Please enjoy October 12, 1937: Fireside Chat 10: On New Legislation a great episode of the legendary Franklin D. Roosevelt - A Classic Old Time radio Show.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
My friends. This afternoon, Ihave issued a proclamation calling a special Session
of the Congress to convene on Monday, November fifteenth, nineteen thirty seven.
I do this in order to giveto the Congress an opportunity to consider important
legislation before the regular session in January, and to enable the Congress to avoid
(00:26):
a lengthy session next year extending throughthe summer. I know that many enemies
of democracy will say that it isbad for business, bad for the tranquility
of the country to have a specialsession, even one beginning only six weeks
before the regular session. But Ihave never had sympathy with the point of
(00:47):
view that a session of the Congressis an unfortunate intrusion of what they call
politics into our national affairs. Thosewho do not like democracy want to keep
lets at home. But the Congressis an essential instrument of democratic government,
and democratic government can never be consideredan intruder into the affairs of a democratic
(01:11):
nation. I shall ask this specialsession to consider immediately a certain important legislation,
which, on my recent trip throughthe nation, convinces me the American
people immediately need. This does notmean that other legislation to which I am
not referring tonight is not an importantpart or of our national well being,
(01:37):
but other legislation can be more readilydiscussed at the regular session. Anyone charged
with proposing or judging national policies shouldhave first hand knowledge of the nation as
a whole. That is why againthis year I have taken trips to all
parts of the country. Last springI visited the southwest. This summer I
(02:01):
made several trips in the East.Now I am just back from a trip
all the way across the continent,and later this autumn I hope to pay
my annual visit to the Southeast.For a president especially, it is a
duty to think in national terms.He must think not only of this year,
(02:22):
but of future years when someone elsewill be president. He must look
beyond the average of the prosperity andwell being of the country, because averages
easily cover up danger spots, ofpoverty and instability. He must not let
the country be deceived by a merelytemporary prosperity which depends on wasteful exploitation of
(02:46):
resources which cannot last. He mustthink not only of keeping us out of
war today, but also out ofkeeping also of keeping us out of war
in generations to come. The kindof prosperity we want is the sound and
permanent kind which is not built uptemporarily at the expense of any section or
(03:09):
group. And the kind of peacewe want is the sound and permanent kind
which is built on the cooperative searchfor peace by all the nations which want
peace. The other day, Iwas asked to state my outstanding impression gained
on this recent trip to the PacificCoast and Bank, and I said that
(03:32):
it seemed to me to be thegeneral understanding on the part of the average
citizen understanding of the broad objectives andpolicies which I have just outlined. Five
years of fierce discussion and debate,five years of information through the radio and
(03:52):
the moving picture, have taken thewhole nation to school in the nation's business.
Even those who have most attacked ourobjectives have by their very criticism,
encouraged the mass of our citizens tothink about and understand the issues involved,
and understanding to approve. Out ofthat process we have learned to think as
(04:18):
a nation, and out of thatprocess we have learned to feel ourselves a
nation as never before in our history. Each section of America says to every
other section, thy people shall bemy people. For most of the country,
(04:38):
this has been a good year,better in dollars and cents than for
many years, and far better inthe soundness of its prosperity. Everywhere I
went I found particular optimism about thegood effect on business which is expected from
the steadies spending by farmers of thelargest farm income in many years. But
(05:02):
we have not yet done all thatmust be done to make this prosperity stable.
The people of the United States werechecked in their efforts to prevent future
piling up of huge agricultural surpluses andthe tumbling prices which inevitably follow them.
They were checked in their efforts tosecure reasonable minimum wages and maximum hours and
(05:27):
the end of child labor. Andbecause they were checked, many groups in
many parts of the country still haveless purchasing power and a lower standard of
living than the nation as a wholecan permanently allow. Americans realize these facts.
That is why they ask government notto stop governing simply because prosperity has
(05:53):
come back a long way. Theydo not look on government as an interloper
in the their affairs. On thecontrary, they regard it as the most
effective form of organized self help.Sometimes I get bored sitting in Washington hearing
certain people talk and talk about allthat government ought not to do, People
(06:18):
who got all they wanted from governmentback in the days when the financial institutions
and the railroads were being bailed outin nineteen thirty three, bailed out by
the government. It is refreshing togo out through the country and feel the
common wisdom that the time to repairthe room is when the sun is shining.
