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�Withdrawal/Redaction Sheet
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COLLECTION:
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�Campaign Address on Progressive Government
To the people of this country I have but one answer on this
subject. Judge me by the enemies I have made. Judge me by the
selfish purposes of these utility leaders who have talked of radicalism while they were selling watered stock to the people and
using our schools to deceive the coming generation.
My friends, my policy is as radical as American liberty. My
policy is as radical as the Constitution of the United States.
I promise you this: Never shall the Federal Government part
with its sovereignty or with its control over its power resources,
while I am President of the United States.
iSQ (["New Conditions Impose New Requirements upon Government and Those Who Conduct Government." Campaign Address on Progressive Government at the Commonwealth
Club. San Francisco, Calif. September 23,1932
My friends:
V
• I; ':
I COUNT it a privilege to be invited to address the Commonwealth Club. It has stood in the life of this city and State, and it
is perhaps accurate to add, the Nation, as a group of citizen
leaders interested in fundamental problems of Government, and
chiefly concerned with achievement of progress in Government
through non-partisan means. The privilege of addressing you,
therefore, in the heat of a political campaign, is great. I want to
respond to your courtesy in terms consistent with your policy.
I want to speak not of politics but of Government. I want to
speak not of parties, but of universal principles. They are not
political, except in that larger sense in which a great American
once expressed a definition of politics, that nothing in all of
human life is foreign to the science of politics.
I do want to give you, however, a recollection of a long life
spent for a large part in public office. Some of my conclusions
742
�Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
and observations have been deeply accentuated in these past few
weeks. I have traveled far —from Albany to the Golden Gate.
I have seen many people, and heard many things, and today,
when in a sense my journey has reached the half-way mark, I am
glad of the opportunity to discuss with you what it all means
to me.
Sometimes, my friends, particularly in years such as these, the
hand of discouragement falls upon us. It seems that things are in
a rut, fixed, settled, that the wbrld has grown old and tired and
very much out of joint. This is the mood of depression, of dire
and weary depression.
But then we look around us in America, and everything tells
us that we are wrong. America is new. It is in the process of
change and development. It has the great potentialities of youth,
and particularly is this true of the great West, and of this coast,
and of California.
I would not have you feel that I regard this as in any sense a
new community. I have traveled in many parts of the world, but
never have I felt the arresting thought of the change and development more than here, where the old, mystic East would seem
to be near to us, where the currents of life and thought and
commerce of the whole world meet us. This factor alone is sufficient to cause man to stop and think of the deeper meaning of
things, when he stands in this community.
But more than that, I appreciate that the membership of this
club consists of men who are thinking in terms beyond the immediate present, beyond their own immediate tasks, beyond their
own individual interests. I want to invite you, therefore, to consider with me in the large, some of the relationships of Government and economic life that go deeply into our daily lives, our
happiness, our future and our security.
The issue of Government has always been whether individual
men and women will have to serve some system of Government
or economics, or whether a system of Government and economics
exists to serve individual men and women. This question has
persistently dominated the discussion of Government for many
743
�Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
generations. On questions relating to these things men have differed, and for time immemorial it is probable that honest men
will continue to differ.
The final word belongs to no man; yet we can still believe in
change and ih progress. Democracy, as a dear old friend of mine
in Indiana, Meredith Nicholson, has called it, is a quest, a neverending seeking for better things, and in the seeking for these
things and the striving for them, there are many roads to follow.
But, if we map the course of these roads, we find that there are
only two general directions.
When we look about us, we are likely to forget how hard
people have worked to win the privilege of Government. The
growth of the national Governments of Europe was a struggle
for the development of a centralized force in the Nation, strong
enough to impose peace upon ruling barons. In many instances
the victory of the central Government, the creation of a strong
central Government, was a haven of refuge to the individual.
The people preferred the master far away to the exploitation and
cruelty of the smaller master near at hand.
But the creators of national Government were perforce ruthless men. They were often cruel in their methods, but they did
strive steadily toward something that society needed and very
much wanted, a strong central State able to keep the peace, to
stamp out civil war, to put the unruly nobleman in his place, and
to permit the bulk of individuals to live safely. The man of
ruthless force had his place in developing a pioneer cou . iry, just
as he did in fixing the power of the central Government in the
development of Nations. Society paid him well for his services
and its development. When the development among the Nations
of Europe, however, had been completed, ambition and ruthlessness, having served their term, tended to overstep their mark.
There came a growing feeling that Government was conducted
for the benefit of a few who thrived unduly at the expense of all.
The people sought a balancing —a limiting force. There came
gradually, through town councils, trade guilds, national parlia744
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�Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
\
ments, by constitution and by popular participation and control,
limitations on arbitrary power.
Another factor that tended to limit the power of those who
ruled, was the rise of the ethical conception that a ruler bore a
responsibility for the welfare bf his subjects. The American colonies were born in this struggle. Thb American Revolution was a turning point in it. After the Revolution
the struggle continued and shaped itself in the public life of the
country. There were those who because they had seen the confusion which attended the years of war for American independence
surrendered to the belief that popular Government was essentially dangerous and essentially unworkable. They were honest
people, my friends, and we cannot deny that their experience had
warranted some measure of fear. The most brilliant, honest and
able exponent of this point of view was Hamilton. He was too
impatient of slow-moving methods. Fundamentally he believed
that the safety of the republic lay in the autocratic strength of
its Government, that the destiny of individuals was to serve that
Government, and that fundamentally a great and strong group
of central institutions, guided by a small group of able and
public spirited citizens, could best direct all Government.
But Mr. Jefferson, in the summer of 1776, after drafting the
Declaration of Independence turned his mind to the same problem and took a different view. He did not deceive himself with
outward forms. "Government to him was a means to an end, not
an end in itself; it might be either a refuge and a help or a threat
and a danger, depending on the circumstances. We find him carefully analyzing the society for which he was to organize a Government. "We have no paupers. The great mass of our population is of laborers, our rich who cannot live without labor, either
manual or professional, being few and of moderate wealth. Most
of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own lands,
have families and from the demand for their labor, are enabled
to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable
them to ieed abundantly, clothe above mere decency, to labor
moderately and raise their families."
745
�•-r-
Campaign Address on Progressive Government
These people, he considered, had two sets of rights, those of
"personal competency" and those involved in acquiring and possessing property. By "personal competency" he meant the right
of free thinking, freedom of forming and expressing opinions,
and freedom of personal livihgy each man according to his own
lights. To insure the first set of rights, a Government must so
order its functions as not to interfere with the individual. But
even Jefferson realized that the exercise of the property rights
might so interfere with the rights of the individual that the
Government, without whose assistance the property rights could
not exist, must intervene, not to destroy individualism, but to
protect it.
You are familiar with the great political duel which followed;
and how Hamilton, and his friends, building toward a dominant
centralized power were at length defeated in the great election of
1800, by Mr. Jefferson's party. Out of that duel came the two
J parties. Republican and Democratic, as we know them today.
So began, in American political life, the new day, the day of
the individual against the system, the day in which individualism
was made the great watchword of American life. The happiest
of economic conditions made that day long and splendid. On the
Western frontier, land was substantially free. No one, who did
not shirk the task of earning a living, was entirely without opportunity to do so. Depressions could, and did, come and go; but
they could not alter the fundamental fact that most of the people
lived partly by selling their labor and partly by extracting their
livelihood from" the soil, so that starvation and dislocation were
practically impossible. At the very worst there was always the
possibility of climbing into a covered wagon and moving west
where the untilled prairies afforded a haven for men to whom
the East did not provide a place. So great were our natural resources that we could offer this relief not only to our own people,
but to the distressed of all the world; we could invite immigration from Europe, and welcome it with open arms. Traditionally,
when a depression came a new section of land was opened in the
746
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�Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
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destiny.
'
It was in the middle of the nineteenth Century that a new force
was released and i. new dream created. The force was what is
called the industrial revolution, the advance of steam and machinery and the rise of the forerunners of the modern industrial
plant. The dream was the dream of an economic machine, able
to raise the standard pf living for everyone; to bring luxury
within the reach of the humblest; to annihilate distance by steam
power and later by electricity, and to release everyone from the
drudgery of the heaviest manual toil. It was to be expected that
this would necessarily affect Government. Heretofore, Government had merely been called upon to produce conditions within
which people could live happily, labor peacefully, and rest
secure. Now it was called upon to aid in the consummation of
this new dream. There Was, however, a shadow over the dream.
To be made real, it required use of the talents of men of tremendous will and tremendous ambition, since by no other force
could the problems of financing and engineering and new developments be brought to a consummation.
So manifest were the advantages of the machine age, however,
that the United States fearlessly, cheerfully, and, I think, rightly,
accepted the bitter with the sweet. It was thought that no price
was too high to pay for the advantages which we could draw from
a finished industrial system. The history of the last half century
is accordingly in large measure a history of a group of financial
Titans, whose methods were not scrutinized with too much care,
and who were honored in proportion as they produced the results,
irrespective of the means they used. Thefinancierswho pushed
the railroads to the Pacific were always ruthless, often wasteful,
and frequently corrupt; but they did build railroads, and we
have them today. It has been estimated that the American investor paid for the American railway system more than three
times over in the process; but despite this fact the net advantage
was to the United States. As long as we had free land; as long as
population was growing by leaps and bounds; as long as our
1
747
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�Campaign Address on Progressive Government
industrial plants were insufficient to supply our own needs/ society chose to give the ambitious man free play and unlimited
reward provided only that he produced the economic plant so
much desired.
During this period of expansion, there was equal oppoAunity
for all and the business of Government was not to interfere but
to assist in the development of industry, This was done at the
request of business .men themselves. The tariff was originally
imposed for the purpose of "fostering our infant industry," a
phrase I think the older among you will remember as a political
issue not so long ago. The railroads were subsidized, sometimes
by grants of money, oftener by grants of land; some of the most
valuable oil lands in the United States were granted to assist the
financing of the railroad which pushed through the Southwest.
A nascent merchant marine was assisted by grants of money, c>r by
mail subsidies, so that our steam shipping might ply the seven
seas. Some of my friends tell me that they do not want the
Government in business. With this I agree;.but I wonder whether
they realize the implications of the past. For while it has been
American doctrine that the Government must not go into business in competition with private enterprises, still it has been
traditional, particularly in Republican administrations, for business urgently to ask the Government to put at private disposal
all kinds of Government assistance. The same man who tells you
that he does not want to see the Government interfere in business
— and he means it, and has plenty of good reasons for saying so —
is the first to go to Washington and ask the Government for a
prohibitory tariff on his product. When things get just bad
enough, as they did two years ago, he will go with equal speed
lo the United States Government and ask for a loan; and the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation is the outcome of it. Each
group has sought protection from the Government for its own
special interests, without realizing that the function of Government must be to favor no small group at the expense of its duty
to protect the rights of personal freedom and of private property
of all its citizens.
748
�Campaign Address on Progressive Government
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;
In retrospect we can now see that the turn of the tide came
with the turn of the century. We were reaching our last frontier;
there was nb more free land and our industrial combinations
had become great uncontrolled and irresponsible units of power
within the State. Clear-sighted men saw with fear the danger that
opportunity would no longer be equal; that the growing corporation, like the feudal baron of old, might threaten the economic
freedom of individuals to earn a living. I n that hour, our antitrust laws were born. The cry was raised against the great corporations. Theodore Roosevelt, the first great Republican Progressive, fought a Presidential campaign on the issue of "trust busting" and talked freely about malefactors of great wealth. I f the
Government had a policy it was rather to turn the clock back,
to destroy the large combinations and to return to the time when
every man owned his individual small business.
This was impossible; Theodore Roosevelt, abandoning the idea
of "trust busting," was forced to work out a difference between
"good" trusts and "bad"/trusts. The Supreme Court set forth
the famous "rule of reason" by which it seems to have meant that
a concentration of industrial power was permissible if the method
by which it got its power, and the use i t made of that power,
were reasonable.
Woodrow Wilson, elected in 1912, saw the situation more
clearly. Where Jefferson had feared the encroachment of political power on the lives of individuals, Wilson knew that the new
power was financial. He saw, in the highly centralized economic
system, the despot of the twentieth century, on whom great
masses of individuals relied for their safety and their livelihood,
and whose irresponsibility and greed (if they were not controlled)
would reduce them to starvation and penury. The concentration
of financial power had not proceeded so far in 1912 as it has,
today; but it had grown far enough for Mr. Wilson to realize
fully its implications. It is interesting, now, to read his speeches.
What is called "radical" today (and I have reason to know
whereof I speak) is mild compared to the campaign of Mr. Wilson.
"No man can deny," he said, "that the lines of endeavor have
749
'
�Campaign Address on Progressive Government
more and more narrowed and stiffened; no man who knows anything about the development of industry in this country can
have failed to observe that the larger kinds of credit are more
and more difficult to obtain unless you obtain them upon terms
of uniting your efforts with those who already control the industry of the country, and nobody can fail to observe that every man
who tries to set himself up in competition with any process of
manufacture which has taken place under the control of large
combinations of capital will presently find himself either squeezed
out or obliged to sell and allow himself to be absorbed." Had
there been no World War — had Mr. Wilson been able to devote
eight years to domestic instead of to international affairs —we
might have had a wholly different situation at the present time.
However, the then distant roar of European cannon, growing
eyer louder, forced him to abandon the study of this issue. The
problem he saw so clearly is left with us as a legacy; and no one
of us on either side of the political controversy can deny that it is a matter of grave concern to the Government.
A glance at the situation today only too clearly indicates that
equality of opportunity as we have known it no longer exists.
Our industrial plant is built; the problem just now is whether
under existing conditions it is not overbuilt. Our last frontier
has long since been reached, and there is practically no more
free land. More than half of our people do not live ori the farms
or on lands and cannot derive a living by cultivating their own
property. There is no safety valve in the form of a Western
prairie to which those thrown out of work by the Eastern economic machines can go for a new start. We are not able to invite
the immigration from Europe to share our endless plenty. We
are now providing a drab living for our own people.
Our system of constantly rising tariffs has at last reacted
against us to the point of closing our Canadian frontier on the
north, our European markets on the east, many of our LatinAmerican markets to the south, and a goodly proportion of our
Pacific markets on the west, through the retaliatory tariffs of
those countries. I t has forced many of our great industrial insti750
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�Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
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tutions which exported their surplus production to such countries, to establish plants in such countries, within the tariff walls.
This has resulted in the reduction of the operation of their American plants, and opportunity for employment.
Just as freedom to farm has ceased, so also the oppomrfiity
in business has narrowed. I t still is true that men can stpn small
enterprises, trusting to native shrewdness and ability to keep
abreast of competitors; but area after area has been preempted
altogether by the great corporations, and even in the fields which
still have no great concerns, the small man starts under a handicap. The unfeeling statistics of the past three decades show that
the independent business man is running a losing race. Perhaps
he is forced to the wall; perhaps he cannot command credit; perhaps he is "squeezed out," in Mr. Wilson's words, by highly organized corporate competitors, as your corner grocery man can
tell you. Recently a careful study was made of the concentration
of business in the United States. I t showed that our economic
life was dominated by some six hundred odd corporations who
controlled two-thirds of American industry. Ten million small
business men divided the other third. More striking still, it appeared that .if the process of concentration goes on at the same
rate, at the end of another century we shall have all American
industry controlled by a dozen -corporations, and run by perhaps
a hundred men. Put plainly, we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we: are not there already.
Clearly, all this calls for a re-appraisal of values. A mere
builder of more industrial plants, a creator of more railroad systems, an organizer of more corporations, is as likely to be a
danger as a help. The day of the great promoter or the financial
Titan, to whom we granted anything i f only he would build,
or develop, is over. Our task now is not discovery or exploitation of natural resources, or necessarily producing more goods. V
It is the soberer, less dramatic business of administering resources and plants already in hand, of seeking to reestablish
foreign markets for our surplus production, of meeting the problem of underconsumption, of adjusting production to consump75i
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Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
tion, of distributing wealth and products more equitably, of
adapting existing economic organizations to the service of the
people. The day of enlightened administration has come.
