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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:20 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:20 -0700 |
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diff --git a/104-h/104-h.htm b/104-h/104-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..444de08 --- /dev/null +++ b/104-h/104-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,299 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 104 ***</div> + +<h1>Inaugural Address</h1> + +<h3>of</h3> + +<h2>Franklin Delano Roosevelt</h2> + +<h3>Given in Washington, D.C.<br/> +March 4th, 1933</h3> + +<hr /> + +<p class="noindent"> +President Hoover, Mr. Chief Justice, my friends: +</p> + +<p> +This is a day of national consecration, and I am certain that on this day 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 people +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 of vigor has met with +that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to +victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership +in these critical days. +</p> + +<p> +In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They +concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunk 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; and the savings +of many years in thousands of families are gone. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +And 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 have abdicated. Practices of the +unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, +rejected by the hearts and minds of men. +</p> + +<p> +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 only know the rules of a +generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision +the people perish. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, 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 that restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more +noble than mere monetary profit. +</p> + +<p> +Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of +achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy, the moral stimulation +of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. +These dark days, my friends, 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—to our fellow men. +</p> + +<p> +Recognition of that 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, and on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live. +</p> + +<p> +Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation is +asking for action, and action now. +</p> + +<p> +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 great natural resources. +</p> + +<p> +Hand in hand with that 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. Yes, 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, the State, and the 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, unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and +supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other +utilities that have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which +it can be helped, but it can never be helped by merely talking about it. We +must act; we must act quickly. +</p> + +<p> +And finally, in our progress towards 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. +</p> + +<p> +These, my friends, 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 forty-eight States. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +of America—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 recovery will endure. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 can be made, no +leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our +lives and our property to such discipline, because it makes possible a +leadership which aims at the larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging +that the larger purposes will bind upon us—bind upon us all—as a sacred +obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in times of armed strife. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Action in this image—action to this end—is feasible under the form of +government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so +simple, so 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 ever seen. It has met every stress of +vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of +world relations. +</p> + +<p> +And it is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative +authority may be wholly equal—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, +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. +</p> + +<p> +For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that +befit the time. I can do no less. +</p> + +<p> +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—a permanent—national +life. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 104 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + |