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 stem 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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