Just as in older times the central Government was first a haven
of refuge, and then a threat, so now in a closer economic system ^
the central and ambitious financial unit is np longer a servant
of national desire, but a danger. I would draw the parallel one
step farther. We did not think because national Government
had become a threat in the 18th century that therefore we
should abandon the principle of national Government. Nor
today should we abandon the principle of strong economic units
called corporations, merely because their power is susceptible
of easy abuse. In other times we dealt with the problem of an
unduly ambitious central Government by modifying it gradually
into a constitutional democratic Government. So today we are
modifying and controlling our economic units.
As I see it, the task of Government in its relation to business
is to assist the development of an economic declaration of rights,
an economic constitutional order. This is the common task of
statesman and business man. It is the minimum requirement of
a more permanently safe order oif things.
Happily, the times indicate that to create such an order not
only is the proper policy of Government, but it is the only line
of safety for our economic structures as well. We know, now,
that these economic units cannot exist unless prosperity is uniform, that is, unless purchasing power is well distributed
throughout every group in the Nation. That is why even the
most selfish of corporations for its own interest would be glad
to see wages restored and unemployment ended and to bring
the Western farmer back to his accustomed level of prosperity
and to assure a permanent safety to both groups. That is why
some enlightened industries themselves endeavor to limit the
freedom of action of each man and business group within the
industry in the common interest of all; why business men everywhere are asking a form of organization which will bring the
scheme of things into balance, even though it may in some meas752
�Campaign Address on Progressive Government
ure qualify the freedom of action of individual units within the
business.
The exposition need hot further be elaborated. I t is brief and
incomplete, but you will be able to expand it in terms pf your
own business or occupation without difficulty. I think everyone
who has actually entered the economic struggle— which means
everyone who was not born to safe wealth —knows in his own
experience and his own life that we have now to apply the
earlier concepts of American Government to the conditions of
today.
TKej^eclar^
GovernmentKih*temw^
a relation
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would follow tKfe
imterms-ota*hangingrand:growing-social. order.^^iNe^conditiOns
^impose •newvrequirements upom Govemment and those who con• duct4Government^. .
I held, for example, in proceedings before me as Governor,
the purpose of which was the removal of the Sheriff of New
York, that under modern conditions it was not enough for a
public official merely to evade the legal terms of official wrongdoing. He owed a positive duty as well. I said in substance that
if he had acquired large sums of money, he was when accused
required to explain the sources of such wealth. T o that extent
this wealth was colored with a public interest. I said that in
financial matters, public servants should, even beyond private
citizens, be held to a stern and uncompromising rectitude.
I feel that we are coming to a view through the drift of our
legislation and our public thinking in the past iquarter century
that private economic power is, to enlarge an old phrase, a
public trust as well. I hold that continued enjoyment of that
power by any individual or group must depend upon the fulfillment of that trust. The men who have reached the summit
753
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•• Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment ^ ^ ' S '
of American business life know this best; happily, many of th«e •
urge the binding quality of t^is greater social contract. ^'.'>i$. - ,
The terms of that contract ^rejts old as the Republic,' and ^; ' ^
• hew as the new economic order.
•. \ '.;'' • "
•[
/ Every man has a right to life; knd this means that he has also ^
a right to make a comfortable living. He may by sloth or crime
decline to exercise that right; but it may not be denied him.
We have no actual famine or dearth; our industrial and agricult
sufhcientwfor his needs; ttHroug^ ^is>owri work:
A
Every man has a right to his own property; which means a
right to be assured, to the fullest extent attainable, in the safety ..
of his savings. By no other, means can: men carry the burdens bf
those parts of life which, in the nature of things, afford no chance K
of labor; childhood/sickness, old age. In all thought of property, :
this right is paramount; all other property rights must yield
to it. I f , in accord with this principle, we must restrict the opera- %
tions of the speculator, the manipulator; even the financier, I ". ;
belieye we must accept the restriction as needful, not to hamper K
individualism but to protect it.
-.^ A'^'"
These two requirements must be 'satisfied, in the main, by
the individuals who claim ahd hold control of the great indus- :
trial and financial combinations which dominate so large a part v
of our industrial life. They have undertaken to be, not business
men, but princes of property. I am not prepared ro say that the
system which produces them is wrong. I am very clear that they :
must fearlessly and competently assume the responsibility which
goes with the power. So many enlightened business men know
this that the statement would be little more than a platitude, were
it not for an added implication.
This implication is, briefly, that the responsible heads of finance and industry instead of acting each for himself, must work
together to achieve the common end. They must, where necessary, sacrifice this or that private advantage; and in reciprocal
754
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than is to educate. But in the matters of which I
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must not be forgotten, even m the mental lethargy of a snecu
lative upturn. We must build toward the time fhen ma""
depression .cannot occur again- and if thi,
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140 C Campaign Address o ^ Agriculture and
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Tanffs at Sioux City, Iowa. September 29, ,932
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f a d i n g toward the Coast I presented before an audience in the City of Topeka wha T r Z
ceived ,0 be the problem of agricult/re i n ^ Unted StateT
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�Dear Mr. Waldman:
I'm sorry that I couldn't respond earlier to your message of yesterday, particularly since we
are getting so close to the time of the President's speech. I hope this will reach you in time to be
of some help. [I sent this same message to you a few minutes ago to the address from which you
sent your message to me; I'm sending it again because I notice you suggested a different address
at the end of your message.]
Dedicating a memorial on the mall to a president is a very rare event. The FDR memorial is
only the fourth (after Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln). The last one to be dedicated was the
Jefferson Memorial in 1938 (?), by Roosevelt himself — and it might be worth your while to see
if you can find what FDR said on that occasion as you consider what the President will say
tomorrow. The unusual nature of this occasion seems to make it an appropriate time for the
President to speak in somewhat larger terms than in other settings and to avoid too many
references to the immediate political situation. I'm sure that's your intention.
Roosevelt is significant in history for several important reasons. First, and most familiar to
us, his was the most important administration in this century, perhaps in our history, in defining
an expanded role for the federal government in American life. The specific institutional legacies
of the New Deal ~ Social Security (which includes old-age insurance, unemployment insurance,
and AFDC - or what's left of it), the Wagner Act, regulatory agencies, farm subsidies, wages and
hours regulations, banking reform (including deposit insurance), and many others — are
themselves evidence of that legacy. But perhaps equally important was the impact of the New
Deal on the expectations of the American people, on their increasing expectations of the federal
government. Even in the midst of almost unprecedented anti-government sentiment today,
relatively few Americans really want to return to the pre-New Deal era in which the federal
government played almost no role in the lives of most people.
So one thing the president could do tomorrow, as your capsule description of your plans
suggests he might, is to associate himself with Roosevelt's belief in the importance of a vigorous
federal government. But at the same time, he should associa
te himself with equal energy to another critical part of the New Deal: its explicitly pragmatic and
experimental character. If postwar liberals have often been portrayed as inflexibly wedded to a
very fixed notion of government, the New Deal itself disp
layed no such rigidity. It discarded programs almost as readily as it created them. It saw almost
everything it did as an experiment, and the most important question New Dealers asked about
most of their efforts was not how to keep them going but did th
ey work. Roosevelt himself liked to boast of his commitment to experiment, and at the same
time to boast of his equally strong commitment to continuous effort. "Try something," he liked
to say. "If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn't, admit it frank
ly and try
something else."
In our own time, that sentiment seems to me particularly appropriate. Most Americans (and
Democrats) continue to believe in the importance of government, but many have developed
increasing skepticism about much of what govemment presently does. The right's answer to this
dilemma is to peel back government because it does nothing very well. The progressive answer
should be "try something else." As you mentioned in your note, my own recent book on the New
Deal emphasized the way liberalism, even during the New Deal itself, was constantly changing —
the way in which the New Deal itself went through a series of transformations. The fluid quality
�of liberal thought, and liberal policy, in the age of Roosevelt is one of its most valuable legacies
for our time.
Roosevelt was also, of course, a great champion of American internationalism. He was the
President who succeeded in doing what Woodrow Wilson tried and failed to do: tying the United
States to the international system and making Americans realize their responsibilities in the
world and to the world. This is a theme the President has been dealing with in his own foreign
policy, and FDR is a good person to evoke in that effort. I wish I could think of a great, ringing
Roosevelt speech on the value of internationalism, but I can't. His best speeches tended to be on
domestic issues ("One third of a nation...", the "economic bill of rights," "rendezvous with
destiny," etc.), and his speeches on internationalism ~ unlike his actions in foreign policy —
tended to be cautious and somewhat opaque. But his legacy in this area is nevertheless clear.
Finally, there is another, less well-remembered legacy of the New Deal. And while I doubt
that the President will want to tie himself too closely to this more controversial part of the
Roosevelt record, perhaps there is some element of it that might be useful. My own opinion
(unpopular though it is) is that the most serious problem we face as a society today is the growing
inequality in our society. That is a problem that subsumes within it a great many other problems
about which there is much d
iscussion: jobs, education, housing, wage stagnation, middle-class angst, and so on. It is also a
problem that almost no one in public life knows how to address. Roosevelt was very effective in
talking about inequality, and he did so in two ways. One was his powerful and at times almost
strident denunciation of the misuse of private economic power, his attacks on "economic
royalists" and the "sixty families" ~ a kind of rhetoric that almost no one uses today and that it
seems very unilikely the president will
want to use. That would be inappropriate for tomorrow's occasion in any case. The other was
his invocation of a vision of a more just society, in which the purpose of public policy would be
to address the problems of the least among us ~ the "one third of a nation" of which he spoke in
his second Inaugural and again in his speeches on the Economic Bill of Rights and the Four
Freedoms. At the ceremony in Warm Springs two years ago to mark the 50th anniversary of
FDR's death, one of his grand-daughters
read excerpts from, if I recall, his Economic Bill of Rights speech; and the President echoed
some of that language. I think it might be appropriate for him to do so again.
I hope some of this is helpful to you, and I hope you will let me know if I can be of any
further help in these last hours before the speech - or on any future occasion in which I might be
useful. Again, I'm sorry to be sending these thoughts to you so late and so hastily.
Alan Brinkley
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' GENERAL S6RV)CES ADMINISTRATION
DOWN 6 OUT
IN THE GREAT
DEPRESSION
Letters from the "Forgotten Man'
Edited by Robert S. McElvaine
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill
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�Proud But Frightened 59
58 Conditions of Life in the Thirties
enough 1 eat, and go all day with oui a bite of hinch,tobe sure he could beg
3
his hmch but he's to proud to beg ntangas he can betp il. and I haw spent
the day yesterday praying God to help me bear this, and as I tried to prepare
their very scarce breakfast, [iDegiblel that came if only the President could
know he would help you to hefe your selves, and on Ais impulse Itoytotel
you.. . . 0, what a burden and how helpless I am, how proud I am of my
children, and bow dark a future under this coiufitkiL
Theirfatheris 62 yrs, old—a preacher a good carpenter—a saw-filer—
bat Industry won't hire a m n This age. scarcely, even if Ihey are strong in
a
body and lie has no church to preach in—so—
O, surely there's a placeforus in the worid. . . .
I humbly pray God's Divine blessing on you,foryou have tried every way
to help tbe people.
Vfery Sincerely,
Mrs. L N.
16.1 would have killed myself if I would have lost my house
Montvale, N.J.
Aug 28, 1934
Dear Mrs. RooseTett,
Tbaok you very much for helping me to keep my house. If it wasn't
you 1 know 1 would have lost it 1 hope and pray that Mr. Roosevelt wiD keep
his position a lonjr time, "ft" ^
my Ife- would have lulled myself if
I would have lost my house. I wfll neverforgetyou and wfll always pray for
you and your family. I went to the Home Loan and they said eveiythfog
wodd be allrighL ForgiTe me if 1 caused yon any trouble. I remain.
yours truly,
Mr*.J. G.
1
1
17.1 am sure the president, if only he knew, would order
that soraethiog be done, God bless him
Seattle, Wish.
Dec. 12—1934
Federal Emergency Relief
Administnition
1734 New York Ave N.W.
Washington D.C.
Gentlemen:
When tbe Home Owners Loan Corporationfirstopened in Seattle, I made
an applicatianfora loan, the mortgage was for $2.000.00 on a 6 room house
and nearly an acre of land, during the last two years conditions have been
so adverse with me that I have been amble to nuke any payments on tbe
interest neither have I been able to pay the taxes, tbe mortgages at first
agreed to take tbe Govemment bonds, but when certain repairs were iacluded, the total amount tbe Government would loan was not enough to pay
the mortgagee all his moneyfafact it would show a loss of nearly $400.00
after a acnied interest together with aU taxes and repairs, so the mortgagee
D
refused to take the bonds, and consequently my ban was rejected afthough
I was one of thefirstto apply. 1 took it up with the repair departmeol, to let
me do the painting andrepairthe roof myself and in that way give the extra
money to the mortgagee but pnt when it seemed I was about to get my loan
through tbe Government stopped aS loans, and since the mortgagee bas
been hot on my trail demanding me to give him a deed or he will foreclose
at once.
Gentlemen, this is a 1 have in the world my home and family. I have four
O
boys and a tittle girl al in school this is an Ideal place toraisem familyto be
y
good american citizens, we have enough good ground toraiselots of garden
stuff and thb goes a long waytowardkeeping the table, we are now foiced
on re Bef and it seems that everything comes at once, if they are allowed to
take awayraylittle home I don't know what m do, 1 understand the Government is planning to supply homes for those who have none, it would he 100
times better in my particular case if the Government would make it possible
for me to keep my own little home.
I always have been able to give myfamilya decent living until economic
conditioms got so bad I was unable to make it go any longer.
I am mdoaing the last letter I receivedfromtbe mortgagee.
�Proud But Frightened 61
60 Conditions of Life in the Thirtieg
I sincerely believe if the Government iriO help me save my place, it wont
be long before 1 win again be on my feet, I think. Ike worry and wear and
tear fortearthat the mortgagee would try and foreclose on me bas kind of
gotten me down a little. 1 have not been well for two or three weeks, but Tin
sure if I can secure help bom the Government at this time of my distress, it
wont be long tiD 1 wiB again be on my feeL
I sincerely hope and pray you will come to my aid and hdp me save my
home for myfemily,if 1 should loose it I don't know what IU do as I have no
other place to go. if I can save it, I wfll be able toraisemy fanuty to be good
useful dtirens.
My place is worth about $3500.00 but to me it is my home, where I have
a lovely happy family, good loving wife, who is thrifty, energetic, md who
makea a home what it should be. we teach our children to bve God, go lo
Sunday school and train them to live to be proper Americans who love their
country, and if needs be give their livesforit
I believe God wiD see us through some way hut it has been tbe hardest
thing I have had to go through, this maybe His way so I'm writing to you
asking md praying that you will do somethingtosave our little home.
I am sure the President, if he only knew; would order that something be
done, God Bless him. he is doing all he cm to reGeve the suffering and I am
sure his name will go down b history among the other great men of our
cotmtry.
Respectfuliy Yours
A. G. [male]
Seattle
Vfcsh
18.1 have no money, no home and no wheres to go
Phila.. Fa.
November, 26, 1934
Honorable franklin D. Roosevelt
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. President:
I am forced to write to you because wefindourselves in a very serious
condition. For tbe last three orfouryears we have had depression and suffered with myfamilyand little children severely. Now Since the Home
Owners Loan Corporation opened up, 1 have been going there in order to
save my home, because there has been unemployment in my bouse for
more than three years. You can imagine that I and myfamilyhave suffered
from lack of water supply in my houseformore than two years. Last winter
I did not have coal md tbe pipes burst in my house and therefore could not
make heat in tbe house. Now winter is here again and we are suffering of
cold, no water in the house, and we arefacingto beforcedout of the house,
because 1 have no money to move or pay so much money as they want when
after making settlement I am mother of Bttle children, am sick and losing my
health, md we are eight people in thefamily,and where can I go when I don't
have money because no one is working b my house. Tbe Home Lam Corporadon wants $42. a mouthrentor else we wiU have to be on the street I
am living in Ihia houseforabout ten yeara and when dmes were good we
would put our last cent in the house and now I have no money, no home and
no wheres to go. I beg of you to please help me md myfamilyand Httte children for the sake of a skk mother md sufferingfanulyto give this your
unmediate attenlion so we wilnot be forced to move orput out in the street.
