Please enjoy September 30, 1934: Fireside Chat 6: On Government and Capitalism a great episode of the legendary Franklin D. Roosevelt - A Classic Old Time radio Show.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Taking of that report, though because of the shortness of time,
I must defer a number of subjects to a later date. Recently,
the most notable public questions that have concerned us all
have had to do with industry and labor, And with
the respect of these certain developments have taken place that
I consider of great importance. I am happy to report that,
(00:26):
after years of uncertainty, culminating in the collapse of the
Spring of nineteen thirty three, we are bringing order out
of the old chaos, with a greater certainty of the
employment of labor at a reasonable way, and of more.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Business at a fair profit.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
These governmental and industrial developments hold promit of new achievements
for the nation.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Men may differ as to.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
The particular form of governmental activity respect to industry and business,
but nearly.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
All men are as greed that.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Private enterprise in time such as these cannot be left
without assistance and without reasonable state guards, lest it destroy
not only itself but also our processes of civilization. The
underlying necessity for such activity is indeed as strong now
(01:28):
as it was years ago when Elihu Root said the
following very significant words. Instead of the give and take
of free individual contracts, the tremendous power of organization has
combined great aggregations of capital in enormous industrial establishments, working
(01:51):
through vast agencies of commerce, and employing great masses of
men in movements of production and transportation.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And trade so great.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
In the mass that each individual concerned in them is
quite helpless by himself. The relations between the employer and
the employed, between the owners of aggregated capital and the
units of organized labor, between the small producer, the small trader,
(02:25):
the consumer, and the great transporting and manufacturing and distributing agencies,
all present new questions for the solution of which the
old reliance upon the free action of individual wills appears
quite inadequate.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And in many directions the.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Interventions of that organized control which we call government seems
necessary to produce the same result of justice and right
conducts which obtained through the attrition of individuals before.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
The new conditions arose.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
It was in this thirt thus described by Secretary Route,
that we approached our task of reviving private enterprise in
March nineteen thirty three. And our first problem was, of
course the banking situation, Because, as you know, the banks
had collapsed. Some banks could not be saved that the
(03:26):
great majority of them, either through their own resources or
with government aids, have been restored to complete public continents.
This has given safety to millions of depositors in these banks.
Closely following this great constructive effort, we have, through various
(03:46):
federal agencies, saved debtors and predators alike in many other
fields of enterprise, such as.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Loans on farm, farm.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Mortgages and home mortgages, loans through the railroads and insurance companies,
and finally help for homeowners and for industry itself. In
all of these efforts, the government has come to the
assistance of business, and with the full expectation that the
money used by the government to assist these enterprises will.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Eventually be repaid, I believe it will be.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
The second step we have taken in the restoration of
normal business enterprise has been to clean up thoroughly on
wholesome conditions in the field of investments.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
In this we've had assistance.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
From many bankers and businessmen, most of whom recognize the
past evils in the banking system, evils in the sale
of security, evils in the deliberate encouragement of stock gambling,
evils in the sale of unsound mortgages, evils in many
other ways in which the public lost literally billions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
They saw that without changes in the policies.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And methods of investment, there could be no recovery of
public confidence.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
In the security of savings.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
The country now enjoys the safety of bank savings under
the new banking laws, the careful checking of new securities
under the Securities Act, and the curtailment of ranked stock
speculation through the Securities Exchange Acts. I sincerely hope that
(05:32):
as a result, people will be discouraged in unhappy efforts
to get rich quick by speculating insecurities, for the average.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Person almost always loses.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Only a very small minority of the people of this
country believe in gambling as a substitute for the old
philosophy of Benjamin Franklin, led the.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Way through wealth is through work.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
In meeting the problems of industrial recovery, the chief agency
of the government has been the National Recovery Administration. Under
its guidance, trades and industries covering over ninety percent of
all industrial employees, have adopted codes of fair competition which
have been approved by the President, and under these codes
(06:25):
in the industry is covered. Child's labor has been eliminated,
the work day and the work week have been shortened,
minimum wages have been established, and the other wages adjusted
towards the rising standard of living. For the emergency purpose
of the NRA was to put men to work, and
(06:45):
since its creation, more than four million persons have been
re employed in great path through the cooperations of American
business brought about under the Code. Benefits of this industrial
recol recovery program have come not only to labor in
the form of new jobs, in relief from overwork, in
(07:09):
relief from underpay, but also to the owners and managers
of industry, because together with a great increase in the payrolls,
there has come at the same time a substantial rise
in the total of industrial profits, a rise from a
deficit figure in the first quarter of nineteen thirty three
(07:32):
to a level of sustained profits within one year after
the inauguration of NRA. Now it should not be expected,
of course, that even employed labor and capital would be
completely satisfied with present conditions. Employed workers have not, by
any means all of them enjoyed a return to the
(07:55):
earnings of prosperous times.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Although millions have hitherto un the.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Privileged workers are today far better paid than ever before. Also,
billions of dollars of invested capital have today a greater
security our present.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And future earning power than before.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
This is because of the establishment of fair competitive standards,
and because of relief from unfair competition in waste cutting,
which of course the presious market and destroys purchasing power.