(06:45):
They want the financial budget balanced,these American people, but they want
the human budget balanced as well.They want to set up a national economy
which balances itself with as little governmentsubsidy as possible, or they realize that
persistent subsidies ultimately bankrupt their government.They are less concerned that every detail be
(07:11):
immediately right than they are that thedirection be right. They know that just
so long as we are traveling onthe right road, it does not make
much difference if occasionally we hit athank you mamb The overwhelming majority of our
citizens who live by agriculture are thinkingclearly how they want government to help them
(07:36):
in connection with the production of crops. They want government help in two ways,
first in the control of surplices,and second in the proper use of
land. The other day, areporter told me that he had never been
able to understand why the government seeksto curtail crop production and at the same
(08:00):
time to open up new irrigated areas. He was confusing two totally separate objectives.
Crop surplus control relates to the totalamount of any major crop grown in
the whole nation on all cultivated land, good land or poor land. Control
(08:22):
by the cooperation of the crop growersthemselves and with the help of the government.
Land use, however, is apolicy of providing each farmer with the
best quality and type of land thatwe have or can make available for his
part in that total production. Addinggood new land for diversified crops is offset
(08:48):
by abandoning poor land now uneconomically farmed. The total amount of production largely determines
the price of a and therefore thedifference between comfort and misery for the farmer.
Let me give you an example.If we Americans were foolish enough to
(09:11):
run every shoe factory twenty four hoursa day, seven days a week,
we would soon have more shoes thanthe nation could possibly buy a surplus of
shoes so great that it would haveto be destroyed or given away, or
sold at prices far below the costof production. That simple illustration, that
(09:37):
simple law of supply and demand equallyaffects the price of all of our major
crops. You and I have heardbig manufacturers talk about control of production by
the farmer as an indefensible economy ofscarcity, as they call it. And
(09:58):
yet these same manufacturers never hesitate toshut down their own huge plants, throw
men out of work, and cutdown the purchasing power of the whole community.
Whenever they think that they must adjusttheir production to an oversupply of the
goods that they make. When itis their baby who has the measles,
(10:22):
they call it not an economy ofscarcity, but sound business judgment. Of
course, speaking seriously, what youand I want is such governmental rules of
the game that labor and agriculture andindustry will all produce a balanced abundance without
(10:45):
waste. So we intend this winterto find a way to prevent four and
a half cent cotton and nine centcorn and thirty cent wheat, with all
the disaster those prices mean for allof us to prevent those prices from ever
coming back again. To do that, the farmers themselves want to co operate
(11:09):
to build an all weather farm programso that in the long run prices will
be more stable. They believe thiscan be done and the national budget kept
out of the red. And whenwe have found that way to protect the
farmer's prices from the effects of alternatingcrop surplices and crop scarcities, we shall
(11:31):
also have found the way to protectthe nation's food supply from the effects of
the same fluctuation. We ought alwaysto have enough food at prices within the
reach of the consuming public. Forthe consumers in the cities of America,
we must find a way to helpthe farmers to store up in years of
plenty enough to avoid hardship in theyears of scarcity. Our land use policy
(12:00):
is a different thing. I havejust visited much of the work that the
national government is doing to stop soilerosion, to save our forests, to
prevent floods, to produce electric powerfor more general use, and to give
people a chance to move from poorland to better land. By irrigating thousands
(12:20):
of acres that need only water toprovide an opportunity to make a good living.
I saw bear and burned hillsides whereonly a few years ago great forests
were growing. They are now beingplanted to young trees, not only to
stop erosion, but to provide alumber supply for the future. I saw
(12:41):
sea sea, sea boys and wp A workers building checked dams and small
ponds and terraces to raise the watertable and make it possible for farms and
villages to remain in safety where theynow are. I saw the honessing of
the turbulent Missouri, a muddy streamwith the top soil of many states.
(13:07):
And I saw barges on new channelscarrying produce and freight athwart the nation.
Let me give you two simple illustrationsof why government projects of this type have
a national importance for the whole country, and not merely a local importance.