Waitmy md Hoping that you will act quickly.
Thanldng you very much I remain
Mrs. E. L.
19. He is worse off then the real poor
(Cinciimati, Ohio
April 16, 1932]
Department of Labor
Presidents Organization
Washington D.C.
. . . tell me wlnt kind of help can this man I unemployed homeowner) get
he is worse off then therealpoor, you wffl help the poor whose has spent aD
lus money in good times now he is tbe one who gets first aid bnt lhe Uttle
home owner can get nothing md doesnt know what to become of him . . .
[Anonymous]
�62 Conditions of Life in the Thirties
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20. It is very humiliatingforme to have to write you
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Mrs F.D. Roosevelt
Washington D. C.
Dear Mrs Roosevelt:—
Please pardon the liberty I am taking in writing you this note. Like thousands of others have lost and used up what we have saved, have been forced
to go on relief. Have been compelled to store the small amt of things we had,
and live in one room which is detrimental to our health, and unless we can
raise our storage chg. Amt $28 by 4/10 the things may be sold for storage
while not so valuable to any one else there are things that Cannot be replaced. I would like to borrow the amt $28 so I can pay the chg. and get a
More healthful place to live. We are American bom citizens and have always
been self-supporting. It is very humiliating for me to have to write you
Asking you again to pardon the privilege I am taking. I am hoping I may hear
from you without publicity by ret. post.
Very Respectfully
Mrs. [Initials omitted because of
writer's request]
21. Somehow we must manage—but without charity
Troy, N.Y.
Jan. 2, 1935.
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt,
About a month ago 1 wrote you asking if you would buy some baby clothes
for me with the understanding that I was to repay you as soon as my husband got enough work. Several weeks later I received a reply to apply to a
Welfare Association so I might receive the aid 1 needed. Do you remember?
Please Mrs. Roosevelt, I do not want charity, only a chance from someone who will trust me until we can get enough money to repay the amount
spent for the things I need. As a proof that I really am sincere, I am sending
you two of my dearest possessions to keep as security, a ring my husband
gave me before we were married, and a ring my mother used to wear. Perhaps the actual value of them is not high, but they are worth a lot to me. If
Proud But Frightened 63
you will consider buying the baby clothes, please keep them (rings) until I
send you the money you spent. It is very hard to face bearing a baby we
cannot afford to have, and the fact that it is due to arrive soon, and still there
is no money for the hospital or clothing, does not make it any easier. I Have
decided to stay home, keeping my 7 year old daughterfromschool to help
with the smaller children when my husband has work. The oldest little girl is
sick now, and has never been strong, so I would not depend on her. The
7 year old one is a good willing little worker and somehow we must manage
—but without charity.
If you sdll feel you cannot trust me, it is allright and I can only say I donot
blame you, but if you dedde my wold is worth anything with so small a
security, here is a list of what I will need-but I will need it very soon.
2 shirts, silk and wool, size 2
3 pr. stockings, silk and wool, 41/2 or 4
3 straight flannel bands
2 slips—outing flannel
2 muslim dresses
1 sweater
1 wool bonnet
2 pr. wool booties
2 doz. diapers 30 x 30—or 27 x 27
1 large blanket (baby) about 45" or 50"
3 outingflannelnightgaowns
If you wiD get theseforme I would rather no one knew about it. I promise
to repay the cost of the layette as soon as possible. W will all be very gratee
ful to you, and I will be more than happy.
Sincerely yours,
Mrs. H. E. C.
22. These pass few years have been a dark struggle
Jamestown N.J.
Nov. 1st 1935.
Mrs Franklin Roosevelt
Dear Madam:—
Pferhaps you wiD think it a strange thing by me writing to you, but I shall
endeavor to make it plain before I havefinishedmy letter.
First of all have been interested in all the things you've been doing since our
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president's wife and admire your courage in your place. But as I was deeply
in prayer to God a short time ago praying that I might receive the nessacry
needs in life for my body.
As my husband has had a battle to work to earn enough to keep us with
shelter +foodand a little clothing which has been put on his own body to
keep him so he could work, these pass few years have been a dark struggle
we lost our home and all through it. But yet my faith looks to God our Maker
he will guide and keep us to the end. But as it is coming nearer toward colder
weather I have nothing for my body to keep me warm and can't see where I
will be able to get it out of my husbands small earnings as we have debts to
pay as I have cost him so much through sickness in the pass few years. And
I was impressed through prayer for God to put some one on my heart that
might want to lend a helping hand. In some way I haven't had a new coat in
8 years and my coat is beyond wearing any-more under clothes dresses
shoes and such things is needed so bad by me I am a rather stout woman
weigh 189 lbs 5ft7 in. high age 49 years I get when 1 have size 48 to 50
bust in dresses coat I believe I must be a least 52 in shoes I wear size 5. perhaps you might have some things you want me to have I shall greatly
appreciate it and will know it is an answer to prayer I am a Christian and
striving everyday I live to please God. and do his will please don't accept
this letter as begging but as I have meant it to be to you May Gods' riches
blessing go with it and I will be waiting lo hear from you.
Mrs M. W
.
Jamestown
NJ.
I shall keep praying For the prayer of arighteousman availeth much. God
hears and answers prayer.
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23.1 got faith in you and the Lord together
Fort Worth Texas
Nov. 9. 1934
dear Mr Roosevelt i amritingto youforhelp if you please will help us we are
Bying a homefromMr Stuckert and Company and we have got so we can
not keep up the Paymet and Now they want to take the Place awayfromus
and we have 8 Children to lake Care of and no Body working but my husband and he is getting surch a Little fty for his work and we have a very
sick Child and the man want to Put us out and we have no money to move on
. . . and i am asking you for help and dont let them take our Place away from
us pleas sir Becaus when we was working hard to keep our Payment up
soon we all got out of work he want to take the home awayfromus and
want to give us a Chance Because i had work to hard to Loss all of thj
money i have payed on this home and if you Pleas dont Let them take i
awayfromus please sir Because if you are a Child of God you will help u
out m our [illegiblej and i thought it was against the Law to take folks hom
now since this N.R.A. come out and Please Mr Roosevelt dont Let ther
take our home awayfromus Please sir Because i I have spent a of m
D
money on this home and now they want to take it awayfromus and I wa
told to nte to you for help and i would get it and i gotfaithin you and th.
Lord together that you will help us in our trouble and answer soon Pleas s
from Mr. and Mrs. G. M.
fort worth Texas
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any older Americans had worked hard all their lives, expecting
to reap some benefits when they reached their last years.
Such people were understandably bitter when the Depression
prevented them from enjoying what they believed they had
coming to them. Desperation forced many of the aged to seek help; the
traditional status of society's elders justified a demand for govemment
assistance.
A sigmficant portion of the American population above the age of sixty
was attracted to the Townsend Plan. The passage of the Social Security Act
in 1935 satisfied some, but by no means all, of the older people who had
called for assistance.
Sickness, like age, was made more difficult by the Depression. As one of
the letters below suggests, poverty could cause illness as well as make it
harder to conquer. The loss of one's job or home could trigger psychological and physical disorders.
Depression era doctors and pharmacists appear to have been more
understanding than many of their modern counterparts when patients were
unable to pay their bills. Still, credit was not unlimited and one of the
greatest fears of the aged and the sick was that poverty would prevent
themfromobtaining necessary treatment and medication.
The Social Security Act notwithstanding, the old who were also sick and
poor seem to have been justified in numbering themselves among the
forgotten men and women of the Depression.
1
56. What are we to do since the calamity has swept our all away?
Lincoln Nebraska.
May 19/ 34.
Mrs Franklin D. Roosevelt
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mrs Roosevelt;
Will you be kind enough to read the Mowing as it deals with a very important subject which you are very much interested in as well as my sell
In the Presidents inaugral adresa deliveredfromthe capitol steps the
afternoon of his inaugration he made mention of The Forgotten Man, and I
with thousands of others am wondering if the folk who was borned here in
America some 60 or 70 years a go are this Forgotten Man, the President
had in mind, if we are this Forgotten Man then we are still Forgotten.
We who have tried to be diligent in our support of this most wonderful
121006/013
�98 Conditions of Life in the Thirties
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nation of ours boath social and other wise, we in our younger days tried to
do our duty without complaining.
W have helped to pay pensions to veterans of some three wars, we have
e
raised the present young generation and have tried to train them to honor
and support this our home country.
And now a great calamity has come upon us and seamingly no cause of our
own it has swept away what Kttle savings we had accumulated and we are
left in a condition that is imposibleforus to correct, for two very prominent
reasons if no more.
First we have grown to what is ternied Old Age, this befalls every man.
Second as we put fourth every effort in our various business lines trying
to rectify andreestablishour selves we are confronted on every hand with
the young generation, taking our places, this of corse is what we have looked
forward to in training our children. But with the extra ordinary crisese which
left us helpless and placed us in the position that ourfathersdid not have to
contend with.
Seamingly every body has been assisted but we the Forgotten Man, and
since we for 60 years or more have tried to carry the load without complaining, we have paid others pensions we have educated and trained the
youth, now as we are Old and down and out of no reason of our own, would
it be asking to much of our Coverment and the young generation to do by us
as we have tried our best to do by them even without complaint.
W have been honorable citizens all along our journey, calamity and old
e
age hasforcedits self upon us please donot send us to the Poor Farm but
instead allow us the small pension of $40.00 per month and we will do as we
have done in the pastfootcomplain)
I personly Know of Widows who are no older than I am who own their
own homes and draw $45,00 per month pension, these ladies were born this
aide of the civil war tbe same as I, therefore they never experianced war
trouble.
Please donot think of us who are asking this assistsnce as Old Broken
down dishonorable cotizens, but we are of those borned in this country and
have done our bit in making this country, we arefolkin all walks of life and
businesse,
For example 1 am an architect and builder 1 am not and old broken down
illiterate dishonorable man although I am 69 years old, but as I put forth
every effort to regain my prestage in business I am confronted on every side
by the young generation taking my place, yes this is also the case even in the
effort of the govemment with its recovery plan, even though I am qualifyed
To Be Old, Sick, and Poor 99
to suprentend any class of constmction but the young man has captured this
place also.
What are we to do since the calamity has swept our all away, ? W are just
e
asking to be remembered with a small part as we have done to others
$40,00 a month is all we are asking.
Mrs. Roosevelt I am asking a personal favor of you as it seems to be
the only means through which I may be able to reach the President, some
evening very soon, as you and Mr. Roosevelt are having dinner together
privately will you ask him to read this, and we American citizens will ever
remember your kindness.
Yours very truly.
R. A. [male]
57. There is nothing sadder than old people who have struggled
hard all their lives . . . to be forgotten
[Akron, Ohio
Febniary 1936)
My Dear Mrs RoosevelL
1 thought 1 would write a letter hoping you wouldfindtime lo read it, and
if you thought it was worth while answering it, I would be glad of any advise
you would care to give me. A few weeks ago, 1 heard your talk over the air,
on the subject of the Old age pension, and I got to thinking what a blessing it
would be to my mother, if it was possibleforher to receive that pension, if
the bill should pass. My mother has been in this country since April 1914 but
she has never made herself a American Citizen, as she was sixty years old
when she came here, and now she is eighty.
Mother come out to this country nineteen years ago [from Scotland). . . .
1 thought as long as 1 lived there was no need to worry about her being
taken care of, but 1 never dreamed of a depression like we have had well it
has changed the whole course of our lives we have suffered, and no one
knowes but our own family, I have two children one nineteen, graduated
from high school last June, and the girl graduates this coming June, and we
have had the awfullest time trying to get the bare necessary things in life.
I am in no position to do therightthingformother, I cant give her anything but her living but I thought if it was possible for her to get lhat pension
it would be like a giftfromheaven, as in all the years she has been in this
country she has never had a dollar of her own.
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100 Conditions of Life in the Thirties
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I wish she could get it her days may not be long on this earth, and if she
just had a little money coming once in a while, to make her feel independent
of herfemily,I at least would know that if anything happened to me she could
get a living, and not have to go back to the rest of her family, because she
says she would rather go to a poor house, than live with any of the others.
Mrs Roosevelt you might think I have lots of nerve writing to you when
you have so much to attend to but I could not help admiring you for the
splended way you talked about the old people of this nation I feel sorry for
all of them, they seem to be forgotten, and most young people think they
have had there day and should be glad to die. but this is not my idea, I think
that their last few years should be made as plesent for thera as it is possible,
I know that if it was in my power to make my mother happy by giving her
what she justly deservs, I would gladly do so. Well whither my mother ever
gets anything or not, I hope a the other old people that is intilted to it gets
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it soon, because there is nothing sadder than old people who have struggled
hard a there lives to give there family a start in life, then to be forgotten,
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when they them self need it most.
I will finish now but befor I do I want to thank you Mrs Roosevelt and also
Mr Roosevelt for the good both of you are doing for this country you have
gave people new hope and every real American hasfaithin you and may you
both be spared to carry on the good work and lead this nation on to victory.
Yours RespectfuDy,
MrsJ. S.
Akron, Ohio.
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58. If I could have a small pinsion each month
so we would not starve
To Be Old, Sick, and Poor 101
think both you and the big boss meaning our President wiU understand:
Thank you address—
Mrs. E. R.
Mancelona
Michigan
59.1 helped so many out but it seems now that I am in the
grattes trouble no=body wiU help me
ElKader Iowa Sep the
11
1934.
Mr. FranKlin Roosevelt
Dear President Roosevelt
I am in a terrible perdicament So I thought of you to send my plea of Rouble
to you because 1 drempt the other night that 1 Should write to you thmkmg
that may=be I could get Some helpfromyou as long as no one els wiU help
me out I am an old woman Seventy two years old and an invalid that JS the
worst of it I can't get around at all. I bin Sitting in a chair for years already if I
aro not in bed 1 can't walk alone atall So that makes it pretty hard fore me to
be put out of my home the one I worked so hard for over forty-Six years. So
please help me Some way or I will half to Sine my last bit away if I could only
raise thirteen Hundred Dollars than 1 could Stay in my home Oh. So please
help me Mr. Roosevelt and answer right away or els it wiD be to late if I ever
getonto my feet I Sure will try and pay you bacK. 1 helped So many out brt
it Seems now that I am in the grattes trouble no=body wJI help me So
please Mr. Roosevelt help me Sincerly Mrs. A. M. U.
CS
Mancelona, Mich
Aug 61934
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Dear Mrs Roosevelt
I am writing to you to ask you to help me and my old Father to live I am in
a farm which he owns and bas planted orfarmeda he was able to do we
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havnt any stock nothing to feed them untill his com is through growing we
have a fuw chickens this is what I would like to ask of you and the President if I could have a small pinsion each month so we would not starve my
father is seventy sui to old to work at the Antriim Co furnace I cant go
away and leave him alone to bok for work and to stay here in such poverty I
am so disturbed trying to know what to do I could write more of this but I
60.1 only wish President Roosvelt only node what of cind of a
shape the old pele were in
INovember 19341
excuse Bad handriteand Bad paper please Dont let this go to the West
Basket in tiD read
Mrs roosevelt
president wife i though i would Drop you a few lins Mrs roosvelt you
Seem to Bee a kind harted womenfromthe reeden of the papers i would
like to talk to to let you know how things is goning heir my husBen is 68
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21fi The "Foisotten Man" Look* at RooaeveJt
"Our Savior" 219
Thus, we desire to give voice to our sincere gratitude and thanhs to
Senate and the House for their actions, their promptoess in passing the
biDs. Vfe are sincerely proud ol our oourageous President and the splendid
men in his Cabinet and Congress.
