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
I shall continue to regard it as my duty to use whatever means may be
necessary to supplement State, local and private agencies for the relief of
suffering caused by unemployment. With respect to this question, I have
recognized the dangers inherent in the direct giving of relief and have
sought the means to provide not mere relief, but the opportunity for useful
and remunerative work. We shall, in the process of recovery, seek to move
as rapidly as possible from direct relief to publicly supported work and
from that to the rapid restoration of private employment.
It is to the eternal credit of the American people that this tremendous
readjustment of our national life is being accomplished peacefully, without
serious dislocation, with only a minimum of injustice and with a great,
willing spirit of cooperation throughout the country.
Disorder is not an American habit. Self-help and self-control are the
essence of the American tradition--not of necessity the form of that
tradition, but its spirit. The program itself comes from the American
people.
It is an integrated program, national in scope. Viewed in the large, it is
designed to save from destruction and to keep for the future the genuinely
important values created by modern society. The vicious and wasteful parts
of that society we could not save if we wished; they have chosen the way of
self-destruction. We would save useful mechanical invention, machine
production, industrial efficiency, modern means of communication, broad
education. We would save and encourage the slowly growing impulse among
consumers to enter the industrial market place equipped with sufficient
organization to insist upon fair prices and honest sales.
But the unnecessary expansion of industrial plants, the waste of natural
resources, the exploitation of the consumers of natural monopolies, the
accumulation of stagnant surpluses, child labor, and the ruthless
exploitation of all labor, the encouragement of speculation with other
people's money, these were consumed in the fires that they themselves
kindled; we must make sure that as we reconstruct our life there be no soil
in which such weeds can grow again.
We have plowed the furrow and planted the good seed; the hard beginning is
over. If we would reap the full harvest, we must cultivate the soil where
this good seed is sprouting and the plant is reaching up to mature growth.
A final personal word. I know that each of you will appreciate that. I am
speaking no mere politeness when I assure you how much I value the fine
relationship that we have shared during these months of hard and incessant
work. Out of these friendly contacts we are, fortunately, building a strong
and permanent tie between the legislative and executive branches of the
Government. The letter of the Constitution wisely declared a separation,
but the impulse of common purpose declares a union. In this spirit we join
once more in serving the American people.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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