State of the Union AddressesRoosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
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State of the Union Addresses
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The principle that they would instill into government if they succeed in
seizing power is well shown by the principles which many of them have
instilled into their own affairs: autocracy toward labor, toward
stockholders, toward consumers, toward public sentiment. Autocrats in
smaller things, they seek autocracy in bigger things. "By their fruits ye
shall know them."
If these gentlemen believe, as they say they believe, that the measures
adopted by this Congress and its predecessor, and carried out by this
Administration, have hindered rather than promoted recovery, let them be
consistent. Let them propose to this Congress the complete repeal of these
measures. The way is open to such a proposal.
Let action be positive and not negative. The way is open in the Congress of
the United States for an expression of opinion by yeas and nays. Shall we
say that values are restored and that the Congress will, therefore, repeal
the laws under which we have been bringing them back? Shall we say that
because national income has grown with rising prosperity, we shall repeal
existing taxes and thereby put off the day of approaching a balanced budget
and of starting to reduce the national debt? Shall we abandon the
reasonable support and regulation of banking? Shall we restore the dollar
to its former gold content?
Shall we say to the farmer, "The prices for your products are in part
restored. Now go and hoe your own row?"
Shall we say to the home owners, "We have reduced your rates of interest.
We have no further concern with how you keep your home or what you pay for
your money. That is your affair?"
Shall we say to the several millions of unemployed citizens who face the
very problem of existence, of getting enough to eat, "We will withdraw from
giving you work. We will turn you back to the charity of your communities
and those men of selfish power who tell you that perhaps they will employ
you if the Government leaves them strictly alone?"
Shall we say to the needy unemployed, "Your problem is a local one except
that perhaps the Federal Government, as an act of mere generosity, will be
willing to pay to your city or to your county a few grudging dollars to
help maintain your soup kitchens?"
Shall we say to the children who have worked all day in the factories,
"Child labor is a local issue and so are your starvation wages; something
to be solved or left unsolved by the jurisdiction of forty-eight States?"
Shall we say to the laborer, "Your right to organize, your relations with
your employer have nothing to do with the public interest; if your employer
will not even meet with you to discuss your problems and his, that is none
of our affair?"
Shall we say to the unemployed and the aged, "Social security lies not
within the province of the Federal Government; you must seek relief
elsewhere?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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