HnmMy, but with gratefid hearts we than]. Godtorraisingin our hour of
need, a /earless leader and a oourageous staft Asking God's guidance and
protection for Mr. Roosew*. his Cabinet and Congress. Mfe have the honor
to remain
TO; shall continue to ask ota heavenly Father to guide and guard him in his
great task as leader ol the great American people.
With a good wishesforyou and yourfinefamily I am your most sincerely
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Mrs. L K. S.
160.fourjust big andfineenough to be the wife
of our bebved president
Yours very truly,
I. R. H. and friends.
Brooklyn, N.y.
(Ridley Park, FennsytvaJiia]
9/1/34
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt
1 was deSgbded but I dont believe I was very much surprised when I received your letter. Just lo bok at your picture and that of our President
seems to me Hie looking at the picture ol a saint So when you answered ray
letter and promised to have some one help me it only proved you are our
own Mrs Roosevelt I have told everyone what you done (or me. I want
them to know you are not too busy to answer our letters md gfve us what
hdp and advice you can you hold the highest place any woman can hold
still you are not to proud to befriend the poorer class, well your just and
fine enough to be the wife of our beloved president Thank you and God
bless you both.
Respctfull
M. M. [female]
159. Wfe aU feel if there ever was a saint. He is one
Cedarburg, Wis.
IO A.M. Mar. 5. 1934
43
Mrs. FD. Roosevelt
TCishingtonD.C.
My dear Frieni
Just listened to the address given by your dear husband, our wonderful
President Owing the presidential campaign of 1932 we had in our home a
darling Uttle giri. three years old. My husband + I were great admirers ol
the Dem. candidate and so Dolores had to listen to much talk about the great
man who we hoped and prayed would be our next Pres. We are Lutherans
and she B a CatboBc so youll get quite a thrill out of what Fm to teQ you
now. That fall Judge Karel ol Mil. sent me afinepicture of our beloved
President, which I placed in our Public Library. When I received this line
pictureraydear mother (who has since been called Home) said Lo Dolores
"Who is this man? - and Dolores answered wfthout any hesitation "Why who
else, but Saint Roosevelt I" The old saying goes fools and children often teD
the truth and indeed we allfeeltf there ever was a Saint He is one. As long
as Pres. Koosevelt will he our leader under Jesus Christ we feel nofear.His
speech this moming showed he feels for the "least of these" I am enclosing a snap shot of tbe dear little girl who acclaimed our President a Saint
and rightly so.
161. No greater man, ever lived
flfaberbury
Conn.
[November 1936]
My Dear Mrs. Roosevelt,
I know you are tbe happiest woman, in the world today, after President
Roosevelt's marvelous victory. I was confident of his victory. God, was
good in sparing him to us for another term. Mo greater man, ever lived. I
hope yon save him that little picture of Ste. Anne I sent him in your care. I
shaD begin, a nine day novena, in honor of Ste. Anne, for the cure of the
President's paralysis. Have him apply the picture of Ste. Anne to his legs
each day (rf my novena. which I shall begin, Sunday Nov. 8. 1936. If be
Pm sure Pres. Roosevelt had a great day on Feb. 16, tbe world day of
prayer, when many hearts were Bfted in prayer for hin all over this great
land of ours.
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"Our Savior" 221
220 Tbe "Forgotten Man" Looks at Roosevelt
is cured, wiD you both in return, bring his cane, to the Great Shrine, at
Ste. Anne de Beaupre, in thanksgiving to this great Sainte, and do me the
tumor of your photo, and the President's. In return to this great Sainte, if
she answers my prayers, I shall erect an altar, in my home, and pay her
honor on tbe day of her great Feast, which is July 26, for ten years. This is
how much happiness, I wish President Roosevelt, and his lovely wife for all
they have done. 1 know you inspired lum to great deeds, as only a wonderful
woman aa the President's wife coufd.
With Best Wishes
From a sincere
and humble heart
A. P. (femalel
162. When he spoke it seems as though some Moses had come
to alleviated us of our sufferings
Nov 25, 1934
Arkansas City, Kansas
;
Mr*. Eleanor Hoosevelt
White House
Wasfamgton, D.C.
Dear Madam:
I beg to inform you that 1 have been reading ynur writings in the Wichita
Beacon and I must say that the whole nation should be enthused over them.
I especially was carried away with the one on Old Age Pensions. It bought
my mind back to the day of the Chicago Convention, when Mr. Roosevelt
was nominated for the presidency.
In our Ihtle borne in Arkansas City, my family and I were sitting around
tbe radio, to hear and we beard you when you Sew over from N.Y. and
entered the great hal and when he spoke it seems as though some Moses
had come to alleviated us of our sufferings. Strange to say when he was
speaking to see the moisten eyes and the deepfeelingof emotions that gave
vent to bis every word and when you spoke then we knew that the white
bouse would be filled with a real niother to the nation.
I am, or g[ad to say bi this thought you have not failed us, you have visited
the shims, the farms and homes of your people, and formed first handed
ideas for their benefits. Oh what a blessing while you have always had a
silver spoon in j-our own mouth you have not failed to try and place one in
every maath in the land and when I read in the Beacon your brilliant ideas ol
the O Age Pensions. You said the only thing taking was the way to do i t
W
So 1 said the first lady is seeking a way to help us and so let us help her to
find i t . . .
Dear Madam, I am afraid to write more to you at this time as this is my
first letter to the lady of the land as the others did not seem to be interested
cn the weihre of the people. Wife and 1 pray oontiiiually to Godforyour success. Every time the news boy hollers Extra our hearts are fiBed with fear
that something has happened to the president, but as we go marching on to
higher hills of prosperity through the new deal we are hoping and working to
that point that aS will be w e l But one thing I was just about toforgetI think
that the home bidlding prograin should be furnished means foi back taxes
included for repairs and etc As many places are handicapped to get loans
from government on account of being back taxes. Our heart in hand is ever
with you and the Pres. to carry on.
Respectfuly Yours
P. F. A. [male]
163.1 do think you and tbe president is the
mother and father of this great USA
Tbledo Ohio
Feb 11-1936
Dear Mother
Of the Greatest country on god earth allso the fattier of the greatest I am
one of the least and hope I am Doing Sight and truely mean no Wrong By
Writeing these few hne I am just a voter But I Dont mean any thing all
that much But Just the same 1 am saying this I think the President is Doing
aUght But what a Pull Back be have got so many voteforhim and do Difference when it com to suportbg him f would call you som other Big Name
But thar is No other Name More Better than Mother and I Do think you
and the President is the Mather and father of this Great USA WeU this is
What I Want to say Wauld it hurt to Do a Sale mvestrgating lot of the People
is Kicking about any and every thing the father of tbe house hold is Done
Well far as 1 can see the Middle class is trying to Poison the Mind of the
lower class Making it as tough as they can without you noing it althou Otis
May be so sroaD that you may Not Pay it No Mind But little thing som time
like that help a l o t . . .
fAnonymousJ
�224 The "Forgotten Man" Looks at Roosevelt
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'Our Savior" 225
o
167. You sure have been good to the Poor
Oliver Spring, Tenn.
April 25, 1936.
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
V&shingtonD.C.
Dear President.
We are just getting ninteen Dollars $19 a month in Morgan County and if it
f
rains us out they wont Pay usforus les we make it up and we cant make a
living at that
All of the working men are for you. for you sure have been good to the
Poor and help us out, and we sure do aprishate your kindness
With best wishes
J.B.
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168. What wonderful man you have been
Cambridge June 22 1936
Your honorable Mr Roosevelt
I am taking Privilage to write to you about these close the Poor should
get you are so kind to send them for us we dont get them thefirehouse
Cambridge at Inman St where the give out the dose the have womon In
charge her name Is miss Curisken she fits with the Poor if the ask her for
any the way she give them out Is no good If you number doot come out
on the wall + It never comes
It seems to bad your so kind to the Poor I hope god will reward In
heaven this women Is giving these dose Is no good
you send the stuff to Poor but we dont get It I am hopping you will draw
there attion to I Pray for you night + day what wonderful man you have
been I will always vote for you so will say good by
God Bless you
[Anonymous]
169.1 know you are a wonderful man
Ansonia, Ct.
[May 1936]
To our ['resident Roosevelt,
I wonder if you realize the damage you are doing to your re-election by
cutting off the relief of the W. P. A.. Mr. Roosevelt if you knew how hard it is
for us to live on $15. per week. But to get nothing at all. My God) It is awfuL
If you have to cut down, why not cut office force and all. It would be far
cheaper to give every unemployed $15. a week. The work you are doing is
beautiful but what a useless cost it is to the Govt. What the people need is
food, dothing and shelter. Mr. Roosevelt, I know you are a wonderful man,
you took the power in your own hands once, why not do it again. Why? there
isent anything you cant do if left by yourself. You are the only President who
ever gave a thought to the poor. Now you know what your Democrats are
up against here. Oh. Mr. Roosevelt please see that our husbands are hired
back again. When an American looks for relief he is told he does not need it.
Our Mayor called us people on relief "Beggars."
But For Gods Sake, don't give the money to the States because then we
will not get any reKef and don't let them damned bounders (investigators)
hounding us good Americans be hired again god will surely bless you if you
hire our husbands back again W.P.A.
Mr. Roosevelt, only Americans and Democrats were laid off. You are playing
in to the G.O.P. hands. The G.O.P. paid $3, 5, 8 to foreigners to vote for
them. They are glad you laid off WPA. because they will get more votes
they won't have to buy. That how the G.O.P. does, tum one democrat
against each other then they will get that vote.
[Anonymous]
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"Our Savior" 227
226 The "Forgotten Man" Looks at Roosevelt
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170. But God, I think, made Franklin D.
Cleveland, Ohio
February 19, 1936.
The President of the United States,
Wwhington, D. C ,
Dear Sir;
"I THINK THAT WE SHALL NEVER SEE
A PRESIDENT LIKE UNTO THEE.
A MAN WHO HUNGRY MOUTHS HATH BLESSED,
UPON THIS EARTHS SWEET FLOWING BREAST.
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A MAN WHO LOOKS TO GOD EACH DAY,
AND LIFTS HIS TIRED ARMS TO PRAY.
IN WINTER AND IN SUMMER WEARS
A SMILE, THOUGH NUMEROUS HIS CARES.
UPON WHOSE BOSOM SORROWS LAIN,
WHO INTIMATELY LIVES WITH PAIN.
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POEMS ARE MADE BY FOOLS LIKE ME,
BUT GOD. I THINK, MADE FRANKLIN D."
Most sincerely yours,
W. P. A. worker 81058,
Cleveland, Ohio.
P.S.
Lestfriendsshould say. "He seeketh fame."
Fll send this off without my name.
172. No other president ever had it so hard
1
171.1 do hope you will ask our dear president to divide up
the wealth as soon as possible
cs
CM
things that my husband and I are anxious to get our share. My husband says
that President Roosevelt got a mandatefromthe people at election to redistribute wealth. He says the common people have woken up, and are not
going to be slaves any more to keep the Duponts and Rockefellers and
Morgana in luxury. And he says, too, that the mass of the people are not
going to be satisfied with any 'increases in wages or bonuses. They demand
their share, and they are going to get it, or they wiD give the multimillionaires a bloody revolution. Our neighbor, who is a Republican, says that
President Roosevelt was just "conning" the people with his radical promises
in order to get elected. He says that all your family care about is money and
their actions show it. He asked my husband what he thought about your son
getting engaged to the Dupont girl right after election, and showing his contemptforthe common people who voted for your husband. He, also, askec
my husband what he thought of your son-in-law begging a jobfromHearst.
Both Dupont and Hearst did a they could to beat President Roosevelt al
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the election. My husband said that he had to admit that your son and son-inlaw were two despicable and contemptible men, but that he was sure th«
President would not tum traitor to the people and let his name go down ic
history with that of Benedict Arnold I think my husband is absolutely right
We have been in this cotmtry for four generations. We are entitled to oui
home, and money for our children just the same as the Rockefellers, Duponts and Morgans. Yes, and we are entitled to have just as much money as
they have got. My husband says that anyone who trifles with the people al
this time had better be careful He says the old order of slavery has gone,
and the people are going to work to pile up wealth for others. I am sure 1
don't know as much about it as he does. But I do hope you will ask our deai
President to divide up the wealth as soon as possible.
Yours very truly
Mrs. M. B.
New York, Dec. 3. 1936
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt:
I do hope our dear President will come home very soon, and start to
divide among the people of this country tbe billions of dollars of the Duponts,
Rockefellers, Morgans, and their kind. My children need so many little
Colorado Springs, Colo.
August 16—1937.
Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt,
White House,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt:—I am writting to you in regard to Our President
About that third term. It would mean chaos if he did not again be President
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228 The "Forgotten Man" Looks at Roosevelt
It looks thatfortis at the foot of the ladder just another depression. This one
so deep.—That our "Master" would have to come, and take us home. Do
have President Roosevelt reconsider.
No other President ever had it so hard. There were others to go on But
this time. — Who?—
The W.P.A. nurses across the street on S. ^satch Ave., come three
times a week and bathe me. I am a cripple. So I am hoping that Franklyn D.
Roosevelt will be our next President
Sincerely
Mrs. F. B. S.
173. Our sons will never be sent to them foreign war mad
countryes as long as President Roosevelt stays in office
Orangeburg S C
March 12 1936
Mrs Franklin D Roosevelt
Dear friend I take this means of having a little talk with you a bout the
situation of our country and its Progress when President Roosevelt taken
the office as President the People of this country was most of them on starvation with no work to do to Provide eny thing for them Selves and meny
that was not yet on starvation was rite too it of which class we was one I
am 66 years old a mother of 9 children and we are all getting work enough
now to provide us afairliving and ever body down hear mostly is getting
work and Business seems to be 100 percent better now than it was 3 years
a go for which this country gives our President and his faithful work honor
and the mothers of this state is doing ever thing tha can through our clubs
and eny other way we can for his reelection we feel that he has Brought us
out of a great depression and will continue to keep us going for fteace and
Prosperity we as mothers feel that our sons will never be sent to them
foreign war mad countryes as long as President Roosevelt stays in office it
made our harts regoice when we read his Pledge he made to stay out of the
entanglements of war with our countryes asferas he Posible could for we
no that by gods help all Powr over our country lyes in his hands no matter
what them felloes in Congress does so let us Pray for America to remain at
Peace and for god to direct our President in the way for Peace and prosperity for our country no mother wants to see her son sent to war . . .
Pleas excuse this Plain little letter as I have only a scant education
�Apr-29-97
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706-655-5872
:
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Fifty Years After
B Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
y
Co-Chair, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
the test of our social wisdom and of our human decency. And it should be the prescription not alone of
sound liberalism but also of prudent conservatism.
FDR was a great President because of his instinct
for the deeper currents of history. The world we live
in today is Franklin Roosevelt's world. O f the figures
who, for good or for evil, bestrode the world half a
century ago, he would be the least surprised by the
shape of things at the end of the century.
Problems change, but the spirit in which we tackle
our problems abides. The spirit of FD R - that exuberant confidence in affirmative democratic government, that unremitting concern for the average man,
woman and child, that unfaltering dedication to individual freedom, that joy in the battle against entrenched and selfish privilege, that ringing declaration that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself —
that spirit remains a natural resource on which the
whole world can draw.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President when
the Great Depression seemed to verify Karl Marx's
prediction that capitalism would be destroyed by its
own contradictions. Hitler and Mussolini cried that
democracy was finished. The totalitarian creeds
were rising as self-proclaimed successors. FDR
never gave up on the democratic capitalist order.
Democratic capitalism triumphed because of
Franklin Roosevelt's campaign to humanize the industrial order, to cushion the operations of the economic system, to combine individual opportunity
with social responsibility — a campaign, it must be
added, resisted at every step along the way by the
special interests of wealth and vested privilege.
