State of the Union AddressesRoosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
History
State of the Union Addresses
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Shall we say to the men and women who live in conditions of squalor in
country and in city, "The health and the happiness of you and your children
are no concern of ours?"
Shall we expose our population once more by the repeal of laws which
protect them against the loss of their honest investments and against the
manipulations of dishonest speculators? Shall we abandon the splendid
efforts of the Federal Government to raise the health standards of the
Nation and to give youth a decent opportunity through such means as the
Civilian Conservation Corps?
Members of the Congress, let these challenges be met. If this is what these
gentlemen want, let them say so to the Congress of the United States. Let
them no longer hide their dissent in a cowardly cloak of generality. Let
them define the issue. We have been specific in our affirmative action. Let
them be specific in their negative attack.
But the challenge faced by this Congress is more menacing than merely a
return to the past--bad as that would be. Our resplendent economic autocracy
does not want to return to that individualism of which they prate, even
though the advantages under that system went to the ruthless and the
strong. They realize that in thirty-four months we have built up new
instruments of public power. In the hands of a people's Government this
power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an
economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of
the people. Give them their way and they will take the course of every
autocracy of the past--power for themselves, enslavement for the public.
Their weapon is the weapon of fear. I have said, "The only thing we have to
fear is fear itself." That is as true today as it was in 1933. But such
fear as they instill today is not a natural fear, a normal fear; it is a
synthetic, manufactured, poisonous fear that is being spread subtly,
expensively and cleverly by the same people who cried in those other days,
"Save us, save us, lest we perish."
I am confident that the Congress of the United States well understands the
facts and is ready to wage unceasing warfare against those who seek a
continuation of that spirit of fear. The carrying out of the laws of the
land as enacted by the Congress requires protection until final
adjudication by the highest tribunal of the land. The Congress has the
right and can find the means to protect its own prerogatives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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