(13:28):
In the Boise Valley in Idaho,I saw a district which had been recently
irrigated to enormous fertility, so thata family can now make a pretty good
living from forty acres of its land. Many of the families who are making
good in that valley today moved therefrom one thousand miles away. They came
(13:50):
from the dust strip that runs throughthe middle of the nation all the way
from the Canadian border to Texas,a strip which includes large portions are ten
states. That valley in western Idahotherefore assumes at once a national importance as
(14:11):
a second chance for willing farmers,and year by year we propose to add
more valleys to take care of thousandsof other families who need the same kind
of a second chance in new greenpastures. The other illustration was at the
(14:31):
Grand Cooley Dam in the state ofWashington. The Engineering Charge told me that
almost half of the whole cost ofthat damned date had been spent for materials
that were manufactured east of the MississippiRiver, giving employment and wages to thousands
of industrial workers in the eastern thirdof the nation, two thousand miles away.
(14:58):
All of this work needs, ofcourse, a more business like system
of planning, a greater foresight thanwe use today, and that is why
I recommend it to the last sessionof the Congress the creation of seven planning
regions, in which local people willoriginate and coordinate recommendations as to the kind
(15:22):
of this work to be done intheir particular region. The Congress, of
course will determine the projects to beselected within the budget limits. To carry
out any twentieth century program, wemust give to the executive branch of the
government twentieth century machinery to work with. I recognize the democratic processes unnecessarily and
(15:48):
I think rightly slower than dictatorial processes, but I refuse to believe the democratic
processes need be dangerously slow. Formany years, we have all known that
the executive and administrative departments of thegovernment in Washington are a higelly, figgly
(16:08):
patchwork of duplicate responsibilities and overlapping powers. The reorganization of this vast government government
machinery, which I proposed to theCongress last winter, does not conflict with
the principle of the democratic process,as some people say. It only makes
(16:30):
that process work more efficiently. Onmy recent trip, many people have talked
to me about the millions of menand women and children who still work at
insufficient wages and over long hours.American industry has searched the outside world to
(16:51):
find new markets, but it cancreate on its very doorstep the biggest and
most permanent market it has ever seen. It needs the reduction of trade barriers
to improve its foreign markets. Butit should not overlook the chance to reduce
the domestic trade barrier right here,right away, without waiting for any treaty.
(17:17):
A few more dollars a week inwages, a better distribution of jobs
with a shorter working day will almostovernight make millions of our lowest paid workers
actual buyers of billions of dollars ofindustrial and farm products. That increased volume
(17:37):
of sales ought to lessen other costof production so much that even a considerable
increase in labor costs can be absorbedwithout imposing higher prices on the consumer.
I am a firm believer in fullyadequate pay for all labor. But now
(18:00):
I am most greatly concerned in increasingthe pay of the lowest paid labor,
those who are our most numerous consuminggroup, but who today do not make
enough to maintain a decent standard ofliving, or to buy the food and
the clothes and the other articles necessaryto keep our factories and farms fully running.
(18:23):
I think that far sighted businessmen alreadyunderstand and agree with this policy.
They agree also that no one sectionof the country can permanently benefit itself or
the rest of the country by maintainingstandards of wages and hours that are far
(18:45):
inferior to other sections of the country. Most businessmen big and little know that
their government neither wants to put themout of business nor to prevent them from
earning a decent profit. In spiteof the alarms of a few who seek
to regain control over American life,most businessmen big and little know that their
(19:12):
government is trying to make property moresecure than ever before by giving every family
a real chance to have a propertystake in the nation. Whatever danger there
may be to the property and profitsof the many, if there be any
(19:33):
danger, comes not from government's attitudetowards business, but from restraints now imposed
upon business by private monopolies and financialoligarchies. The average businessman knows that a
high cost of living is a greatdeterrent to business, and that business prosperity
(19:56):
depends much upon a low price parla, which encourages the widest possible consumption.
As one of the country's leading economistsrecently said, the continuance of business recovery
in the United States depends far moreon business policies business pricing policies than it
(20:19):
does on anything that may be doneor not done in Washington. Our competitive
system is, of course not altogethercompetitive. Anybody who buys any large quantity
of manufactured goods knows this, whetherit be the government or an individual buyer.
(20:41):
We have antitrust laws, to besure, but they have not been
adequate to check the growth of manymonopolies. Whether or not they might have
been originally adequate, interpretation by thecourts and the difficulties and delays of legal
pc have now definitely limited their effectiveness. We are already studying how to strengthen
(21:07):
our antitrust laws in order to endmonopoly, not to hurt, but to
free the legitimate business of the nation. I have touched briefly on these important
subjects, which, taken together,make a program for the immediate future,
(21:32):
and I know you will realize thatto attain it, legislation is necessary.
