Franklin
D. Roosevelt Inaugural Speech “Only Thing We
Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”
(1933)
I am certain that my fellow Americans
expect that on my induction into the Presidency I
will address them with a candor and a decision which
the present situation of our people impel. This is
preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole
truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from
honestly facing conditions in our country today. This
great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive
and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert
my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear
is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified
terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat
into advance. In every dark hour of our national life
a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that
understanding and support of the people themselves
which is essential to victory. I am convinced that
you will again give that support to leadership in
these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours
we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank
God, only material things. Values have shrunken to
fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to
pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by
serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange
are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered
leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side;
farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings
of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed
citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an
equally great number toil with little return. Only
a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of
the moment.
Yet our distress comes from no failure
of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts.
Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered
because they believed and were not afraid, we have
still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers
her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty
is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes
in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is
because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s
goods have failed, through their own stubbornness
and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure,
and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money
changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion,
rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True they have tried, but their efforts
have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition.
Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only
the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of
profit by which to induce our people to follow their
false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations,
pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know
only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They
have no vision, and when there is no vision the people
perish.
The money changers have fled from their
high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may
now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The
measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which
we apply social values more noble than mere monetary
profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession
of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the
thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation
of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase
of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth
all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny
is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves
and to our fellow men.
Recognition of the falsity of material
wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand
with the abandonment of the false belief that public
office and high political position are to be valued
only by the standards of pride of place and personal
profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking
and in business which too often has given to a sacred
trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.
Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives
only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations,
on faithful protection, on unselfish performance;
without them it cannot live.
Restoration calls, however, not for
changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action,
and action now.
Our greatest primary task is to put
people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we
face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished
in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself,
treating the task as we would treat the emergency
of a war, but at the same time, through this employment,
accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate
and reorganize the use of our natural resources.
Hand in hand with this we must frankly
recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial
centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a
redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of
the land for those best fitted for the land. The task
can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values
of agricultural products and with this the power to
purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped
by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing
loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our
farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal,
Issues, and local governments act forthwith on the
demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It
can be helped by the unifying of relief activities
which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and
unequal. It can be helped by national planning for
and supervision of all forms of transportation and
of communications and other utilities which have a
definitely public character. There are many ways in
which it can be helped, but it can never be helped
merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.
Finally, in our progress toward a resumption
of work we require two safeguards against a return
of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict
supervision of all banking and credits and investments;
there must be an end to speculation with other people’s
money, and there must be provision for an adequate
but sound currency.
There are the lines of attack. I shall
presently urge upon a new Congress in special session
detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall
seek the immediate assistance of the several States.
Through this program of action we address
ourselves to putting our own national house in order
and making income balance outgo. Our international
trade relations, though vastly important, are in point
of time and necessity secondary to the establishment
of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical
policy the putting of first things first. I shall
spare no effort to restore world trade by international
economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot
wait on that accomplishment.
The basic thought that guides these
specific means of national recovery is not narrowly
nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration,
upon the interdependence of the various elements in
all parts of the United States—a recognition
of the old and permanently important manifestation
of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way
to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest
assurance that the recovery will endure.
In the field of world policy I would
dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the
neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because
he does so, respects the rights of others—the
neighbor who respects his obligations and respects
the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world
of neighbors.
If I read the temper of our people correctly,
we now realize as we have never realized before our
interdependence on each other; that we can not merely
take but we must give as well; that if we are to go
forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army
willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline,
because without such discipline no progress is made,
no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready
and willing to submit our lives and property to such
discipline, because it makes possible a leadership
which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer,
pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us
all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto
evoked only in time of armed strife.
With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly
the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated
to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.
Action in this image and to this end
is feasible under the form of government which we
have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution
is so simple and practical that it is possible always
to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis
and arrangement without loss of essential form. That
is why our constitutional system has proved itself
the most superbly enduring political mechanism the
modern world has produced. It has met every stress
of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of
bitter internal strife, of world relations.
It is to be hoped that the normal balance
of executive and legislative authority may be wholly
adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us.
But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need
for undelayed action may call for temporary departure
from that normal balance of public procedure.
I am prepared under my constitutional
duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation
in the midst of a stricken world may require. These
measures, or such other measures as the Congress may
build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek,
within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy
adoption.
But in the event that the Congress shall
fail to take one of these two courses, and in the
event that the national emergency is still critical,
I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will
then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the
one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad
Executive power to wage a war against the emergency,
as great as the power that would be given to me if
we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.
For the trust reposed in me I will return
the courage and the devotion that befit the time.
I can do no less.
We face the arduous days that lie before
us in the warm courage of the national unity; with
the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious
moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes
from the stern performance of duty by old and young
alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent
national life.
We do not distrust the future of essential
democracy. The people of the United States have not
failed. In their need they have registered a mandate
that they want direct, vigorous action. They have
asked for discipline and direction under leadership.
They have made me the present instrument of their
wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.
In this dedication of a Nation we humbly
ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every
one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.