But it is an undeniable fact that the restoration of
(08:37):
other billions of sound investments to a reasonable earning power
could not be brought about in one year. There is
no magic formula, no economic panacea which could simply revive overnight,
for example, the heavy industries and the trades.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
That are dependent upon them.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Nevertheless, my friends, the gain of trade and industry as
a whole has been substantial, and everybody knows it. In
these gains and in the policies of the administration, there
are assurances.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
That heartens hearten all.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Forward looking men and women with the confidence that we
are definitely rebuilding our political and economic systems on the
lines laid down by the New Deals, lines which, as
I have so often made clear, are in complete accord
with the underlying principles our orderly popular government, which Americans
(09:38):
have demanded since the white man first came.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
To these shores. We count in the future.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
As in the past, on the driving power of individual initiatives,
on the incentive of fair private profits.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Strengthened the thought with.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
The acceptance of those obligations to the public intert which
rests upon us all, we have the right to expect
that this driving power will be given patriotically and wholeheartedly
to our nations. We have passed through the formative period
(10:17):
of code making in the National Recovery Administration. We have
affected a reorganization of the NRA suited to the needs
of the next phase, which is in turn a period
of preparation for legislation which will determine its permanent forms.
In this recent reorganization, we have recognized three distinct functions,
(10:41):
first the legislative or policy making functions, and second the
administrative function of code making and revisions. And third the
judicial functions, which includes enforcements and consumer complaints and the
settlement of disputes between employers and employees and disputes between
(11:03):
one employer and another. We are now prepared to move
into this second phase, to move into it on the
basis of our experience in the first phase. Under the
able and energetic leadership of General Johnson, we shall watch
carefully the working of this new machinery for the second
phase of NRA, modifying it where it needs modification, and.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Finally making recommendations to the Congress, in order that the
functions of NRA which will pulled their worth, may be
made a.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Part of the permanent machinery of government. Let me call
your attention to the fact that the National Industrial Recovery
Act gave businessmen the opportunity they had sought for years
to improve business conditions to what has been called self
government in industry. If the codes which have been written
(11:58):
have been too complicated, if they has gone too far
in such matters as price fixing and the limitation of production,
let it be remembered that, so far as possible, consistent
with the immediate public interests of this past year, and
consistent with the vital necessity of improving labor conditions, the
(12:20):
representatives of trade and industry were permitted to write their
own ideas into the codes. It is now time to
review these actions of the whole to determine through deliberative
means in the light of experience, from the standpoint of
(12:40):
the good of the industries themselves as well as the
general public interests, whether the methods and the policies adopted
in the emergency have been best calculated to promote industrial recovery.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And the permanent improvement of business and labor conditions.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
There may be a serious question as to the wisdom
of many of those devices to control production or to
prevent destructive price cutting, which many business organizations have insisted
when necessary, or if further their effects may have been
to prevent that volume of production which would make possible
lower prices and increased employment. Another question arises as to whether,
(13:24):
in fixing minimum wages on the basis of an hourly
or a weekly wage, we have reached into the heart
of the problem, which is to provide such annual earnings,
earnings throughout the year for the lowest paid worker, such
earnings as will meet his minimum needs. And we question
(13:46):
also the wisdom of extending cold requirements suited to the
great industrial centers and suited to large employers, to extend
those to the great number of small employer in the
smaller communities. During the last twelve months, you and I
(14:07):
know that our industrial recovery has been to some extent
retarded by stripes, including a few of major importance. I
would not minimize the inevitable losses to employers and employees
and to the general public through such conflicts, but I
would point out that the extent and severity of labor
(14:28):
dispute during this period has been far less than in any.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Previous comparable period.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
When the businessmen of the country were demanding the right
to organize themselves adequately to promote their legitimate interests, when
the farmers were demanding legislation which would give them opportunities
and incentives to organize themselves for a common advance, it
was natural that the workers should seek and obtain a
(14:58):
statutory declaration of their constitutional rights to organize themselves for
collective bargainis the right embodied in Section seven A of
the National Industrial Recovery Acts. Machinery set up for the
federal government has provided some new.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Methods of adjustment.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Both employers and employees must share the blame of not