It is hard to imagine a more foolish course then or
now than a class war pursued by an economic establishment against the poor and powerless. We would
be better off to recall FDR's remark in his second inaugural: "The test of our progress is not whether we
add more to the abundance of those who have much;
it is whether we provide enough for those who have
little." This is not only the test of our progress. It is
In that spirit let us march confidently into the new
century that awaits us.
71
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The Four Freedoms
B William J. vanden Heuvel
y
President, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
Franklin Roosevelt loved Warm Springs, the beauty
of its countryside, the gentle kindness of this great
State. On this day of remembrance, Americans
thank Georgia and its people for what they gave to
him. Stricken with infantile paralysis at the age of 39,
Franklin Roosevelt never walked again unassisted.
Here in Warm Springs he learned to move, to stand,
to rely upon the strength of others —never to give in
to self-pity or despair. In the spirit of Warm Springs,
he found his soul. We remember that proud and
painful journey today.
events in human destiny." Until "the Future dares
forget the Past," Franklin Roosevelt's fate and fame
shall be an echo and a light into eternity.
Onjanuary 6, 1941, President Roosevelt went before the Congress and defined the Four Freedoms as
the fundamental charter of democracy. These many
years later, we have the chance for a different, a better world. This is the moment for which Franklin
Roosevelt labored. Never have the Four Freedoms
been more relevant.
Freedom of Speech, the best defense against the
corruption of democracy;
He led America out of the worst economic depression we have ever known — he replaced fear with
faith. He made government the affirmative instrument of social justice for all of our people. We remember that legacy today.
He made America the Arsenal of Democracy and
crafted the victorious alliance that won the most terrible war in history. Victory to Franklin Roosevelt
meant creating the United Nations as an instrument
to end aggression through collective security, to extend the opportunity of peace and prosperity to all
people - everywhere in the world. We remember
that vision today.
Freedom of Worship, our shield against the forces
of bigotry, intolerance and fanaticism;
Freedom from Want, so that hunger, poverty and
pestilence can be erased from the earth;
Freedom from Fear, calling for international institutions and agreements that will keep the peace,
control armaments, prevent aggression, accept the
Rule of Law, and assure social justice.
We hear that memorable voice as Franklin Delano
Roosevelt spoke to the Congress in 1941:
In the future days, which we seek lo make secure
we look forward to a world founded upon four
essential human freedoms.
Winston Churchill said that President Roosevelt's
life "must be regarded as one of the commanding
93
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Thefirstis freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want - which, trans
lated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy
peacetime life for its inhabitants - everywhere in the
world.
The fourth is freedom from fear - which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to
commit an act of physical aggression against any
neighbor - anywhere in the world.
706-655-5872
P. 02
"That is no vision of a distant millennium," he
concluded. "It is the basis of a world attainable in our
own time and generation."
Let us then proceed, renewed in resolve and courage in this time and place, to the fulfillment of that
great task.
The citizens we honor today accepted that great
challenge. In recalling their achievements, we rejoice in the strength of the Republic. They are, each
of them, heroes of freedom.
It is my honor and privilege to bestow the
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Four Freedoms Medals.
94
�To: Mike
From. Dad
Re FDR
Some of my thoughts regarding the speech at the FDR dedication - These are just random
thoughts and ideas that might suggest some things to you (or may not):
Although many Americans today do not remember FDR, we have heard so much about
him from our parents and our grandparents and what he meant to them Even for those of
us today who never heard his great voice and his stirring words, because of what he did
and how he changed this country by proving that government can serve the people Americans today are all his children.
Contrasts:
Although he spent much of his time in a wheelchair, to the Americans of that era he
seemed to move among them, to understand their problems, to be their friend.
He came from privilege, yet he understood the needs and the problems of those who
suffered, of those in need, of all Americans
Other thoughts:
He changed America - he showed that government was there, not to rule the people, but
to help the people to help themselves. He understood that sometimes problems were vast
and impossible for individual citizens to solve on their own. He believed that, when that
happened, government had the duty and responsibility to see that Americans were given
the opportunity for the pursuit of happiness our forefathers promised
From the dust bowl to the cities, he changed whole regions of the country, helping to
irrigate the dry plains, bringing electrical power to vast new regions of the country, most
of all restoring dignity and opportunity to those who thought that all was lost.
Yes, FDR helped to electrify the farms, but he also electrified the nation in a different
way - with his personality and his cheerfulness and optimism that helped to raise a nation
from the depths of depression.
Americans today may not remember the severe economic swings that continually
threatened the well-being of our citizens. FDR created a structure that still protects
against those swings, that guards our people against those who would abuse our
economic system, and protects Americans against the ravages of unemployment and the
uncertainties of old age.
�Wartime and Sacrifice
FDR inspired and challenged Americans to work and to sacrifice and to mobilize against
the greatest totalitarian threat of modern times Men and women , all races and religions,
going to war working on the assembly lines... serving in civil defense, in volunteer
activities, in a great effort demonstrating that Americans , young and old ,could work
together for the common good.
(Images of children collecting scrap ration books for food and gasoline . . . war bond
drives., .etc.)
1
1
FDR and the ZO ' Century
There are still many who remember FDR's smile and his cheerfulness and his words that
raised the spirit and the determination of America in two great crises - the Great
Depression and World War 11. For those who remember that smile and those words and
his superb leadership and what he created for us today — for all of us-- he stands astride
the 20"' Century like a great colossus, a colossus representing the decency and greatness
of America. As we approach the 21"' century, with its new challenges and new
opportunities, FDR's optimism, his creativity and his great spirit serve as a guide and an
inspiration - to those of us who seek to effectively represent and serve our citizens, — to
all Americans, young and old, and to the generations to come .
Rendezvous with Destiny*
FDR spoke about his generation of Americans having a "rendezvous with destiny." His
own destiny was a rendezvous with greatness, a greatness that may never be surpassed.
[•Franklin D. Roosevelt, speech. Democratic National Convention, June, 1936: "There is
a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of others much
is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."]
�AM-'ill
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SHRUM DEVINE DONILON
2141 Wisconsin Avenue NW • Suite H • Washington, DC 20007
Phone 202-337-9600 • Fax 202-337-9620
Internet sdevd@aoLconi
FAX COVER SHEET
1*4
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TO: f^lre ta* I
DATE:
PAGES (following cover):
COMMENTS:
UJalaiMa*
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�m out
FDR Memorial
Today, wc not only dedicate a memorial, but we rededicate ourselves to the hopes
and ideals that are living legacy of Franklin Roosevelt.
r
S
I This is a living memorial, truetojkeiii£presirtbl& P^^ uf thc-ma^j- memories of
one olthe most fateful periods in our history, and moments of reflection, of the green
spaces and the waters that symbolize the landfromwhich he drew so much of his
strength and which he spoke of near the end of his days: "All that is within me aches to
go back to my home on the Hudson."
But he was, as he also said, "enlisted for the duration " - as much as any GI on the
Rhine or Okinawa.
He stood astride an entire era as few ever have. Hestirred great controversy
because he disturbed things as they were. But in th^fterglo^y of more than half a
century, how dearly we see him now. He was, quite simply, one of the greatest leaders of
our land and of all lands, of our histoiy and of all histoiy.
Here, at this memorial, we follow his remarkable leadership again, as the nation
and the world once did,fromthe breadlines of the Depression to thefrontlines of World
War II. Here we see again the gallant man who in the darkest of hours fought to free
Americafromfear. Here we see his brave struggle, atfirstin the face offierceopposition
at home, tofreehumanityfroma long dark night of Fascist tyranny.
And here we will soon see Franklin Roosevelt as he was for all his Presidency —
in his wheelchair. Only a decade before he became President, he was stricken down by
polio and spent days and weeks learning to crawl across a room^fteft? ffom that
Cue
wheelchair, and with a few halting steps leaning on his son's arms and on a cane, he lifted
a great people back to their feet and set America to march again towards its destiny^He
�ity u u j
started another march as well - the March of Dimes - and every year on his birthday,
school children across the nation mobilized and collected funds to cure polio. His fellow
citizens seldom saw his disability, but they knew of it He proved that a disability did not
have to be disabling - and gave heart to millions who faced prejudice because of their
physical condition, or their race, or any other circumstance of their lives. From the
summit, he beckoned others to reach high.
And standing with him on that mountaintop was Eleanor Roosevelt - the First
Lady not of one Administration, but of all American history. He said she was his eyes
and ears, going places he could not go to see things as they actually were. But she was
also his conscience and the nation's. When others complained about her, he threw back
his great leonine head and laughed. She was often ahead of him in seeking the America
that could be - and that's exactly where both of them wanted her to be. In the years after
he was lost, she became the First Lady of the world. How appropriate it is that her statue
stands here too — for in the truest sense, this is both the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt
Memorial. He would be thefirstto say that as much as both of them did, there was and is
more to do to make America live up to the full meaning of its creed. But I believe that in
many ways, and in large measure, the modem crusade to liberate this nation from
intolerance and inequality began with this out spoken, path-breaking woman and this
patrician man who dared to greet the Daughters of the American Revolution as "my
fellow immigrants."
I have often wondered why a President who died three years before I was bom has
always seemed so vivid a presence to me. Part of it is that no one who sits in the Oval
Office can be unmindful of him; there is hardly an issue I touch that does not bear his
imprint. And of course, he was the politician's politician. I can testify that being elected
President twice is hard enough; four times is almost beyond belief.
But the feeling goes deeper than that. Ifirstheard of Franklin Roosevelt when 1
was a boy and my mother talked of him almost as a personal friend. She never met him;
�' " - ' i l l
L.'-'l
she knew him mostlyfromthe radio - which wasn't really his platform because he never
really spoke at people. He spoke with them, one on one, tens of millions at a time. In
homes everywhere, families turned instinctively to him and tuned the radio dial to his
voice at the most difficult times. He might be far away, in the highest office - but he was
also their neighbor - and his "little dog Fala" was their dog too.
He was thefirstAmerican President who truly could be called the most powerful
man in the world. But for my mother and so many others, he was more than anything
else an extraordinary man who cared greatly, who listened and who used his great power
tofightfor ordinary people. He could send vast armies into battle, but he would take the
time to wipe the tearsfromthe face of a hungry child. He made America a place called
hope.
That would be more than enough to eam him a place in the American pantheon.
What gives him pride of place - in our histoiy and on this mall - is that like Washington,
Jefferson and Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt is timeless. As long as this nation lasts, and as
long asfreemen and women strive for a better life, he will be a guiding star.
The future we inhabit is an inheritancefromhim - but so also, in so many
decisive ways, is the future he summoned us to seek!] His work was intentionally
unfinished; it was not merely a set of bills and programs, as unprecedented as they were;
it was above all else a vision and a set of challenges^ Franklin Roosevelt envisioned four
futures for America - each of which he pursued with "unbounded determination" - and
all of which are now our responsibility and the responsibility of each succeeding
generation.
First, he summoned us to a future of prosperity - in which an active, purposeful,
national government has a critical role to play. He denounced "hear-nothing, seenothing, do-nothing" govemment that said Depression, recession, and economic
problems had to be left alone, to work themselves out. This was the dominant laissezfaire economics of his era. He rebelled against it. And today, even the descendants of his
�conservative opponents advocate the use of national economic policy as a powerful
instrument of growth and opportunity. Ronald Reagan as well as John Kennedy called
for tax cuts to stimulate the economy. We may debate which specific policies, but no one
doubts that we should have one.
Franklin Roosevelt would have welcomed that debate - for his purpose was
never to repeat the tried, the tired, and the outworn - but "bold, persistent
experimentation" to chart new courses in a changing world. He did not seek to restore
the economy of the 1920's; he believed business, labor and govemment all had to think
and act anew.
He led us through a great economic transition. Now we are passing through
another one, mindful of his insistence that we cannot cling to the past. We must accept
change, not shrinkfromit;|afreesociety must purposefully chart a course to a new
prosperity. ^This will happen again and again and again in our history. Each generation
has a rendezvous with its own reality - and Franklin Roosevelt taught us that no
generation can master its moment by standing aside or attempting to roll back the tide.
Second, he summoned us to a future of justice - in which all our people can have
a share and a chance to move ahead. From the minimum wage to protection for hard
earned savings, the list of his reforms defines the landscape of modem America. Many of
them are still issues today - and much of what he began is still unfinished. But no one
would dare to undo what he accomplished - and we, in our own way and era, must
continue his journey of justice,fromday care for working families to health care for
children.
Here, too, he knew that change would come. He understood and even celebrated
the difference between the essence of an idea and the details. We must not forget that as
we make the hard decisions to strengthen basic guarantees like Medicare and Social
Security.
�4^1 ovo
He would have been thefirstto grasp that in the 1990s, mind is the muscle of our
new economy - and that education is the path to economic justice. Today, the classroom
is the great arsenal of American democracy.
He believed in work, not dependence - in offering people an opportunity to earn a
better life. As we pursue that belief, we must make sure that the jobs are there - and we
must never let this change become cold, or indifferent, or an excuse to blame the new and
the poor among us.
He believed that progress comes not byfightingover what we already have, but
by expanding the pie and sharing the gains. Economic growth and economic justice go
hand in hand; in the end, we cannot have one without the other.
Third, he summoned us to a global future - to active involvement in a world
where even a continental nation could no longer exist as an island entire to itself. He was
an idealist about America's mission overseas; but to him, this was also a matter of
profound self-interest.
Her saw the new world coming long before the clouds of World War II were
visible. The Good Neighbor Policy and the Reciprocal Trade Act of 1934 were the
forerunners of NAFTA in 1994. He broke the protectionist barrier - and took historic
steps towardfreetrade.
When America was truly the last, best hope of earth, he saw what was at stake,
and led the nation both to victory in war and to a refusal to retreat again in peace. In
1940, he traveled through U-boat infested waters to meet with that other courageous
soldier offreedom,Winston Churchill ~ and at theirfirstconference, they wrote the
Atlantic Charter, declaring the United Nations and laying down the principles of
collective security.
�4iJ u u ;
Today, as then, we are the world's indispensable nation. The temptation to
isolation is still there, but it is far weaker - and we must resist it. If Franklin Roosevelt
could advance Lend Lease when Britain • vas embattled and the outcome was in doubt,
then surely we can and must commit ourselves to strengthen the United Nations and
expand NATO at a time when the great question, thank God, is not how we win a world
war, but how we build a world peace.
Finally, Franklin Roosevelt summoned us to a future of practical idealism - to the
view that we must not onlyfightfor prin:iple, butfindpractical ways to win. He was
proudly pragmatic; as he said, if something didn't work, he would try something else and
something else until he succeeded. The most absurd charge against him was that he was
a socialist; infeet,he was the savior of capitalism. But he was often criticized for doing
too much or too little - for going too far to therightor giving in too much to the left. He
was bitterly opposed for re-election in 1936 by both Herbert Hoover and Norman
Thomas, who otherwise had almost nothing else in common. Franklin Roosevelt
compromised on the coverage and tax system for Social Security in order to pass it. He
waited until the last moment to endorse egislation to secure therightof labor unions. As
early as 1937, he called for "quarantining" the aggressors; but he went slowly, step by
step, until the Congress and the countiysupported aid to the allies.
There were, as he himself wrote."inconsistencies'fromthe veryfirstdays of the
New Deal. He could maneuver an army
abroad or a cause through the Senate - and to do
it, he would adapt and switch tactics; it the principles that counted, and he would get
•vas
as much done as he could. He found the
middle-ground when that was in the national
interest. And in the end, he changed Aihericaand gave us our future.
We stand here amid thatfiiture,:icre at long last at his memorial. But we must
look all around this land and all around the world to see his truest monument, /it is the
^efy architecture of our time; it is the coseless hope for a better time; it is confidence he
�inspired in the hardest hours that should inspire us now to meet the quieter but no less
^jjrt^l^didlenge of brighter days.
So it is on this day When his nation honors the leader who lifted it up;
When representatives of the world gather here to remember the leader who saved
the light of liberty;
When his family andfriendstake pride in this singular tribute to any President of
this century;
And when his successor as President recalls a mother's memory as a young girl of
seeing the New Deal bring electric light for thefirsttime to rural Arkansas.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the happiest warrior of them all. When his
glorious day was done, he went home to the Hudson. But now he has a home here - and
wherever there are men and women who prizefreedomand justice.
