Franklin D. Roosevelt

“ It is the task of our generation, yours and mine. But we build and defend not for our generation alone. We defend the foundations laid down by our fathers. We build a life for generations yet unborn. We defend and we build a way of life, not for America alone, but for all mankind. Ours is a high duty, a noble task.
Day and night I pray for the restoration of peace in this mad world of ours. It is not necessary that I, the President, ask the American people to pray in behalf of such a cause—for I know you are praying with me. ”

“ In outlining my economic creed it is necessary to make clear again my point of view with regard to the individual. I believe that our industrial and economic system is made for individual men and women, and not individual men and women for the benefit of the system. I believe that the individual should have full liberty of action to make the most of himself; but I do not believe that in the name of that sacred word, individualism, a few powerful interests should be permitted to make industrial cannon-fodder of the lives of half the population of the United States. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The measure of that 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, the moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days, my friends, 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—to our fellow men. ”

“ The firm foundation can be built--and it will be built. But the continuance and assurance of a living peace must, in the long run, be the work of the people themselves.
We ourselves, like all peoples who have gone through the difficult processes of liberation and adjustment, know of our own experience how great the difficulties can be. We know that they are not difficulties peculiar to any continent or any Nation. Our own Revolutionary War left behind it, in the words of one American historian, "an eddy of lawlessness and disregard of human life." ”

“ This generation of Americans has come to realize, with a present and personal realization, that there is something larger and more important than the life of any individual or of any individual group—something for which a man will sacrifice, and gladly sacrifice, not only his pleasures, not only his goods, not only his associations with those he loves, but his life itself. In time of crisis when the future is in the balance, we come to understand, with full recognition and devotion, what this nation is and what we owe to it. ”

“ I hope that a great many have been trained to pursue truths relentlessly and to look at them courageously. I hope that they will face the unfortunate state of the world about them with a greater clarity of vision than many of their elders.
As they have viewed this world of which they are about to become a more active part, I have no doubt that they have been impressed by its chaos, its lack of plan. This failure to measure true values and to look ahead is true of almost every industry, every profession, every walk of life. ”

“ What great crises teach all men whom the example and counsel of the brave inspire is the lesson: Fear not, view all the tasks of life as sacred, have faith in the triumph of the ideal, give daily all that you have to give, be loyal and rejoice whenever you find yourselves part of a great ideal enterprise. You, at this moment, have the honor to belong to a generation whose lips are touched by fire. You live in a land that now enjoys the blessings of peace. But let nothing human be wholly alien to you. The human race now passes through one of its great crises. ”

“ 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 of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. ”

“ Tonight, in the fact of a crisis of serious proportions in the coal industry, I say again that the spirit or this nation is good. I know that the American people will not tolerate any threat offered to their government by anyone. I believe the coal miners will not continue the strike against their government. I believe that the coal miners as Americans will not fail to heed the clear call to duty. Like all other good Americans, they will march shoulder to shoulder with their armed forces to victory. ”

“ 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 honour, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. ”

“ I ask that all of us everywhere think things through with the single aim of how best to serve the future of our own nation. I do not mean merely its future relationship with the outside world. I mean its domestic future as well--the work, the security, the prosperity, the happiness, the life of all the boys and girls in the United States, as they are inevitably affected by such world relationships. For it becomes clearer and clearer that the future world will be a shabby and dangerous place to live in--yes, even for Americans to live in--if it is ruled by force in the hands of a few. ”

“ I believe that the government, without becoming a prying bureaucracy, can act as a check of counterbalance of this oligarchy, so as to secure initiative, life, a chance to work, and the safety of savings to men and women, rather than safety of exploitation to the exploiter, safety of manipulation to the financial manipulator, safety of unlicensed power to those who would speculate to the bitter end with the welfare and property of other people. ”

“ If it becomes necessary to ask for any additional legislation in order to attain our objective of preventing a spiral in the cost of living, I shall do so.
I know the American farmer, the American workman, and the American businessman. I know that they will gladly embrace this economy and equality of sacrifice, satisfied that it is necessary for the most vital and compelling motive in all their lives—winning through to victory.
Never in the memory of man has there been a war in which the courage, the endurance and the loyalty of civilians played so vital a part. ”

“ In the years that have followed, that sentiment has remained the dedication of this Nation. Among the Nations of the great Western Hemisphere the policy of the good neighbor has happily prevailed. At no time in the four and a half centuries of modern civilization in the Americas has there existed--in any year, in any decade, in any generation in all that time--a greater spirit of mutual understanding, of common helpfulness, and of devotion to the ideals of serf-government than exists today in the twenty-one American Republics and their neighbor, the Dominion of Canada. ”

“ America is new. It is in the process of change and development. It has the great potentialities of youth. But youth can batter itself to death against the stone wall of political and governmental ineptitude.
That our government has been created by ourselves, that its policies and therefore many of its detailed acts have been ordered by us, is obvious. It is just as true that our interest in government is a self-interest, though it cannot be called selfish, for when we secure an act of government which is helpful to ourselves it should be helpful to all men. ”

“ The price for civilization must be paid in hard work and sorrow and blood. The price is not too high. If you doubt it, ask those millions who live today under the tyranny of Hitlerism.
Ask the workers of France and Norway and the Netherlands, whipped to labor by the lash, whether the stabilization of wages is too great a "sacrifice."
Ask the farmers of Poland and Denmark, of Czechoslovakia and France, looted of their livestock, starving while their own crops are stolen from their land, ask them whether "parity" prices are too great a "sacrifice." ”