using them as fully as they should. The employer who
turns away from impartial agencies of peace, who denies freedom
of organization to his employees or fails to make every
reasonable effort at a peaceful solution of their differences. That
(15:41):
employer is not fully supporting the recovery effort of his government.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And the workers who turn.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Away from these same impartial agencies and decline to use
their good offices to gain their ends, those workers, likewise
are not fully cooperating with their government.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It is time that we made a clean cut effort
to bring.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
About that united action of management and labor, which is
one of the high purposes of the Recovery Act.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
We have passed through more than a year of education.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Step by step, we have created all the government agencies necessary.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
To ensure the general rule industrial peace with justice. For
all those willing to use.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
These agencies, whenever their voluntary bargaining fails to produce a
necessary agreement, there should be at least a full unfair trial,
a trial given to these means of ending industrial warfare.
And in such an effort we should be able to
(16:52):
secure for employers and employees and consumers the benefits that
all derive from the continuous peaceful operations of our essential enterprises. Accordingly,
I propose to confer within the coming months with small
groups of those of those people who are truly representative
(17:16):
of large employers of labor, and those people who are
truly representative of large groups of organized labor, in order
to seek their cooperation in establishing what I may describe
as a specific crial period of industrial peace. For those
(17:36):
who are willing to join in establishing this hope for
period of peace, from them, I shall speak assurances of
the making and the maintenance of agreements which can be
mutually relied upont under which wages and hours and working
conditions may be determined, and any later adjustments may be made,
(17:59):
either by agreement or, in case of disagreement, through the
mediation or arbitration of state or federal agencies. I shall
not ask either employers or employees permanently to lay aside
the weapons common to industrial war. But I shall ask
(18:20):
both groups to give a fair trial to peaceful methods
of adjusting their conflicts of opinion and interest, and to
experiment for a reasonable time with measures suitable to civilize
our industrial civilizations. Closely allied to the NRAs the Program
(18:43):
of public Works, the program provided for in the same Act,
and designed to put more men back to work, both
directly on the public works themselves, and indirectly in the
industries supplying the materials for these public works. To those
people who say that our expenditures for public works and
(19:04):
for other means for recovery are a waste that we
cannot afford, I answer that no country, however rich, can
afford the waste of its human resources. The moralization caused
by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance morally. It is
(19:26):
the greatest menace to our social order. Some people try
to tell me that we must make up our minds
that for the future we shall permanently have millions of unemployed,
just as other countries has had had them for over
a decade. What may be necessary for those other countries
(19:49):
is not my responsibility to determine. But as for this country,
I stand or fall by my refusal to accept as
a necessary condition of our future a prominent army of unemployed.
(20:09):
On the contrary, we must make it a national principle
that we will not tolerate a large army of unemployed,
that we will arrange our national economy to end our
present unemployment as soon as we can, and then to
take wise measures against its return. I do not want
(20:30):
to think that it is the destiny of any Americans
to remain permanently on relief roles. Those fortunately few in numbers,
who are frightened by boldness, who are cowed by the
necessity for making decisions, complain that all we have done
(20:53):
is unnecessary. All that we have done is subject to
great risk. Now that these people are coming out of
their storm cellars, they forget that there ever was a storm.
They point, for example, to England. They would have you
(21:14):
believe that England has made progress out of her depression
by do nothing policy, by letting nature take her court.
England has her peculiarities, and we have ours. But I
do not believe any intelligent observer can accuse England of
(21:36):
undue orthodoxy in the present emergency? Did England let nature
take our court?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Now?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Did England hold to the gold standard when her reserves
were threatened?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
No?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Has England gone back to the gold standard today?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Now?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Did England hesitate to call in ten billion dollars of
her war bonds bearing five percent interests to a few
new bonds therefore bearing only three and a half percent interest,
thereby saving the British treasury one hundred and fifty million
dollars a year. In interest alone, of course not. And
(22:21):
let it be recorded, my friends, that the British bankers
helped their government. Is it not a fact that ever
since the year nineteen nine, Great Britain, in many ways,
has advanced further along lines of social securities in the
United States. Is it not a fact that relations between
(22:45):
capital and labor on the basis of collective bargaining are
much further advanced in Great Britain than in the United States.