��THE
WHITE
HOUSE
WASHINGTON
April
MR .
29,
1997
m. PRESIDENT m S?.Ef
PREEnSQiNT:
M i c h a e l Waldman wanted you t o see
the a t t a c h e d memo about t h e
g e n e r a l d i r e c t i o n o f your FDR
speech on F r i d a y .
He i s i n t e r e s t e d i n any comments
you might have.
Phil
Caplan
^iCuxo^Wtv^
COS
^ iniiami^i
�THE PRESIDENT H S SEEN
A
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
AJLC'^
f j
/^PJL Z I
April 29, 1997
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
CC:
ERSKINE BOWLES, JOHN PODESTA, SYLVIA MATHEWS,
DON BAER, ANN LEWIS, RAHM EMANUEL
FROM:
MICHAEL W A L D M A N / % /
SUBJECT:
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL
DEDICATION REMARKS
As you know, the dedication ceremonies for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial on
the Mall will be held on May 2. The FDR memorial joins the Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln
memorials as the only presidential monuments in our nation's capital.
Your remarks at this ceremony should be brief, stirring, and draw on the story of FDR,
Eleanor Roosevelt, and their generation to teach lessons to contemporary Americans. The
remarks will seek to inspire the same sense of optimism, confidence and possibility about our
time, and our challenges, that FDR and his generation brought to their tumultuous moment in
history. We can and must prepare for the next century just as FDR prepared our nation for the
second half of this one.
We are working with Doris Keams Goodwin, Bob Shrum, and Arthur Schlesinger, and
are calling historians including Alan Brinkley, Blanche Weisen Cook, Michael Beschloss and
others to get their thoughts on how to best memorialize FDR.
PURPOSE
The main thesis will be:
At one of the darkest moments in American history, FDR rekindled our hope. He
reestablished our oldest truth: that we are strong when we act with confidence as
one nation, one America. The achievements of FDR and his generation, the world
they built, have sustained us over half a century.
Now, at a sunlit moment at the edge of a new century, we must summon the same
confidence, vigor, and dedication, as we seek to master the challenge of our times.
Today, we must write our own history, build our own living monuments for the
Americans of the next century.
pH Z C \
�OUTLINE
1. On this mall, we honor Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and now Roosevelt. Each
changed forever the way America thinks about itself; each built a strong American nation.
Washington created a republic; Jefferson enshrined individual rights; Lincoln rededicated
America as one nation, devoted to the principle of equality; Roosevelt fixed forever the idea that
a govemment had a responsibility to stand on the side of ordinary citizens, that America had a
responsibility duty to lead the world, and that we all must take responsibility for one another.
2. In a sense, the true memorial to FDR is all around us. Roosevelt said he wanted no
memorial. And for years, the idea of a memorial to FDR seemed unnecessary. For the world he
built is still the world we inhabit. His achievements are his memorial.
Description of America during Depression, doubts that people had about survival of the
country, and the enormous impact he made from his first day in office.
Responsibility for the well-being of Americans — For the first time, Americans had a
president who seemed to care ~ who was determined to use govemment as an instrument
on their behalf, and who was willing to call on them to play their part.
They built the modem society that we now take for granted. Social Security, honest
financial markets, widespread electric power, an end to child labor, right to organize etc.
[concrete discussion of the changes wrought by New Deal]
in
And responsibility for leadership in the world (WWII, post-war institutions and alliances)
Above all, resopnsibility in the hands of ordinary citizens - At a moment when many
doubted whether democracy would be strong enough, FDR showed that by summoning
the energy and dedication of ordinary Americans, we can meet any challenge. At every
critical moment in our history, we have triumphed by returning to this fundamental
American virtue.
^
,
N
3. Today, in so many ways, we have come closer than ever to fulfilling FDR's vision.
His legacy has been the basis of our strength and prosperity for half a century: the remarkable
postwar prosperity ~ the strong military and enduring alliances ~ the powerful concept of human
rights, which more than anything else toppled communism. Now, we approach time of
undivided Europe at peace, American economy continues to lead, etc.
4. As we approach 21st Century, our challenges are harder to see than those of half
century ago, yet just as profound as any we have faced. Our challenges today are heralded
not by the tumult of a stock market crash or the rumble of bombs at Pearl Harbor.
-- information age/technology, education, old and new global threats, and perhaps above
�all, race and the challenge of living and finding common purpose together amid all our
diversity.
Our approach to these challenges must not befrozenin time. We must have the
flexibility of mind and creativity of purpose to meet the challenges of our moment, not
those of somebody else's moment.
5. The true monument to Roosevelt — and to those generations who came before him
— must be to continue the journey. We cannot know what challenges, what crises, the future
will bring. Today our mission must be to prepare America. Our history cannot stop here at the
edge of the Potomac, at the end of this century.
ATTACHMENTS
Attached, for your interest, are the remarks that FDR made at the Jefferson Memorial
dedication ~ the most recent such presidential memorial.
�37. Dedication oj Thomas Jef erson Memorial
1
ruary 28, 1943, the remaining borrowing authority under the existing
debt limit was 8.160 billion dollars,
and it was estimated that by April
12 it would be down to 6 billion
dollars. On March 12, 1943, the
President had announced a program designed to raise 13 billion
dollars of new funds during the
month of April in a Second War
Loan Drive. At the time, war expenditures were being made at an
average rate of more than 200 million dollars a day in excess of the
daily revenue from taxes. It was
essential that the Treasury be empowered to borrow the money necessary for the huge war expenditures.
The President strongly felt that
during a period when wages of
working men and women were
being stabilized and men were being
drafted into the armed forces at
$600 per year, net incomes after
taxes should not be tolerated over
$25,000. Added to this was the
President's objection on constitutional grounds to the rider method
of legislation, a form of shotgun
action on the part of the Congress
which forced the acceptance of a
manifestly bad bill because it was
tacked onto a bill that had to be
signed in order to win the war.
The President could not possibly
veto the bill. Therefore he issued
the foregoing statement, and allowed it to become a law without
his signature (57 Stat. 63).
S ^ S £ thje^Thomas
res
' Jefferson Membrialf Washirigtbh* D. C.
3
April 13, 1943
in the midst of a great war for freedom, we dedicate a
shrine to freedom.
To Thomas Jefferson, Apostle of Freedom, we are paying a
debt long overdue.
Yet, there are reasons for gratitude that this occasion falls
within our time; for our generation of Americans can understand much in Jefferson's life which intervening generations
could not see as well as we.
He faced the fact that men who will not fight for liberty can
lose it. We, too, have faced that fact.
He lived in a world in which freedom of conscience and freedom of mind were battles still to be fought through - not prinTODAY,
1
•
162
�37. Dedication of Thomas Jefferson Memorial
ciples already accepted of all men. We, too, have lived in such a
world.
He loved peace and loved liberty — yet on more than one occasion he was forced to choose between them. We, too, have been
compelled to make that choice.
Generations which understand each other across the distances
of history are the generations united by a common experience
and a common cause. Jefferson, across a hundred andfiftyyears
of time, is closer by much to living men than many of our leaders of the years between. His cause was a cause to which we also
are committed, not by our words alone but by our sacrifice.
For faith and ideals imply renunciations. Spiritual advancement throughout all our history has called for temporal
sacrifices.;
.
I
The Declaration of Independence and the very purposes of
the American Revolution itself, while seeking freedoms, called
for the abandonment of privileges.
Jefferson was no dreamer — for half a century he led his State
and his Nation in fact and in deed. I like to think that this was
so because he thought in terms of the morrow as well as the day
— and this was why he was hated or feared by those who thought
in terms of the day and the yesterday.
We judge him by the application of his philosophy to the circumstances of his life. But in such applying we come to understand that his life was given for those deeper values that persist
throughout all time.
Leader in the philosophy of government, in education, in the
arts, in efforts to lighten the toil of mankind — exponent of planning for the future, he led the steps of America into the path
of the permanent integrity of the Republic.
Thomas Jefferson believed, as we believe, in Man. He believed, as we believe, that men are capable of their own government, and that no king; no tyrant, no dictator can govern for
them as well as they can govern for themselves.
He believed, as we believe, in certain inalienable rights. He,
163
�37. Dedication of Thomas Jefferson Memorial
as we, saw those principles and freedoms challenged. He fought
for them, as wefightfor them.
He proved that the seeming eclipse of liberty can well become
the dawn of more liberty. Those who fight the tyranny of our
own time will come to leam that old lesson. Among all the peoples of the earth, the cruelties and the oppressions of its would-be
masters have taught this generation what its liberties can mean.
This lesson, so bitterly learned, will never be forgotten while
this generation is still alive.
The words which we have chosen for this Memorial speak
Jefferson's noblest and motft urgent meaning; and we are proud
indeed to understand it and share it:
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against
every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
;
•
(
i-.<
NOTE: As the President pointed
out during one of his press conferences (see Item 148, pp. 604-607,
1938 volume), there had been a
long delay in the authorization of
a memorial for Thomas Jefferson.
The delay appeared to have been
caused by political reasons. After
President Roosevelt'sfirstinaugural
in 1933, there arose renewed interest in the project; andithe Congress
in 1934 authorized the construcdon
of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial
on the edge of the Tidal Basin in
Washington. The President delivered an address at ground-breaking
ceremonies on December 15, 1938
(see Item 159, pp. 645-647, 1938
volume).
The dedicadon of the Thomas
Jefferson Memorial was held on
Jefferson's birthday. The enure
ceremony, including the President's
address, lastedfifteenminutes and
was staged with the simplicity which
Jefferson himself would have Hked.
Two years later, the President
had prepared an address for delivery on Jefferson Day, 1945, in which
he set forth the hopes of humanity
for enduring peace. The President
died the afternoon before this Jefferson Day speech was to have been
delivered (see Item 148, 1944-1945
volume, for the text of this undelivered address).
\
i
1 64
�147- Anniversary oj Attacks on Norway and Denmark
147 ([Statement on the Anniversary of the
Attacks on Norway and Denmark.
April 9, 1945
marks the anniversary of the infamous and ruthless attack on Denmark and Norway. For five long years the Danish
and Norwegian peoples have suffered under the heel of the Nazi
oppressor. Yet never has their courage lagged. Never have they
ceased to resist. Very soon their period of martyrdom will be
ended. Then, as the peoples of Denmark and Norway have
fought as allies in the common struggle against the forces of aggression, so will they work with the other like-minded Nations to
insure the maintenance of world peace and security.
'TODAY
148 (["Let Us Move Forward with Strong and
Active Faith" — Undelivered Address Prepared
for Jefferson Day. April 13, 1945
are gathered together this evening in communities
all over the country to pay tribute to the living memory of
Thomas Jefferson — one of the greatest of all democrats; and I
want to make it clear that I am spelling that word "democrats"
with a small d.
I wish I had the power, just for this evening, to be present at
all of these gatherings.
In this historic year, more than ever before, we do well to
consider the character of Thomas Jefferson as an American citizen of the world.
AMERICANS
61 3
�148. Undelivered Address for Jefferson Day
As Minister to France, then as our first Secretary of State and
as our third President, Jefferson was instrumental in the establishment of the United States as a vital factor in international
affairs.
It was he who first sent our Navy into far-distant waters to
defend our rights. And the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine was the logical development of Jefferson's far-seeing foreign
policy.
Today this Nation which Jefferson helped so greatly to build
is playing a tremendous part in the battle for the rights of man
all over the world.
Today we are part of the vast Allied force — a force composed
of flesh and blood and steel and spirit — which is today destroying the makers of war, the breeders of hatred, in Europe and in
Asia.
In Jefferson's time our Navy consisted of only a handful of
frigates headed by the gallant U.S.S. Constitution — Old Ironsides—but that tiny Navy taught Nations across the Atlantic
that piracy in the Mediterranean— acts of aggression against
peaceful commerce and the enslavement of their crews —was
one of those things which, among neighbors, simply was not
done.
Today we have learned in the agony of war that great power
involves great responsibility. Today we can no more escape the
consequences of German and Japanese aggression than could we
avoid the consequences of attacks by the Barbary Corsairs a
century and a half before.
We, as Americans, do not choose to deny our responsibility.
Nor do we intend to abandon our determination that, within
the lives of our children and our children's children, there will
not be a third world war.
We seek peace — enduring peace. More than an end to war,
we want an end to the beginnings of all wars — yes, an end to
this brutal, inhuman, and thoroughly impractical method of
settling the differences between governments.
614
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The once powerful, malignant Nazi state is crumbling. The
Japanese war lords are receiving, in their own homeland, the
retribution for which they asked when they attacked Pearl
Harbor.
But the mere conquest of our enemies is not enough.
We must go on to do all in our power to conquer the doubts
and the fears, the ignorance and the greed, which made this
horror possible.
Thomas Jefferson, himself a distinguished scientist, once
spoke of "the brotherly spirit of Science, which unites into one
family all its votaries of whatever grade, and however widely
dispersed throughout the different quarters of the globe."
Today, science has brought all the different quarters of the
globe so close together that it is impossible to isolate them one
from another.
Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships ^ the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together
and work together, in the same world, at peace.
Let me assure you that my hand is the steadier for the work
that is to be done, that I move more firmly into the task, knowing that you — millions and millions of you — are joined with me
in the resolve to make this work endure.
The work, my friends, is peace. More than an end of this war
— an end to the beginnings of all wars. Yes, an end, forever, to
this impractical, unrealistic settlement of the differences between governments by the mass killing of peoples.
Today, as we move against the terrible scourge of war — as we
go forward toward the greatest contribution that any generation
of human beings can make in this world — the contribution of
lasting peace, I ask you to keep up your faith. I measure the
sound, solid achievement that can be made at this time by the
straight edge of your own confidence and your resolve. And to
you, and to all Americans who dedicate themselves with us to
the making of an abiding peace, I say:
615
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The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our
doubts of today. Let us move fonvard with strong and active
faith.
NOTE: This is the latest draft of
the President's proposed speech.
The last sentence was written into
the typed draft in his own hand.
The draft was not the final one;
the preparation of the final draft
was prevented by death.
The President died at 4:35 P.M. ,
Eastern Standard Time, April 12,
1945, at Warm Springs, Georgia.
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�T F PRESIDENT H S SEEN
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A
Draft 5/1/97 2:00pm
PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON
REMARKS OF DEDICATION
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL
WASHINGTON, D.C.
May 2,1997
Senator Inouye, Senator Hatfield, Your Highness, David Roosevelt, Mr. Vice President,
members of the Roosevelt family, my fellow Americans:
Tliese aie-Uje-acfes of durgreatness. Today, in thip'plaBci of boauty and reveronoe, we (LtU^uijhono^pranklin Delano Roosevelt, the434j?reiicU>tiL uf die Hnitad Ctatso of i\meriea wid the
greatest President of this, the American century.
FDR wanted no memorial. Audfei-yiflaig}fmfliWPIiiud iii!)0803ain)r. ilHRi'a^oftBi^gaid tliat
the America he built was his memorial:fromthe Golden Gate Bridge to the Grand Coulee Dam,
from Social Security to honestfinancialmarkets, te-au America-ihat has remamedthe
indispensable nationjTO our common conviction that all Americans must make this journey
togethep\Though most of us never lived under his leadership, we have hoard about k DO-often,
from parents, or grandparents, tfeft he seems as4f hf? in ntill vitwl, ctill alivi.' • M'iMiai-wa of
v
Ttin ifim nnd di im,> wu, jinit yr<i idny Dill
,1 iiiipo>lniilj IIM 1 Ii I'nliiii ulill iniiin , n
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rwiiironwa'tio, and chtingoo ua for the hotter.