As we plan to day for thecreation of ever higher standards of living for
the people of the United States,we are aware that our plans may be
most seriously affected by events in theworld outside our borders. By a series
(21:57):
of trade agreements, we have beenattempting to recreate the trade of the world,
that trade of the world that playsso important a part in our domestic
prosperity. But we know that ifthe world outside our borders falls into the
chaos of war, world trade willbe completely disrupted. Nor can we view
(22:25):
with indifference the destruction of civilized valuesthroughout the world. We seek peace not
only for our generation, but alsofor the generation of our children. We
seek for them, our children,the continuance of world civilization, in order
(22:48):
that their American civilization may continue tobe invigorated, helped by the achievements of
civilized men and women in all allthe rest of the world. I want
our great democracy to be wise enoughto realize that aloofness from war is not
(23:11):
promoted by unawareness of war. Ina world of mutual suspicions, peace must
be affirmatively reached, for it cannotjust be wished for, and it cannot
just be waited for. We havenow made known our willingness to attend a
(23:37):
conference of the parties to the NinePower Treaty of nineteen twenty two, the
Treaty of Washington, of which weare one of the original signatories. The
purpose of this conference will be toseek, by agreement a solution of the
present situation in China. In effortsto find that solution. It is our
(24:02):
purpose to cooperate with the other signatoriesto this treaty, including China and Japan.
Such cooperation would be an example ofone of the possible paths to follow
in our search for means toward peacethroughout the whole world. The development of
(24:25):
civilization and of human welfare is basedon the acceptance by individuals of certain fundamental
decencies in their relation with each other, and equally, the development of peace
in the world is dependent similarly onthe acceptance by nations of certain fundamental decencies
(24:52):
in their relation with each other.Ultimately, I hope each nation will accept
the fact that violations of these rulesare conduct are an injury to the well
being of all nations. Meanwhile,remember that from nineteen thirteen to nineteen twenty
(25:17):
one, I personally was fairly closeto world events, and in that period,
while I learned much of what todo, I also learned much of
what not to do. The commonsense the intelligence of the people of America
(25:41):
agree with my statement that America hateswar, America hopes for peace. Therefore,
America actively engages in the search forpeace
My friends. This afternoon, Ihave issued a proclamation calling a special Session
of the Congress to convene on Monday, November fifteenth, nineteen thirty seven.
I do this in order to giveto the Congress an opportunity to consider important
legislation before the regular session in January, and to enable the Congress to avoid
(00:26):
a lengthy session next year extending throughthe summer. I know that many enemies
of democracy will say that it isbad for business, bad for the tranquility
of the country to have a specialsession, even one beginning only six weeks
before the regular session. But Ihave never had sympathy with the point of
(00:47):
view that a session of the Congressis an unfortunate intrusion of what they call
politics into our national affairs. Thosewho do not like democracy want to keep
lets at home. But the Congressis an essential instrument of democratic government,
and democratic government can never be consideredan intruder into the affairs of a democratic
(01:11):
nation. I shall ask this specialsession to consider immediately a certain important legislation,
which, on my recent trip throughthe nation, convinces me the American
people immediately need. This does notmean that other legislation to which I am
not referring tonight is not an importantpart or of our national well being,
(01:37):
but other legislation can be more readilydiscussed at the regular session. Anyone charged
with proposing or judging national policies shouldhave first hand knowledge of the nation as
a whole. That is why againthis year I have taken trips to all
parts of the country. Last springI visited the southwest. This summer I
(02:01):
made several trips in the East.Now I am just back from a trip
all the way across the continent,and later this autumn I hope to pay
my annual visit to the Southeast.For a president especially, it is a
duty to think in national terms.He must think not only of this year,
(02:22):
but of future years when someone elsewill be president. He must look
beyond the average of the prosperity andwell being of the country, because averages
easily cover up danger spots, ofpoverty and instability. He must not let
the country be deceived by a merelytemporary prosperity which depends on wasteful exploitation of
(02:46):
resources which cannot last. He mustthink not only of keeping us out of
war today, but also out ofkeeping also of keeping us out of war
in generations to come. The kindof prosperity we want is the sound and
permanent kind which is not built uptemporarily at the expense of any section or
(03:09):
group. And the kind of peacewe want is the sound and permanent kind
which is built on the cooperative searchfor peace by all the nations which want
peace. The other day, Iwas asked to state my outstanding impression gained
on this recent trip to the PacificCoast and Bank, and I said that
(03:32):
it seemed to me to be thegeneral understanding on the part of the average
citizen understanding of the broad objectives andpolicies which I have just outlined. Five
years of fierce discussion and debate,five years of information through the radio and
(03:52):
the moving picture, have taken thewhole nation to school in the nation's business.