It is perhaps not strange that the conservative British press,
I've told us, with pardonable irony, that much of our
new deal program is only an attempt to catch up
(23:09):
with English reforms that go back ten years or more.
I believe that nearly all Americans are sensible and calm people.
We do not get greatly excited, nor is our peace
of mind disturbed, whether we be businessmen or workers or farmers,
(23:35):
by awesome for announcements concerning the unconstitutionality of some of
our measures of recovery and relief and reform. We are
not frightened by reactionary lawyers or by political editors. All
of these cries have been heard before, more than twenty
(23:59):
years ago, when Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
We're attempting to.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Correct abuses in our national life. The Great Chief Justice
White said this, there is great danger, it seems to me,
to arise from the constant habits which prevails where anything
is opposed or objected. Though are referring without rhyme or reasons,
(24:28):
to the Constitutions as a means of preventing its accomplishment,
thus creating the general impression that the Constitution is but
a barrier to progress, instead of being the broad highway
through which alone true progress may be enjoyed. In our
(24:51):
effort for recovery, we have avoided, on the one hand,
the theory that business should and must be taken over
into an all in braking government. We have avoided, on
the other hand, the equally untenable theory that it is
an interference with liberty to offer reasonable selp when private.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Enterprise is in need of help. The cost we have followed.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Fits the American practice of government, a practice of taking
action step by step, of regulating only to meet concrete needs,
a practice of courageous recognition of change. I believe, with
Abraham Lincoln that the legitimate object of government is to
(25:44):
do for a community of people whatever they need to
have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot do
so well for themselves in their separate and in their
individual capacities. My friends, I still believe in ideals. I
(26:04):
am not for a return to that definition of liberty under.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Which, for many years a free people.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Were being gradually regimended into the service of the privileged.
Fell I prefer, and I am sure you prefer, that
broader definition of liberty under which we are moving forward
to greater freedom, the greater security for the average man
(26:35):
than he has ever known before in the history of America.
Taking of that report, though because of the shortness of time,
I must defer a number of subjects to a later date. Recently,
the most notable public questions that have concerned us all
have had to do with industry and labor, And with
the respect of these certain developments have taken place that
I consider of great importance. I am happy to report that,
(00:26):
after years of uncertainty, culminating in the collapse of the
Spring of nineteen thirty three, we are bringing order out
of the old chaos, with a greater certainty of the
employment of labor at a reasonable way, and of more.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Business at a fair profit.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
These governmental and industrial developments hold promit of new achievements
for the nation.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Men may differ as to.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
The particular form of governmental activity respect to industry and business,
but nearly.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
All men are as greed that.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Private enterprise in time such as these cannot be left
without assistance and without reasonable state guards, lest it destroy
not only itself but also our processes of civilization. The
underlying necessity for such activity is indeed as strong now
(01:28):
as it was years ago when Elihu Root said the
following very significant words. Instead of the give and take
of free individual contracts, the tremendous power of organization has
combined great aggregations of capital in enormous industrial establishments, working
(01:51):
through vast agencies of commerce, and employing great masses of
men in movements of production and transportation.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And trade so great.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
In the mass that each individual concerned in them is
quite helpless by himself. The relations between the employer and
the employed, between the owners of aggregated capital and the
units of organized labor, between the small producer, the small trader,
(02:25):
the consumer, and the great transporting and manufacturing and distributing agencies,
all present new questions for the solution of which the
old reliance upon the free action of individual wills appears
quite inadequate.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And in many directions the.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Interventions of that organized control which we call government seems
necessary to produce the same result of justice and right
conducts which obtained through the attrition of individuals before.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
The new conditions arose.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
It was in this thirt thus described by Secretary Route,
that we approached our task of reviving private enterprise in
March nineteen thirty three. And our first problem was, of
course the banking situation, Because, as you know, the banks
had collapsed. Some banks could not be saved that the
(03:26):
great majority of them, either through their own resources or
with government aids, have been restored to complete public continents.
This has given safety to millions of depositors in these banks.
