Speech Transcript:

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 Nation impels. 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, State, 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.