Even those who have most attacked ourobjectives have by their very criticism,
encouraged the mass of our citizens tothink about and understand the issues involved,
and understanding to approve. Out ofthat process we have learned to think as
(04:18):
a nation, and out of thatprocess we have learned to feel ourselves a
nation as never before in our history. Each section of America says to every
other section, thy people shall bemy people. For most of the country,
(04:38):
this has been a good year,better in dollars and cents than for
many years, and far better inthe soundness of its prosperity. Everywhere I
went I found particular optimism about thegood effect on business which is expected from
the steadies spending by farmers of thelargest farm income in many years. But
(05:02):
we have not yet done all thatmust be done to make this prosperity stable.
The people of the United States werechecked in their efforts to prevent future
piling up of huge agricultural surpluses andthe tumbling prices which inevitably follow them.
They were checked in their efforts tosecure reasonable minimum wages and maximum hours and
(05:27):
the end of child labor. Andbecause they were checked, many groups in
many parts of the country still haveless purchasing power and a lower standard of
living than the nation as a wholecan permanently allow. Americans realize these facts.
That is why they ask government notto stop governing simply because prosperity has
(05:53):
come back a long way. Theydo not look on government as an interloper
in the their affairs. On thecontrary, they regard it as the most
effective form of organized self help.Sometimes I get bored sitting in Washington hearing
certain people talk and talk about allthat government ought not to do, People
(06:18):
who got all they wanted from governmentback in the days when the financial institutions
and the railroads were being bailed outin nineteen thirty three, bailed out by
the government. It is refreshing togo out through the country and feel the
common wisdom that the time to repairthe room is when the sun is shining.
(06:45):
They want the financial budget balanced,these American people, but they want
the human budget balanced as well.They want to set up a national economy
which balances itself with as little governmentsubsidy as possible, or they realize that
persistent subsidies ultimately bankrupt their government.They are less concerned that every detail be
(07:11):
immediately right than they are that thedirection be right. They know that just
so long as we are traveling onthe right road, it does not make
much difference if occasionally we hit athank you mamb The overwhelming majority of our
citizens who live by agriculture are thinkingclearly how they want government to help them
(07:36):
in connection with the production of crops. They want government help in two ways,
first in the control of surplices,and second in the proper use of
land. The other day, areporter told me that he had never been
able to understand why the government seeksto curtail crop production and at the same
(08:00):
time to open up new irrigated areas. He was confusing two totally separate objectives.
Crop surplus control relates to the totalamount of any major crop grown in
the whole nation on all cultivated land, good land or poor land. Control
(08:22):
by the cooperation of the crop growersthemselves and with the help of the government.
Land use, however, is apolicy of providing each farmer with the
best quality and type of land thatwe have or can make available for his
part in that total production. Addinggood new land for diversified crops is offset
(08:48):
by abandoning poor land now uneconomically farmed. The total amount of production largely determines
the price of a and therefore thedifference between comfort and misery for the farmer.
Let me give you an example.If we Americans were foolish enough to
(09:11):
run every shoe factory twenty four hoursa day, seven days a week,
we would soon have more shoes thanthe nation could possibly buy a surplus of
shoes so great that it would haveto be destroyed or given away, or
sold at prices far below the costof production. That simple illustration, that
(09:37):
simple law of supply and demand equallyaffects the price of all of our major
crops. You and I have heardbig manufacturers talk about control of production by
the farmer as an indefensible economy ofscarcity, as they call it. And
(09:58):
yet these same manufacturers never hesitate toshut down their own huge plants, throw
men out of work, and cutdown the purchasing power of the whole community.
