| 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.
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