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
And I hope you will remember that all of us in this Government represent
the fixed income group just as much as we represent business owners,
workers, and farmers. This group of fixed income people includes: teachers,
clergy, policemen, firemen, widows and minors on fixed incomes, wives and
dependents of our soldiers and sailors, and old-age pensioners. They and
their families add up to one-quarter of our one hundred and thirty million
people. They have few or no high pressure representatives at the Capitol.
In a period of gross inflation they would be the worst sufferers.
If ever there was a time to subordinate individual or group selfishness to
the national good, that time is now. Disunity at home--bickerings,
self-seeking partisanship, stoppages of work, inflation, business as usual,
politics as usual, luxury as usual these are the influences which can
undermine the morale of the brave men ready to die at the front for us
here.
Those who are doing most of the complaining are not deliberately striving
to sabotage the national war effort. They are laboring under the delusion
that the time is past when we must make prodigious sacrifices--that the war
is already won and we can begin to slacken off. But the dangerous folly of
that point of view can be measured by the distance that separates our
troops from their ultimate objectives in Berlin and Tokyo--and by the sum of
all the perils that lie along the way.
Overconfidence and complacency are among our deadliest enemies. Last
spring--after notable victories at Stalingrad and in Tunisia and against the
U-boats on the high seas--overconfidence became so pronounced that war
production fell off. In two months, June and July, 1943, more than a
thousand airplanes that could have been made and should have been made were
not made. Those who failed to make them were not on strike. They were
merely saying, "The war's in the bag--so let's relax."
That attitude on the part of anyone--Government or management or labor--can
lengthen this war. It can kill American boys.
Let us remember the lessons of 1918. In the summer of that year the tide
turned in favor of the allies. But this Government did not relax. In fact,
our national effort was stepped up. In August, 1918, the draft age limits
were broadened from 21-31 to 18-45. The President called for "force to the
utmost," and his call was heeded. And in November, only three months later,
Germany surrendered.
That is the way to fight and win a war--all out--and not with half-an-eye on
the battlefronts abroad and the other eye-and-a-half on personal, selfish,
or political interests here at home.
Therefore, in order to concentrate all our energies and resources on
winning the war, and to maintain a fair and stable economy at home, I
recommend that the Congress adopt:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account