Closely following this great constructive effort, we have, through various
(03:46):
federal agencies, saved debtors and predators alike in many other
fields of enterprise, such as.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Loans on farm, farm.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Mortgages and home mortgages, loans through the railroads and insurance companies,
and finally help for homeowners and for industry itself. In
all of these efforts, the government has come to the
assistance of business, and with the full expectation that the
money used by the government to assist these enterprises will.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Eventually be repaid, I believe it will be.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
The second step we have taken in the restoration of
normal business enterprise has been to clean up thoroughly on
wholesome conditions in the field of investments.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
In this we've had assistance.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
From many bankers and businessmen, most of whom recognize the
past evils in the banking system, evils in the sale
of security, evils in the deliberate encouragement of stock gambling,
evils in the sale of unsound mortgages, evils in many
other ways in which the public lost literally billions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
They saw that without changes in the policies.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And methods of investment, there could be no recovery of
public confidence.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
In the security of savings.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
The country now enjoys the safety of bank savings under
the new banking laws, the careful checking of new securities
under the Securities Act, and the curtailment of ranked stock
speculation through the Securities Exchange Acts. I sincerely hope that
(05:32):
as a result, people will be discouraged in unhappy efforts
to get rich quick by speculating insecurities, for the average.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Person almost always loses.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Only a very small minority of the people of this
country believe in gambling as a substitute for the old
philosophy of Benjamin Franklin, led the.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Way through wealth is through work.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
In meeting the problems of industrial recovery, the chief agency
of the government has been the National Recovery Administration. Under
its guidance, trades and industries covering over ninety percent of
all industrial employees, have adopted codes of fair competition which
have been approved by the President, and under these codes
(06:25):
in the industry is covered. Child's labor has been eliminated,
the work day and the work week have been shortened,
minimum wages have been established, and the other wages adjusted
towards the rising standard of living. For the emergency purpose
of the NRA was to put men to work, and
(06:45):
since its creation, more than four million persons have been
re employed in great path through the cooperations of American
business brought about under the Code. Benefits of this industrial
recol recovery program have come not only to labor in
the form of new jobs, in relief from overwork, in
(07:09):
relief from underpay, but also to the owners and managers
of industry, because together with a great increase in the payrolls,
there has come at the same time a substantial rise
in the total of industrial profits, a rise from a
deficit figure in the first quarter of nineteen thirty three
(07:32):
to a level of sustained profits within one year after
the inauguration of NRA. Now it should not be expected,
of course, that even employed labor and capital would be
completely satisfied with present conditions. Employed workers have not, by
any means all of them enjoyed a return to the
(07:55):
earnings of prosperous times.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Although millions have hitherto un the.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Privileged workers are today far better paid than ever before. Also,
billions of dollars of invested capital have today a greater
security our present.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And future earning power than before.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
This is because of the establishment of fair competitive standards,
and because of relief from unfair competition in waste cutting,
which of course the presious market and destroys purchasing power.
But it is an undeniable fact that the restoration of
(08:37):
other billions of sound investments to a reasonable earning power
could not be brought about in one year. There is
no magic formula, no economic panacea which could simply revive overnight,
for example, the heavy industries and the trades.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
That are dependent upon them.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Nevertheless, my friends, the gain of trade and industry as
a whole has been substantial, and everybody knows it. In
these gains and in the policies of the administration, there
are assurances.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
That heartens hearten all.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Forward looking men and women with the confidence that we
are definitely rebuilding our political and economic systems on the
lines laid down by the New Deals, lines which, as
I have so often made clear, are in complete accord
with the underlying principles our orderly popular government, which Americans
(09:38):
have demanded since the white man first came.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
To these shores. We count in the future.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
As in the past, on the driving power of individual initiatives,
on the incentive of fair private profits.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Strengthened the thought with.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
The acceptance of those obligations to the public intert which
rests upon us all, we have the right to expect
that this driving power will be given patriotically and wholeheartedly
to our nations. We have passed through the formative period
(10:17):
of code making in the National Recovery Administration. We have
affected a reorganization of the NRA suited to the needs
of the next phase, which is in turn a period
of preparation for legislation which will determine its permanent forms.
