The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Radio Addresses to the American People Broadcast Between 1933 and 1944 — John Shaqi
The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Radio Addresses to the American People Broadcast Between 1933 and 1944Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
History
The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Radio Addresses to the American People Broadcast Between 1933 and 1944
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
Depressions -- 1929 -- United States -- Sources; New Deal, 1933-1939 -- Sources; Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945 -- Oratory -- Sources; Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945 -- Political and social views -- Sources; United States -- Economic conditions -- 1918-1945
I have used the argument in relation only to a small area. It holds
good in its effect on the nation as a whole. Every state in the
drought area is now doing and always will do business with every
state outside it. The very existence of the men and women working
in the clothing factories of New York, making clothes worn by
farmers and their families; of the workers in the steel mills in
Pittsburgh, in the automobile factories of Detroit, and in the
harvester factories of Illinois, depend upon the farmers' ability
to purchase the commodities they produce. In the same way it is the
purchasing power of the workers in these factories in the cities
that enables them and their wives and children to eat more beef,
more pork, more wheat, more corn, more fruit and more dairy
products, and to buy more clothing made from cotton, wool and
leather. In a physical and a property sense, as well as in a
spiritual sense, we are members one of another.
I want to make it clear that no simple panacea can be applied to
the drought problem in the whole of the drought area. Plans must
depend on local conditions, for these vary with annual rainfall,
soil characteristics, altitude and topography. Water and soil
conservation methods may differ in one county from those in an
adjoining county. Work to be done in the cattle and sheep country
differs in type from work in the wheat country or work in the corn
belt.
The Great Plains Drought Area Committee has given me its
preliminary recommendations for a long-time program for that
region. Using that report as a basis we are cooperating
successfully and in entire accord with the governors and state
planning boards. As we get this program into operation the people
more and more will be able to maintain themselves securely on the
land. That will mean a steady decline in the relief burdens which
the federal government and states have had to assume in time of
drought; but, more important, it will mean a greater contribution
to general national prosperity by these regions which have been hit
by drought. It will conserve and improve not only property values,
but human values. The people in the drought area do not want to be
dependent on federal, state or any other kind of charity. They want
for themselves and their families an opportunity to share fairly by
their own efforts in the progress of America.
The farmers of America want a sound national agricultural policy in
which a permanent land-use program will have an important place.
They want assurance against another year like 1932 when they made
good crops but had to sell them for prices that meant ruin just as
surely as did the drought. Sound policy must maintain farm prices
in good crop years as well as in bad crop years. It must function
when we have drought; it must also function when we have bumper
crops.
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