But children grow old; the world turns; and now, a half century after he left us, it is fitting
and appropriate that we dedicate this memorial, to pay tribute to FDR his remarkable wife
Eleanor, and the heroic generation that changed America. This memorial will stand in our
nation's most revered space, because Franklin Roosevelt wanted us to remember: "We have
^
\
�faith," he said, "that future generations will know that here, in the middle of the twentieth
century, there came a time when men of good will found a way to unite, and produce, and fight to
destroy the forces of ignorance, and intolerance, and slavery, and war." We, of that future
generation, do know. We have not forgotten.
As we stand at the end of that century, at the dawn of a bright new one, let this memorial
also remind us of a fundamental truth. Whenever America has acted with confidence and
conviction and hope ~ when we have acted with certitude of purpose yet flexibility of mind — we
have always been equal to the challenges of each new time.
We must always remember how deeply the Great Depression sapped that native
American confidence, [excerptsfromletters to FDRfromordinary citizens] There were many
who wondered if the democracy bequeathed us by Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln was
inadequate to the task of a new and different time.
Winston Churchill said that President Roosevelt's life "must be regarded as one of the
commanding events in human destiny." He stood astride an entire era as few have. He stirred
great controversy because he disturbed things as they were. He camefromprivilege, yet he
understood the aspirations of farmers and factory workers and forgotten Americans. He
electrified the farms and hollows, but more important, he electrified the nation, instilling
confidence with every tilt of his head and boom of his laugh.
�At our moment of supreme peril, he declared that his goal was to revive the fundamental
virtues proclaimed by the founders. He sought to make opportunity as real in a time of big
institutions and mass production as it had been when Jefferson wrote and Lincoln strived.
He declared the creed that guided him in facing up to the dictates of change, in a speech
on September 23,1932 at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "Faith in America, faith in
our tradition of personal responsibility, faith in our institutions, faith in ourselves demand that we
recognize the new terms of an old social contract. . . . The task of statesmanship has always been
the redefinition of theserightsin terms of a changing and growing social order
New
conditions impose new requirements upon government, and upon those who conduct
government."
We saw his confidence in that creed when he set in place a strong and unapologetic
govemment, one able to meet those national challenges that would overwhelm the efforts of
individuals and communities; when he defied economic orthodoxy to tame the savage cycles of
boom and bust; when he lifted the fear of poverty and restored dignity to old age; when he helped
millions of Americans keep their farm, own their home, send their children to college — when he
proved that the American dream was not some distant glimmer, but something that every
American could grasp in their lives.
We saw it when he inspired millions of ordinary Americans to take responsibility for one
another, "doing their part" through the National Recovery Administration, reclaiming nature
�through the Civilian Conservation Corps, gathering scrap and giving up nylons, storming the
beaches at Normandy and Okinawa and Anzio.
We saw his confidence in that creed when he committed our nation to lead the world first as the arsenal of democracy, then at the head of a great crusade tofreethe world from
tyranny; when, with the Four Freedoms, he set the foundations for the future even before the war
began - for our goal was not domination but a dominion offreedomand a world of peace.
We saw it as that war neared an end, an end he would never live to see, as he traced out
the very architecture of our time ~ the GI Bill that opened the doors of college to those who
served our country, the United Nations, the structure of international peace and prosperity.
And yes, we saw it when - in the face of terrible personal adversity - he guided his
countryfromhis wheelchair, and never, ever gave up. From that wheelchair and with a few
halting steps leaning on his son's arms, he lifted a great people back to their feet and set America
to march again toward its destiny. Memorials are physicial manifestations of how our nation sees
itself, and wishes to be seen — and showing President Roosevelt as a disabled person will be seen
by millions around the world as a visual sign that in America, you are measured for what you are,
and what you have achived, not for what you have lost, [this last sentence isfromHugh
Gallagher]
Over all this, FDR presided, and always, always, with a smile, with savvy and guile, with
�a fine sense for the possible and a keen appreciation of the art of leadership ~ an open American
spirit. And his partner throughout was Eleanor Roosevelt. She was his eyes and ears, going
places he could not go to see things as they actually were. She was his conscience and the
nation's conscience.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt guided us through the darkest moments of this century.
Today, in this, our sunlit moment at the edge of a new time, our prosperity and our power are
unrivaled in the world. But though we hear no alarm bells in the night, though our challenges are
not heralded by the crash of a stock market or the roar of bombs, we face quiet crises of our own
that summon our creativity and test our spirit.
For this, too, is no ordinary time — a time of onrushing technology, a time when new
livelihoods demand new skills, a time when we struggle to make ourrichracial and ethnic
diversity a source of strength. We know that those same powerful forces of progress that offer so
much hope threaten to pull us apart, breaking our communities into isolated atoms of
individualism, prompting more and more of us isolate ourselves behind walls of indifference.
We see the sacrifice and community on display in this memorial, and wonder if we will ever feel
that again.
How can we hold to our deepest obligations in this new time? How can we make the
dream of opportunity real in a world where education matters more than ever before? How can
we hold high the flag of freedom in a world of ever-changing threats? How can weriseabove
�our still-stubborn problems of poverty and race?
My fellow Americans, the new conditions of our times impose new requirements upon all
of us. Whenever we have been tested, we have responded as one nation to reclaim those values
upon which we were founded. If opportunity is to remain real for those who will work for it — if
we are to come together again in a true community ~ we must summon the same confidence,
vigor and dedication as we seek to master the challenges of QUI: times. We must chart our course
based not on the remembered requirements of the past, but on the needs of the future. The great
legacy of Franklin Roosevelt is not a set of programs but a set of commitments - the duty that we
owe to one another, and to America.
Behind us are the monuments to the leaders who built our democracy. Washington, who
launched our "great experiment" and created a republic. Abraham Lincoln, who rededicated
America, as one nation, to the creed of individualrightsset forth by Thomas Jefferson. And
now, Franklin Roosevelt, who made those ideals the testament not just of our history but of the
20th Century.
Today, before the pantheon of our democracy, we say: Our history will not stop here, at
the edge of the Potomac, at the end of this century. We cannot know what challenges, what
crises, the future will bring. Today our mission must be to prepare America for its history to
come ~ to prepare our people to be the heroes of their own time. Today, we must write our own
history, build our own living monuments for the Americans of the next century.
�As we go forward, we should always remember the last words Franklin Roosevelt ever
wrote, in his cottage at Warm Springs, words he never delivered, but words carved here on this
monument and that will guide our people for ages to come. "The only limit to our realization of
tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with a strong and active faith."
God bless you all, God bless the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and God Bless
America.
�I1AY-02-1997
18:43
RXELROD & ASSOCS
312
664 0174
P.02/02
AXELROD
AND
730 N. FRANKLIN, SUITE 404
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60610
{312) 6647500 • FAX (312) 664-0174
To:
From:
Date:
RE:
ASSOCIATES
1901 L STREET. N.W.. SUITE 300
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 20036
(202) 452-9454 • FAX (202) 296-7532
Rahm
David
May 2, 1997
Per your request
Most American's agree that we owe It to ourselves and, even more, to our
children to leave this century and enter the next with our fiscal house in order. But they
also believe, as I do, that there's a right way to balance the budget and a wrong way. I
was determined to fight for the right kind of balanced budget. One that would leave
room for the investments we need in education, in protecting our environment, and in
health care for our most vulnerable.
A balanced budget with unbalanced values and priorities would not have been
enough. That's why it took months to hammer out the historic, bipartisan, agreement
we reached Friday - one that will balance the budget and invest in our families and
our future. There were times when it seemed as if we would never reach an
agreement; times when it appeared that we could not secure a balanced budget true
to the principals and priorities essential to our future. But the stakes were too great,
the cost of failure too severe, to give up.
Then this morning, thanks to the good faith efforts of Democrats and
Republicans alike, we have an agreement that holds out the promise of a brighter
future for all Americans.
TOTAL P.02
�1
39 (["New Conditions Impose New Requirements upon Government and Those Who Conduct Government." Campaign Address on Progressive Government at the Commonwealth
Club. San Francisco, Calif. September 23,1932
My friends:
I COUNT it a privilege to be invited to address the Commonwealth Club. It has stood in the life of this city and State, and it
is perhaps accurate to add, the Nation, as a group of citizen
leaders interested in fundamental problems of Government, and
chiefly concerned with achievement of progress in Govemment
through non-partisan means. The privilege of addressing you,
therefore, in the heat of a political campaign, is great. I want to
respond to your courtesy in terms consistent with your policy.
I want to speak not of politics but of Govemment. I want to
speak not of parties, but of universal principles. They are not
political, except in that larger sense in which a great American
once expressed a definition of politics, that nothing in all of i
human life is foreign to the science of politics.
I
I do want to give you, however, a recollection of a long life '
spent for a large part in public office. Some of my conclusions
742
�Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
and observations have been deeply accentuated in these past few
weeks. fTTave traveled f a r - f r o m Albany to the Golden Gate.
I have seen many people, and heard many things, and today,
when in a sense my journey has reached the half-way mark, I am
glad of the opportunity to discuss with you what it all means
to me.
Sometimes, my friends, particularly in years such as these, the
hand of discouragement falls upon us. I t seems that things are in
a rut, fixed,.settled, that the world has grown old and tired and
very much out of joint. This is the mood of depression, of dire
and weary depression.
But then we look around us in America, and everything tells
us that we are wrong. America is new. I t is in the process of
change and development. It has the great potentialities of youth,
and particularly is this true of the great West, and of this coast,
and of California.
I would not have you feel that I regard this as in any sense a
new community. I have traveled in many parts of the world, but
never have I felt the arresting thought of the change and development more than here, where the old, mystic East would seem
to be near to us, where the currents of life and thought and
commerce of the whole world meet us. This factor alone is sufficient to cause man to stop and think of the deeper meaning of
things, when he stands in this community.
But more than that, I appreciate that the membership of this
club consists of men who are thinking in terms beyond the immed'ate present, beyond their own immediate tasks, beyond their
own individual interests. I want to invite you, therefore, to consider with me in the large, some of the relationships of Govemment and economic life that go deeply into our daily lives, our
happiness, our future and our security.
The issue of Government has always been whether individual
men and women will have to serve some system of Government
or economics, or whether a system of Government and economics
exists to serve individual men and women. This question has
persistently dominated the discussion of Govemment for many
743
�Campaign Address on Progressive Government
genecauons. On questions relating to these things men have differed, and for time immemorial it is probable that honest men
will continue to differ.
The final word belongs to no man; yet we can still believe in
change and in progress. Democracy, as a dear old friend of mine
in Indiana, Meredith Nicholson, has called it, is a quest, a neverending seeking for better things, and in the seeking for these
things and the striving for them, there are many roads to follow.
But, if we map the course of these roads, we find that there are
only two general directions.
When we look about us, we are likely to forget how hard
people have worked to win the privilege of Government. The
growth of the national Governments of Europe was a struggle
for the development of a centralized force in the Nation, strong
enough to impose peace upon ruling barons. In many instances
the victory of the central Government, the creation of a strong
central Govemment, was a haven of refuge to the individual.
The people preferred the master far away to the exploitation and
cruelty of the smaller master near at hand.
But the creators of national Govemment were perforce ruthless men. They were often cruel in their methods, but they did
strive steadily toward something that society needed and very
much wanted, a strong central State able to keep the peace, to
stamp out civil war, to put the unruly nobleman in his place, and
to permit the bulk of individuals to live safely. The man of
ruthless force had his place in developing a pioneer country, just
as he did in fixing the power of the central Government in the
development of Nations. Society paid him well for his services
and its development. When the development among the Nations
of Europe, however, had been completed, ambition and ruthlessness, having served their term, tended to overstep their mark.
There came a growing feeling that Govemment was conducted
for the benefit of a few who thrived unduly at the expense of alL
The people sought a balancing—a limiting force. There came
gradually, through town councils, trade guilds, national parlia744
�Campaign Address on Progressive Government
ments, by constitution and by popular participation and control,
limitaLiDns on arbitrary power.
Another factor that tended to limit the power of those who
ruled, was the rise of the ethical conception that a ruler bore a
responsibility for the welfare of his subjects.
The American colonies were born in this struggle. The American Revolution was a turning point in it. After the Revolution
the struggle continued and shaped itself in the public life of the
country. There were those who because they had seen the confusion which attended the years of war for American independence
surrendered to the belief that popular Government was essentially dangerous and essentially unworkable. They were honest
people, my friends, and we cannot deny that their experience had
warranted some measure of fear. The most brilliant, honest and
able exponent of this point of view was Hamilton. He was too
impatient of slow-moving methods. Fundamentally he believed
that the safety of the republic lay in the autocratic strength of
its Government, that the destiny of individuals was to serve that
Government, and that fundamentally a great and strong group
of central institutions, guided by a small group of able and
public spirited citizens, could best direct all Govemment.
But Mr. Jefferson, in the summer of 1776, after drafting the
Declaration of Independence turned his mind to the same problem and took a different view. He did not deceive himself with
outward forms. Govemment to him was a means to an end, not
an end in itself; it might be either a refuge and a help or a threat
and a danger, depending on the circumstances. We find him carefully analyzing the society for which he was to organize a Government. "We have no paupers. The great mass of our population is of laborers, our rich who cannot live without labor, either
manual or professional, being few and of moderate wealth. Most
of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own lands,
have families and from the demand for their labor, are enabled
to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable
them to feed abundantly, clothe above mere decency, to labor
moderately and raise their families."
745
�Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
These people, he considered, had two sets of rights, those of
"personal competency" and those involved in acquiring and possessing property. By "personal competency" he meant the right
of free thinking, freedom of forming and expressing opinions,
and freedom of personal living, each man according to his own
lights. To insure the first set of rights, a Government must so
order its functions as not to interfere with the individual. But
even Jefferson realized that the exercise of the property rights
might so interfere with the rights of the individual that the
Govemment, without whose assistance the property rights could
not exist, must intervene, not to destroy individualism, but to
protect it.
You are familiar with the great political duel which followed;
and how Hamilton, and his friends, building toward a dominant
centralized power were at length defeated in the great election of
1800, by Mr. Jefferson's party. Out of that duel came the two
parties, Republican and Democratic, as we know them today.
So began, in American political life, the new day, the day of
the individual against the system, the day in which individualism
was made the great watchword of American life. The happiest
of economic conditions made that day long and splendid. On the
Western frontier, land was substantially free. No one, who did
not shirk the task of earning a living, was entirely without opportunity to do so. Depressions could, and did, come and go; but
they could not alter the fundamental fact that most of the people
lived partly by selling their labor and partly by extracting their
livelihood from the soil, so that starvation and dislocation were
practically impossible. At the very worst there was always the
possibility of climbing into a covered wagon and moving west
where the untilled prairies afforded a haven for men to whom
the East did not provide a place. So great were our natural resources that we could offer this relief not only to our own people,
but to the distressed of all the world; we could invite immigration from Europe, and welcome it with open arms. Traditionally,
when a depression came a new section of land was opened in the
746
�Campaign Address on Progressive Government
West; and even our temporary misfortune served our manifest
destinyr
It was in.the middle of the nineteenth century that a new force
was released and a new dream created. The force was what is
called the industrial revolution, the advance of steam and machinery and the rise of the forerunners of the modern industrial
plant. The dream was the dream of an economic machine, able
to raise the standard of living for everyone; to bring luxury
within the reach of the humblest; to annihilate distance by steam
power and later by electricity, and to release everyone from the
drudgery of the heaviest manual toil. It was to be expected that
this would necessarily affect Government. Heretofore, Govemment had merely been called upon to produce conditions within
which people could live happily, labor peacefully, and rest
secure. Now it was called upon to aid in the consummation of
this new dream. There was, however, a shadow over the dream.
T o be made real, it required use of the talents of men of tremendous will and tremendous ambition, since by no other force
could the problems of financing and engineering and new developments be brought to a consummation.