In this recent reorganization, we have recognized three distinct functions,
(10:41):
first the legislative or policy making functions, and second the
administrative function of code making and revisions. And third the
judicial functions, which includes enforcements and consumer complaints and the
settlement of disputes between employers and employees and disputes between
(11:03):
one employer and another. We are now prepared to move
into this second phase, to move into it on the
basis of our experience in the first phase. Under the
able and energetic leadership of General Johnson, we shall watch
carefully the working of this new machinery for the second
phase of NRA, modifying it where it needs modification, and.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Finally making recommendations to the Congress, in order that the
functions of NRA which will pulled their worth, may be
made a.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Part of the permanent machinery of government. Let me call
your attention to the fact that the National Industrial Recovery
Act gave businessmen the opportunity they had sought for years
to improve business conditions to what has been called self
government in industry. If the codes which have been written
(11:58):
have been too complicated, if they has gone too far
in such matters as price fixing and the limitation of production,
let it be remembered that, so far as possible, consistent
with the immediate public interests of this past year, and
consistent with the vital necessity of improving labor conditions, the
(12:20):
representatives of trade and industry were permitted to write their
own ideas into the codes. It is now time to
review these actions of the whole to determine through deliberative
means in the light of experience, from the standpoint of
(12:40):
the good of the industries themselves as well as the
general public interests, whether the methods and the policies adopted
in the emergency have been best calculated to promote industrial recovery.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And the permanent improvement of business and labor conditions.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
There may be a serious question as to the wisdom
of many of those devices to control production or to
prevent destructive price cutting, which many business organizations have insisted
when necessary, or if further their effects may have been
to prevent that volume of production which would make possible
lower prices and increased employment. Another question arises as to whether,
(13:24):
in fixing minimum wages on the basis of an hourly
or a weekly wage, we have reached into the heart
of the problem, which is to provide such annual earnings,
earnings throughout the year for the lowest paid worker, such
earnings as will meet his minimum needs. And we question
(13:46):
also the wisdom of extending cold requirements suited to the
great industrial centers and suited to large employers, to extend
those to the great number of small employer in the
smaller communities. During the last twelve months, you and I
(14:07):
know that our industrial recovery has been to some extent
retarded by stripes, including a few of major importance. I
would not minimize the inevitable losses to employers and employees
and to the general public through such conflicts, but I
would point out that the extent and severity of labor
(14:28):
dispute during this period has been far less than in any.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Previous comparable period.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
When the businessmen of the country were demanding the right
to organize themselves adequately to promote their legitimate interests, when
the farmers were demanding legislation which would give them opportunities
and incentives to organize themselves for a common advance, it
was natural that the workers should seek and obtain a
(14:58):
statutory declaration of their constitutional rights to organize themselves for
collective bargainis the right embodied in Section seven A of
the National Industrial Recovery Acts. Machinery set up for the
federal government has provided some new.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Methods of adjustment.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Both employers and employees must share the blame of not
using them as fully as they should. The employer who
turns away from impartial agencies of peace, who denies freedom
of organization to his employees or fails to make every
reasonable effort at a peaceful solution of their differences. That
(15:41):
employer is not fully supporting the recovery effort of his government.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And the workers who turn.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Away from these same impartial agencies and decline to use
their good offices to gain their ends, those workers, likewise
are not fully cooperating with their government.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It is time that we made a clean cut effort
to bring.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
About that united action of management and labor, which is
one of the high purposes of the Recovery Act.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
We have passed through more than a year of education.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Step by step, we have created all the government agencies necessary.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
To ensure the general rule industrial peace with justice. For
all those willing to use.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
These agencies, whenever their voluntary bargaining fails to produce a
necessary agreement, there should be at least a full unfair trial,
a trial given to these means of ending industrial warfare.
And in such an effort we should be able to
(16:52):
secure for employers and employees and consumers the benefits that
all derive from the continuous peaceful operations of our essential enterprises. Accordingly,
I propose to confer within the coming months with small
groups of those of those people who are truly representative
(17:16):
of large employers of labor, and those people who are
truly representative of large groups of organized labor, in order
to seek their cooperation in establishing what I may describe
as a specific crial period of industrial peace. For those
(17:36):
who are willing to join in establishing this hope for
period of peace, from them, I shall speak assurances of
the making and the maintenance of agreements which can be
mutually relied upont under which wages and hours and working
conditions may be determined, and any later adjustments may be made,
(17:59):
either by agreement or, in case of disagreement, through the
mediation or arbitration of state or federal agencies. I shall
not ask either employers or employees permanently to lay aside
the weapons common to industrial war. But I shall ask
(18:20):
both groups to give a fair trial to peaceful methods
of adjusting their conflicts of opinion and interest, and to
experiment for a reasonable time with measures suitable to civilize
our industrial civilizations. Closely allied to the NRAs the Program
(18:43):
of public Works, the program provided for in the same Act,
and designed to put more men back to work, both
directly on the public works themselves, and indirectly in the
industries supplying the materials for these public works. To those
people who say that our expenditures for public works and
(19:04):
for other means for recovery are a waste that we
cannot afford, I answer that no country, however rich, can
afford the waste of its human resources. The moralization caused
by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance morally. It is
(19:26):
the greatest menace to our social order. Some people try
to tell me that we must make up our minds
that for the future we shall permanently have millions of unemployed,
just as other countries has had had them for over
a decade. What may be necessary for those other countries
(19:49):
is not my responsibility to determine. But as for this country,
I stand or fall by my refusal to accept as
a necessary condition of our future a prominent army of unemployed.
