President Hoover, Mr. Chief Justice, my friends:
This is a day of national consecration. And I am certain that on this day
my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency,
I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impels.
This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly.
Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today.
This great Nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.
So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to
fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed
efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life,
a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support
of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you
will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties.
They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunk to fantastic levels;
taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious
curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade;
the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for
their produce; and the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. More important,
a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number
toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
And yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts.
Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered, because they believed and were not
afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human
efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes
in the very sight of the supply.
Primarily, this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through
their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated.
Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion,
rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True, they have tried. But their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition.
Faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure
of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to
exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They only know the rules of a generation
of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
Yes, the money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization.
We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of that restoration lies in the
extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement,
in the thrill of creative effort. The joy, the moral stimulation of work no longer must
be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days, my friends,
will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be
ministered unto but to minister to ourselves, to our fellow men.
Recognition of that falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in
hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political
position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit;
and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has
given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that
confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of
obligations, on faithful protection, and on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.
Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation is asking for action,
and action now.
Our greatest primary task is to put people to work.
This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously.
It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself,
treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time,
through this employment, accomplishing great -- greatly needed projects to stimulate
and reorganize the use of our great natural resources.
Hand in hand with that we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our
industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor
to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land.
Yes, the task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural
products, and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped
by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small
homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, the State, and the local
governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped
by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, unequal.
It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of
communications and other utilities that have a definitely public character. There are many ways
in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped by merely talking about it.
We must act. We must act quickly.
And finally, in our progress towards a resumption of work, we require two safeguards against
a return of the evils of the old order. There must be a strict supervision of all banking and
credits and investments. There must be an end to speculation with other people's money.
And there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.
These, my friends, are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special
session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of
the 48 States.
Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order
and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important,
are in point of time, and necessity, secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy.
I favor, as a practical policy, the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to
restore world trade by international economic readjustment; but the emergency at home cannot wait
on that accomplishment.
The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not nationally --
narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence
of the various elements in and parts of the United States of America -- a recognition of the old
and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to
recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that recovery will endure.
In the field of world policy, I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor:
the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of
others; the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements
in and with a world of neighbors.
If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize, as we have never realized before,
our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take, but we must give as well;
that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice
for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress can be made,
no leadership becomes effective.
We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and our property to such discipline,
because it makes possible a leadership which aims at the larger good. This, I propose to offer,
pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us, bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with
a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in times of armed strife.
With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people
dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.
Action in this image, action to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have
inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple, so practical that it is possible
always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential
form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring
political mechanism the modern world has ever seen.
It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife,
of world relations. And it is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative
authority may be wholly equal, wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But
it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary
departure from that normal balance of public procedure.
I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation
in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the
Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional
authority, to bring to speedy adoption.
But, in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, in the event that
the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then
confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis -- broad
Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to
me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.
For the trust reposed in me, I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time.
I can do no less.
We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity;
with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean
satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim
at the assurance of a rounded, a permanent national life.
We do not distrust the -- the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States
have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct,
vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership.
They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.
In this dedication -- In this dedication of a Nation, we humbly ask the blessing of God.
May He protect each and every one of us.
May He guide me in the days to come.