Whenever they think that they must adjusttheir production to an oversupply of the
goods that they make. When itis their baby who has the measles,
(10:22):
they call it not an economy ofscarcity, but sound business judgment. Of
course, speaking seriously, what youand I want is such governmental rules of
the game that labor and agriculture andindustry will all produce a balanced abundance without
(10:45):
waste. So we intend this winterto find a way to prevent four and
a half cent cotton and nine centcorn and thirty cent wheat, with all
the disaster those prices mean for allof us to prevent those prices from ever
coming back again. To do that, the farmers themselves want to co operate
(11:09):
to build an all weather farm programso that in the long run prices will
be more stable. They believe thiscan be done and the national budget kept
out of the red. And whenwe have found that way to protect the
farmer's prices from the effects of alternatingcrop surplices and crop scarcities, we shall
(11:31):
also have found the way to protectthe nation's food supply from the effects of
the same fluctuation. We ought alwaysto have enough food at prices within the
reach of the consuming public. Forthe consumers in the cities of America,
we must find a way to helpthe farmers to store up in years of
plenty enough to avoid hardship in theyears of scarcity. Our land use policy
(12:00):
is a different thing. I havejust visited much of the work that the
national government is doing to stop soilerosion, to save our forests, to
prevent floods, to produce electric powerfor more general use, and to give
people a chance to move from poorland to better land. By irrigating thousands
(12:20):
of acres that need only water toprovide an opportunity to make a good living.
I saw bear and burned hillsides whereonly a few years ago great forests
were growing. They are now beingplanted to young trees, not only to
stop erosion, but to provide alumber supply for the future. I saw
(12:41):
sea sea, sea boys and wp A workers building checked dams and small
ponds and terraces to raise the watertable and make it possible for farms and
villages to remain in safety where theynow are. I saw the honessing of
the turbulent Missouri, a muddy streamwith the top soil of many states.
(13:07):
And I saw barges on new channelscarrying produce and freight athwart the nation.
Let me give you two simple illustrationsof why government projects of this type have
a national importance for the whole country, and not merely a local importance.
(13:28):
In the Boise Valley in Idaho,I saw a district which had been recently
irrigated to enormous fertility, so thata family can now make a pretty good
living from forty acres of its land. Many of the families who are making
good in that valley today moved therefrom one thousand miles away. They came
(13:50):
from the dust strip that runs throughthe middle of the nation all the way
from the Canadian border to Texas,a strip which includes large portions are ten
states. That valley in western Idahotherefore assumes at once a national importance as
(14:11):
a second chance for willing farmers,and year by year we propose to add
more valleys to take care of thousandsof other families who need the same kind
of a second chance in new greenpastures. The other illustration was at the
(14:31):
Grand Cooley Dam in the state ofWashington. The Engineering Charge told me that
almost half of the whole cost ofthat damned date had been spent for materials
that were manufactured east of the MississippiRiver, giving employment and wages to thousands
of industrial workers in the eastern thirdof the nation, two thousand miles away.
(14:58):
All of this work needs, ofcourse, a more business like system
of planning, a greater foresight thanwe use today, and that is why
I recommend it to the last sessionof the Congress the creation of seven planning
regions, in which local people willoriginate and coordinate recommendations as to the kind
(15:22):
of this work to be done intheir particular region. The Congress, of
course will determine the projects to beselected within the budget limits. To carry
out any twentieth century program, wemust give to the executive branch of the
government twentieth century machinery to work with. I recognize the democratic processes unnecessarily and
(15:48):
I think rightly slower than dictatorial processes, but I refuse to believe the democratic
processes need be dangerously slow. Formany years, we have all known that
the executive and administrative departments of thegovernment in Washington are a higelly, figgly
(16:08):
patchwork of duplicate responsibilities and overlapping powers. The reorganization of this vast government government
machinery, which I proposed to theCongress last winter, does not conflict with
the principle of the democratic process,as some people say. It only makes
(16:30):
that process work more efficiently. Onmy recent trip, many people have talked
to me about the millions of menand women and children who still work at
insufficient wages and over long hours.American industry has searched the outside world to
(16:51):
find new markets, but it cancreate on its very doorstep the biggest and
most permanent market it has ever seen. It needs the reduction of trade barriers
to improve its foreign markets. Butit should not overlook the chance to reduce
the domestic trade barrier right here,right away, without waiting for any treaty.
(17:17):
A few more dollars a week inwages, a better distribution of jobs
with a shorter working day will almostovernight make millions of our lowest paid workers
actual buyers of billions of dollars ofindustrial and farm products. That increased volume
(17:37):
of sales ought to lessen other costof production so much that even a considerable
increase in labor costs can be absorbedwithout imposing higher prices on the consumer.