(20:09):
On the contrary, we must make it a national principle
that we will not tolerate a large army of unemployed,
that we will arrange our national economy to end our
present unemployment as soon as we can, and then to
take wise measures against its return. I do not want
(20:30):
to think that it is the destiny of any Americans
to remain permanently on relief roles. Those fortunately few in numbers,
who are frightened by boldness, who are cowed by the
necessity for making decisions, complain that all we have done
(20:53):
is unnecessary. All that we have done is subject to
great risk. Now that these people are coming out of
their storm cellars, they forget that there ever was a storm.
They point, for example, to England. They would have you
(21:14):
believe that England has made progress out of her depression
by do nothing policy, by letting nature take her court.
England has her peculiarities, and we have ours. But I
do not believe any intelligent observer can accuse England of
(21:36):
undue orthodoxy in the present emergency? Did England let nature
take our court?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Now?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Did England hold to the gold standard when her reserves
were threatened?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
No?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Has England gone back to the gold standard today?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Now?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Did England hesitate to call in ten billion dollars of
her war bonds bearing five percent interests to a few
new bonds therefore bearing only three and a half percent interest,
thereby saving the British treasury one hundred and fifty million
dollars a year. In interest alone, of course not. And
(22:21):
let it be recorded, my friends, that the British bankers
helped their government. Is it not a fact that ever
since the year nineteen nine, Great Britain, in many ways,
has advanced further along lines of social securities in the
United States. Is it not a fact that relations between
(22:45):
capital and labor on the basis of collective bargaining are
much further advanced in Great Britain than in the United States.
It is perhaps not strange that the conservative British press,
I've told us, with pardonable irony, that much of our
new deal program is only an attempt to catch up
(23:09):
with English reforms that go back ten years or more.
I believe that nearly all Americans are sensible and calm people.
We do not get greatly excited, nor is our peace
of mind disturbed, whether we be businessmen or workers or farmers,
(23:35):
by awesome for announcements concerning the unconstitutionality of some of
our measures of recovery and relief and reform. We are
not frightened by reactionary lawyers or by political editors. All
of these cries have been heard before, more than twenty
(23:59):
years ago, when Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
We're attempting to.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Correct abuses in our national life. The Great Chief Justice
White said this, there is great danger, it seems to me,
to arise from the constant habits which prevails where anything
is opposed or objected. Though are referring without rhyme or reasons,
(24:28):
to the Constitutions as a means of preventing its accomplishment,
thus creating the general impression that the Constitution is but
a barrier to progress, instead of being the broad highway
through which alone true progress may be enjoyed. In our
(24:51):
effort for recovery, we have avoided, on the one hand,
the theory that business should and must be taken over
into an all in braking government. We have avoided, on
the other hand, the equally untenable theory that it is
an interference with liberty to offer reasonable selp when private.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Enterprise is in need of help. The cost we have followed.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Fits the American practice of government, a practice of taking
action step by step, of regulating only to meet concrete needs,
a practice of courageous recognition of change. I believe, with
Abraham Lincoln that the legitimate object of government is to
(25:44):
do for a community of people whatever they need to
have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot do
so well for themselves in their separate and in their
individual capacities. My friends, I still believe in ideals. I
(26:04):
am not for a return to that definition of liberty under.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Which, for many years a free people.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Were being gradually regimended into the service of the privileged.
Fell I prefer, and I am sure you prefer, that
broader definition of liberty under which we are moving forward
to greater freedom, the greater security for the average man
(26:35):
than he has ever known before in the history of America.
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