, no material necessity,
no lack of opportunity shall prevent the gaining of that
education so essential to best citizenship.
There
is no short cut to the making of these ideals into glad
realities. The world has witnessed again and again the
futility and the mischief of ill-considered remedies for
social and economic disorders. But we are mindful today as
never before of the friction of modern industrialism, and
we must learn its causes and reduce its evil consequences
by sober and tested methods. Where genius has made for
great possibilities, justice and happiness must be
reflected in a greater common welfare.
Service
is the supreme commitment of life. I would rejoice to
acclaim the era of the Golden Rule and crown it with the
autocracy of service. I pledge an administration wherein
all the agencies of Government are called to serve, and
ever promote an understanding of Government purely as an
expression of the popular will.
One
cannot stand in this presence and be unmindful of the
tremendous responsibility. The world upheaval has added
heavily to our tasks. But with the realization comes the
surge of high resolve, and there is reassurance in belief
in the God-given destiny of our Republic. If I felt that
there is to be sole responsibility in the Executive for
the America of tomorrow I should shrink from the burden.
But here are a hundred millions, with common concern and
shared responsibility, answerable to God and country. The
Republic summons them to their duty, and I invite
co-operation.
I
accept my part with single-mindedness of purpose and
humility of spirit, and implore the favor and guidance of
God in His Heaven. With these I am unafraid, and
confidently face the future.
I
have taken the solemn oath of office on that passage of
Holy Writ wherein it is asked: "What doth the Lord
require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and
to walk humbly with thy God?" This I plight to God
and country.
|