I am a firm believer in fullyadequate pay for all labor. But now
(18:00):
I am most greatly concerned in increasingthe pay of the lowest paid labor,
those who are our most numerous consuminggroup, but who today do not make
enough to maintain a decent standard ofliving, or to buy the food and
the clothes and the other articles necessaryto keep our factories and farms fully running.
(18:23):
I think that far sighted businessmen alreadyunderstand and agree with this policy.
They agree also that no one sectionof the country can permanently benefit itself or
the rest of the country by maintainingstandards of wages and hours that are far
(18:45):
inferior to other sections of the country. Most businessmen big and little know that
their government neither wants to put themout of business nor to prevent them from
earning a decent profit. In spiteof the alarms of a few who seek
to regain control over American life,most businessmen big and little know that their
(19:12):
government is trying to make property moresecure than ever before by giving every family
a real chance to have a propertystake in the nation. Whatever danger there
may be to the property and profitsof the many, if there be any
(19:33):
danger, comes not from government's attitudetowards business, but from restraints now imposed
upon business by private monopolies and financialoligarchies. The average businessman knows that a
high cost of living is a greatdeterrent to business, and that business prosperity
(19:56):
depends much upon a low price parla, which encourages the widest possible consumption.
As one of the country's leading economistsrecently said, the continuance of business recovery
in the United States depends far moreon business policies business pricing policies than it
(20:19):
does on anything that may be doneor not done in Washington. Our competitive
system is, of course not altogethercompetitive. Anybody who buys any large quantity
of manufactured goods knows this, whetherit be the government or an individual buyer.
(20:41):
We have antitrust laws, to besure, but they have not been
adequate to check the growth of manymonopolies. Whether or not they might have
been originally adequate, interpretation by thecourts and the difficulties and delays of legal
pc have now definitely limited their effectiveness. We are already studying how to strengthen
(21:07):
our antitrust laws in order to endmonopoly, not to hurt, but to
free the legitimate business of the nation. I have touched briefly on these important
subjects, which, taken together,make a program for the immediate future,
(21:32):
and I know you will realize thatto attain it, legislation is necessary.
As we plan to day for thecreation of ever higher standards of living for
the people of the United States,we are aware that our plans may be
most seriously affected by events in theworld outside our borders. By a series
(21:57):
of trade agreements, we have beenattempting to recreate the trade of the world,
that trade of the world that playsso important a part in our domestic
prosperity. But we know that ifthe world outside our borders falls into the
chaos of war, world trade willbe completely disrupted. Nor can we view
(22:25):
with indifference the destruction of civilized valuesthroughout the world. We seek peace not
only for our generation, but alsofor the generation of our children. We
seek for them, our children,the continuance of world civilization, in order
(22:48):
that their American civilization may continue tobe invigorated, helped by the achievements of
civilized men and women in all allthe rest of the world. I want
our great democracy to be wise enoughto realize that aloofness from war is not
(23:11):
promoted by unawareness of war. Ina world of mutual suspicions, peace must
be affirmatively reached, for it cannotjust be wished for, and it cannot
just be waited for. We havenow made known our willingness to attend a
(23:37):
conference of the parties to the NinePower Treaty of nineteen twenty two, the
Treaty of Washington, of which weare one of the original signatories. The
purpose of this conference will be toseek, by agreement a solution of the
present situation in China. In effortsto find that solution. It is our
(24:02):
purpose to cooperate with the other signatoriesto this treaty, including China and Japan.
Such cooperation would be an example ofone of the possible paths to follow
in our search for means toward peacethroughout the whole world. The development of
(24:25):
civilization and of human welfare is basedon the acceptance by individuals of certain fundamental
decencies in their relation with each other, and equally, the development of peace
in the world is dependent similarly onthe acceptance by nations of certain fundamental decencies
(24:52):
in their relation with each other.Ultimately, I hope each nation will accept
the fact that violations of these rulesare conduct are an injury to the well
being of all nations. Meanwhile,remember that from nineteen thirteen to nineteen twenty
(25:17):
one, I personally was fairly closeto world events, and in that period,
while I learned much of what todo, I also learned much of
what not to do. The commonsense the intelligence of the people of America
(25:41):
agree with my statement that America hateswar, America hopes for peace. Therefore,
America actively engages in the search forpeace
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