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
To raise the purchasing power of the farmer is, however, not enough. It
will not stay raised if we do not also raise the purchasing power of that
third of the Nation which receives its income from industrial employment.
Millions of industrial workers receive pay so low that they have little
buying power. Aside from the undoubted fact that they thereby suffer great
human hardship, they are unable to buy adequate food and shelter, to
maintain health or to buy their share of manufactured goods.
We have not only seen minimum wage and maximum hour provisions prove their
worth economically and socially under government auspices in 1933, 1934 and
1935, but the people of this country, by an overwhelming vote, are in favor
of having the Congress--this Congress--put a floor below which industrial
wages shall not fall, and a ceiling beyond which the hours of industrial
labor shall not rise.
Here again let us analyze the opposition. A part of it is sincere in
believing that an effort thus to raise the purchasing power of lowest paid
industrial workers is not the business of the Federal Government. Others
give "lip service" to a general objective, but do not like any specific
measure that is proposed. In both cases it is worth our while to wonder
whether some of these opponents are not at heart opposed to any program for
raising the wages of the underpaid or reducing the hours of the
overworked.
Another group opposes legislation of this type on the ground that cheap
labor will help their locality to acquire industries and outside capital,
or to retain industries which today are surviving only because of existing
low wages and long hours. It has been my thought that, especially during
these past five years, this Nation has grown away from local or sectional
selfishness and toward national patriotism and unity. I am disappointed by
some recent actions and by some recent utterances which sound like the
philosophy of half a century ago.
There are many communities in the United States where the average family
income is pitifully low. It is in those communities that we find the
poorest educational facilities and the worst conditions of health. Why? It
is not because they are satisfied to live as they do. It is because those
communities have the lowest per capita wealth and income; therefore, the
lowest ability to pay taxes; and, therefore, inadequate functioning of
local government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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