So manifest were the advantages of the machine age, however,
that the United States fearlessly, cheerfully, and, I think, rightly,
accepted the bitter with the sweet. It was thought that no price
was too high to pay for the advantages which we could draw from
a finished industrial system. The history of the last half century
is accordingly in large measure a history of a group of financial
Titans, whose methods were not scrutinized with too much care,
and who were honored in proportion as they produced the results,
irrespective of the means they used. The financiers who pushed
the railroads to the Pacific were always ruthless, often wasteful,
and frequendy corrupt; but they did build railroads, and we
have them today. It has been estimated that the American investor paid for the American railway system more than three
times over in the process; but despite this fact the net advantage
was to the United States. As long as we had free land; as long as
population was growing by leaps and bounds; as long as our
747
L
�Campaign Address on Progressive Government
indusw+al plants were insufficient to supply our own needs, society chose to give the ambitious man free play and unlimited
reward provided only that he produced the economic plant so
much desired.
During this period of expansion, there was equal opportunity
for all and the business of Government was not to interfere but
to assist in the development of industry. This was done at the
request of business men themselves. The tariff was originally
imposed for the purpose of "fostering our infant industry," a
phrase I think, the older among you will remember as a political
issue not so long ago. The railroads were subsidized, sometimes
by grants of money, oftener by grants of land; some of the most
valuable oil lands in the United States were granted to assist the
financing of the railroad which pushed through the Southwest.
A nascent merchant marine was assisted by grants of money, or by
mail subsidies, so that our steam shipping might ply the seven
seas. Some of my friends tell me that they do not want the
Govemment in business. With this I agree; but I wonder whether
they realize the implications of the past. For while it has been
American doctrine that the Government must not go into business in competition with private enterprises, still it has been
traditional, particularly in Republican administrations, for business urgently to ask the Govemment to put at private disposal
all kinds of Government assistance. The same man who tells you
that he does not want to see the Government interfere in business
— and he means it. and has plenty of good reasons for saying so —
is the first to go to Washington and ask the Government for a
prohibitory tariff on his product. When things get just bad
enough, as they did two years ago, he will go with equal speed
to the United States Government and ask for a loan; and the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation is the outcome of it. Each
group has sought protection from the Government for its own
special interests, without realizing that the function of Govemment must be to favor no small group at the expense of its duty
to protect the rights of personal freedom and of private property
of all its citizens.
748
�Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
In-retrospect we can now see that the turn of the tide came
with the turn of the century. We were reaching our last frontier;
there was no more free land and our industrial combinations
had become great uncontrolled and irresponsible units of power
within the State. Clear-sighted men saw with fear the danger that
opportunity would no longer be equal; that the growing corporation, like the feudal baron of old, might threaten the economic
freedom of individuals to eam a living. I n that hour, our antitrust laws were bom. The cry was raised against the great corporations. Theodore Roosevelt, the first great Republican Progressive, fought a Presidential campaign on the issue of "trust busting" and talked freely about malefactors of great wealth. If the
Government had a policy it was rather to tum the clock back,
to destroy the large combinations and to return to the time when
every man owned his individual small business.
This was impossible; Theodore Roosevelt, abandoning the idea
of "trust busting," was forced to work out a difference between
"good" trusts and "bad" trusts. The Supreme Court set forth
the famous "rule of reason" by which it seems to have meant that
a concentration of industrial power was permissible if the method
by which it got its power, and the use it made of that power,
were reasonable.
Woodrow Wilson, elected in 1912, saw the situation more
clearly. Where Jefferson had feared the encroachment of political power on the lives of individuals, Wilson knew that the new
power was financial. He saw, in the highly centralized economic
system, the despot of the twentieth century, on whom great
masses of individuals relied for their safety and their livelihood,
and whose irresponsibility and greed (if they were not controlled)
would reduce them to starvation and,penury. The concentration
of financial power had not proceeded so far in 1912 as it has
today; but it had grown far enough for Mr. Wilson to realize
fully its implications. It is interesting, now, to read his speeches.
What is called "radical" today (and I have reason to know
whereof I speak) is mild compared to the campaign of Mr. Wilson.
"No man can deny," he said, "that the lines of endeavor have
749
�Campaign Address an Progressive Government
more and more narrowed and stiffened; no man who knows anything about the development of industry in this country can
have failed to observe that the larger kinds of credit are more
and more difficult to obtain unless you obtain them upon terms
of uniting your efforts with those who already control the industry of the country, and nobody can fail to observe that every man
who tries to set himself up in competition with any process of
manufacture which has taken place under the control of large
combinations of capital will presently find himself either squeezed
out or obliged to sell and allow himself to be absorbed." Had
there been no World War —had Mr. Wilson been able to devote
eight years to domestic instead of to international affairs —we
might have had a wholly different situation at the present time.
However, the then distant roar of European cannon, growing
ever louder, forced him to abandon the study of this issue. The
problem he saw so clearly is left with us as a legacy; and no one
of us on either side of the political controversy can deny that
it is a matter of grave concern to the Govemment.
A glance at the situation today only too clearly indicates that
equality of opportunity as we have known it no longer exists.
Our industrial plant is built; the problem just now is whether
under existing conditions it is not overbuilL -Our last frontier
has long since been reached, and there is practically no more
free land. More than half of our people do not live on the farms
or on lands and cannot derive a living by cultivating their own
property. There is no safety valve in the form of a Western
prairie to which those thrown out of work by the Eastern economic machines can go for a new start. We are not able to invite
the immigration from Europe to share our endless plenty. We
are now providing a drab living for our own people.
Our system of constantly rising tariffs has at last reacted
against us to the point of closing our Canadian frontier on the
north, our European markets on the east, many of our LatinAmerican markets to the south, and a goodly proportion of our
Pacific markets on the west, through the retaliatory tariffs of
those countries. It has forced many of our great industrial insti75o
�Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
,
tution5~'which exported their surplus production to such countries, to establish plants in such countries, within the tariff walls.
This has resulted in the reduction of the operation of their American plants, and opportunity for employment.
Just as freedom to farm has ceased, so also the oppomrtnty
in business has narrowed. It still is true that men can st^Tt small
enterprises, trusting to native shrewdness and ability to keep
abreast of competitors; but area after area has been preempted
altogether by the great corporations, and even in thefieldswhich
still have no great concerns, the small man starts under a handicap. The unfeeling statistics of the past three decades show that
the independent business man is running a losing race. Perhaps
he is forced to the wall; perhaps he cannot command credit; perhaps he is "squeezed out," in Mr. Wilson's words, by highly organized corporate competitors, as your corner grocery man can
tell you. Recently a careful study was made of the concentration
of business in the United States. It showed that our economic
life was dominated by some six hundred odd corporations who
controlled two-thirds of American industry. Ten million small
business men divided the other third. More striking still, it appeared that .if the process of concentration goes on at the same
rate, at the end of another century we shall have all American
industry controlled by a dozen corporations, and run by perhaps
a hundred men. Put plainly, we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already.
Clearly, all this calls for a re-appraisal of values. A mere
builder of more industrial plants, a creator of more railroad systems, an organizer of more corporations, is as likely to be a
danger as a help. The day of the great promoter or the financial
Titan, to whom we granted anything if only he would build,
or develop, is over. Our task now is not discovery or exploitation of natural resources, or necessarily producing more goods. V
It is the soberer, less dramatic business of administering resources and plants already in hand, of seeking to reestablish
foreign markets for our surplus production, of meeting the problem of underconsumption, of adjusting production to consurap75i
�Campaign Address on Progressive Government
tiorir^f distributing wealth and products more equitably, of
adapting existing economic organizations to the service of the
people. The day of enlightened administration has come.
Just as in older times the central Government was first a haven
of refuge, and then a threat, so now in a closer economic system
the central and ambitious financial unit is no longer a servant
of national desire, but a danger. I would draw the parallel one
step farther. We did not think because national Government
had become a threat in the 18th century that therefore we
should abandon the principle of national Government. Nor
today should we abandon the principle of strong economic units
called corporations, merely because their power is susceptible
of easy abuse. In other times we dealt with the problem of an
unduly ambitious central Government by modifying it gradually
into a constitutional democratic Government. So today we are
modifying and controlling our economic units.
As I see it, the task of Government in its relation to business
is to assist the development of an economic declaration of rights,
an economic constitutional order. This is the common task of
sutesman and business man. I t is the minimum requirement of
a more permanently safe order of things.
Happdy, the times indicate that to create such an order not
only is the proper policy of Govemment, but it is the only line
of safety for our economic structures as well. We know, now,
that these economic units cannot exist unless prosperity is uniform, that is, unless purchasing power is well distributed
throughout every group in the Nation. That is why even the
most selfish of corporations for its own interest would be glad
to see wages restored and unemployment ended and to bring
the Western farmer back to his accustomed level of prosperity
and to assure a permanent safety to both groups. That is why
some enlightened industries themselves endeavor to limit the
freedom of action of each man and business group within the
industry in the common interest of all; why business men everywhere are asking a form of organization which will bring the
scheme of things into balance, even though it may in some meas752
V
�•Gampaign Address on Progressive Govemment
ure qualify the freedom of action of individual units within the
business.
The exposition need not further be elaborated. I t is brief and
incomplete, but you will be able to expand it in terms of your
own business or occupation without difficulty. I think everyone
who has actually entered the economic struggle — which means
everyone who was not born to safe wealth —knows in his own
experience and his own life that we have now to apply the
earlier concepts of American Govemment to the conditions of
today.
The Declaration of Independence discusses the problem of
Government in terms of a contract. Govemment is a relation
of give and take, a contract, perforce, if we would follow the
thinking out of which it grew. Under such a contract rulers
were accorded power, and the people consented to that power
on consideration that they be accorded certain rights. The task
of statesmanship has always been the re-definition of these rights
in terms of a changing and growing social order. New conditions
impose new requirements upon Govemment and those who conduct Government.
I held, for example, in proceedings before me as Governor,
the purpose of which was the removal of the Sheriff of New
York, that under modern conditions it was not enough for a
public official merely to evade the legal terms of official wrongdoing. He owed a positive duty as well. I said in subsunce that
if he had acquired large sums of money, he was when accused
required to explain the sources of such wealth. To that extent
this wealth was colored with a public interest. I said that in
financial matters, public servants should, even beyond private
citizens, be held to a stern and uncomprohnsing rectitude.
I feel that we are coming to a view through the drift of our
legislation and our public thinking in the past quarter century
that private economic power is, to enlarge an old phrase, a
public trust as well. I hold that continued enjoyment of that
power by any individual or group must depend upon the fulfillment of that trust. The men who have reached the summit
753
�Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
of American business life know this best; happily, many of these
urge the binding quality of this greater social contract.
The terms of that contract are as old as the Republic, and as
new as the new economic order.
Every man has a right to life; and this means that he has also
a right to make a comfortable living. He may by sloth or crime
decline to exercise that right; but it may not be denied him.
We have no actual famine or dearth; our industrial and agricultural mechanism can produce enough and to spare. Our Government formal and informal, political and economic, owes to
everyone an avenue to possess himself of a portion of that plenty
sufficient for his needs, through his own work.
Every man has a right to his own property; which means a
right to be assured, to the fullest extent attainable, in the safety
of his savings. By no other means can men carry the burdens of
those parts of life which, in the nature of things, afford no chance
of labor; childhood, sickness, old age. I n all thought of property,
this right is paramount; all other property rights must yield
to it. If, in accord with this principle, we must restrict the operations of the speculator, the manipulator, even the financier, I
believe we must accept the restriction as needful, not to hamper
individualism but to protect it.
These two requirements must be satisfied, in the main, by
the individuals who claim and hold control of the great industrial and financial combinations which dominate so large a part
of our industrial life. They have undertaken to be, not business
men, but princes of property. I am not prepared to say that the
system which produces them is wrong. I am very clear that they
must fearlessly and competently assume the responsibility which
goes with the power. So many enlightened business men know
this that the statement would be litde more than a platitude, were
it not for an added implication.
This implication is, briefly, that the responsible heads of finance and industry instead of acting each for himself, must work
together to achieve the common end. They must, where necessary, sacrifice this or that private advantage; and in reciprocal
754
�-Campaign Address on Progressive Govemment
self-denial must seek a general advantage. It is here that formal
Government —political Government, if you chose —comes in.
Whenever in the pursuit of this objective the lone wolf, the unethical competitor, the reckless promoter, the Ishmael or Insull
whose hand is against every man's, declines to join in achieving
an end recognized as being for the public welfare, and threatens
to drag the industry back to a state of anarchy, the Government
may properly be asked to apply restraint. Likewise, should the
group ever use its collective power contrary to the public welfare, the Govemment must be swift to enter and prefect the
public interest.
The Government should assume the function of economic
regulation only as a last resort, to be tried only when private
initiative, inspired by high responsibility, with such assistance
and balance as Government can give, has finally failed. As yet
there has been no final failure, because there has been no attempt; and I decline to assume that this Nation is unable to
meet the situation.
The final term of the high contract was for liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. We have learned a great deal of both in the
past century. We know that individual liberty and individual
happiness mean nothing unless both are drdered in the sense
that one man's meat is not another man's poison. We know that
the old "rights of personal competency," the right to read, to
think, to speak, to choose and live a mode of life, must be respected at all hazards. We know that liberty to do anything
which deprives others of those elemental rights is outside the
protection of any compact; and that Govemment in this regard
is the maintenance of a balance, within which every individual
may have a place if he will take it; in which every individual
may find safety if he wishes it; in which every individual may
attain such power as his ability permits, consistent with his assuming the accompanying responsibility.
All this is a long, slow talk. Nothing is more striking than
the simple innocence of the men who insist, whenever an objective is present, on the prompt production of a patent scheme
755
�Campaign Address on Agriculture and Tariffs
guaranteed co produce a result. Human endeavor is not so
simple as that. Govemment includes the art of formulating a
policy, and using the political technique to attain so much of
that policy as will receive general support; persuading, leading,
sacrificing, teaching always, because the greatest duty of a statesman is to educate. But in the matters of which I have spoken,
we are learning rapidly, in a severe school. The lessons so learned
must not be forgotten, even in the mental lethargy of a speculative upturn. We must build toward the time when a major
depression cannot occur again; and if this means sacrificing the
easy profits of inflationist booms, then let them go; and good
riddance.
Faith in America, faith in our tradition of personal responsibility, faith in our institutions, faith in ourselves demand that
we recognize the new terms of the old social contract. We shall
fulfill them, as we fulfilled the obligation of the apparent Utopia
which Jefferson imagined for us in 1776, and which Jefferson,
Roosevelt and Wilson sought to bring to realization. We must
do so, lest a rising tide of misery, engendered by our common
failure, engulf us all. But failure is not an American habit; and
in the strength of great hope we must all shoulder our common
load.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Michael Waldman
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Michael Waldman was Assistant to the President and Director of Speechwriting from 1995-1999. His responsibilities were writing and editing nearly 2,000 speeches, which included four State of the Union speeches and two Inaugural Addresses. From 1993 -1995 he served as Special Assistant to the President for Policy Coordination.</p>
<p>The collection generally consists of copies of speeches and speech drafts, talking points, memoranda, background material, correspondence, reports, handwritten notes, articles, clippings, and presidential schedules. A large volume of this collection was for the State of the Union speeches. Many of the speech drafts are heavily annotated with additions or deletions. There are a lot of articles and clippings in this collection.</p>
<p>Due to the size of this collection it has been divided into two segments. Use links below for access to the individual segments:<br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=43&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=2006-0469-F+Segment+1">Segment One</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=43&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=2006-0469-F+Segment+2">Segment Two</a></p>
Creator
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Michael Waldman
Office of Speechwriting
Date
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1993-1999
Identifier
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2006-0469-F
Extent
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Segment One contains 1071 folders in 72 boxes.
Segment Two contains 868 folders in 66 boxes.
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
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William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Format
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Adobe Acrobat Document
Text
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Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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[Background Info for Franklin Roosevelt Memorial Dedication]
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of Speechwriting
Michael Waldman
Is Part Of
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Box 33
<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36404"> Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7763296">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2006-0469-F Segment 2
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
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William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Format
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Adobe Acrobat Document
Medium
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Preservation-Reproduction-Reference
Date Created
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6/3/2015
Source
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7763296
42-t-7763296-20060469F-Seg2-033-006-2015