Speech Transcript:

When four years ago we met to inaugurate a President, the Republic,
single-minded in anxiety, stood in spirit here. We dedicated
ourselves to the fulfillment of a vision--to speed the time when
there would be for all the people that security and peace essential
to the pursuit of happiness. We of the Republic pledged ourselves to
drive from the temple of our ancient faith those who had profaned it;
to end by action, tireless and unafraid, the stagnation and despair of
that day. We did those first things first.

Our covenant with ourselves did not stop there. Instinctively we
recognized a deeper need--the need to find through government the
instrument of our united purpose to solve for the individual the
ever-rising problems of a complex civilization. Repeated attempts at
their solution without the aid of government had left us baffled and
bewildered. For, without that aid, we had been unable to create those
moral controls over the services of science which are necessary to
make science a useful servant instead of a ruthless master of
mankind. To do this we knew that we must find practical controls over
blind economic forces and blindly selfish men.

We of the Republic sensed the truth that democratic government has
innate capacity to protect its people against disasters once
considered inevitable, to solve problems once considered unsolvable.
We would not admit that we could not find a way to master economic
epidemics just as, after centuries of fatalistic suffering, we had
found a way to master epidemics of disease. We refused to leave the
problems of our common welfare to be solved by the winds of chance
and the hurricanes of disaster.

In this we Americans were discovering no wholly new truth; we were
writing a new chapter in our book of self-government.

This year marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
Constitutional Convention which made us a nation. At that Convention
our forefathers found the way out of the chaos which followed the
Revolutionary War; they created a strong government with powers of
united action sufficient then and now to solve problems utterly
beyond individual or local solution. A century and a half ago they
established the Federal Government in order to promote the general
welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to the American people.

Today we invoke those same powers of government to achieve the same
objectives.

Four years of new experience have not belied our historic instinct.
They hold out the clear hope that government within communities,
government within the separate States, and government of the United
States can do the things the times require, without yielding its
democracy. Our tasks in the last four years did not force democracy
to take a holiday.

Nearly all of us recognize that as intricacies of human relationships
increase, so power to govern them also must increase--power to stop
evil; power to do good. The essential democracy of our Nation and the
safety of our people depend not upon the absence of power, but upon
lodging it with those whom the people can change or continue at
stated intervals through an honest and free system of elections. The
Constitution of 1787 did not make our democracy impotent.

In fact, in these last four years, we have made the exercise of all
power more democratic; for we have begun to bring private autocratic
powers into their proper subordination to the public's government.
The legend that they were invincible--above and beyond the processes
of a democracy--has been shattered. They have been challenged and
beaten.

Our progress out of the depression is obvious. But that is not all
that you and I mean by the new order of things. Our pledge was not
merely to do a patchwork job with secondhand materials. By using the
new materials of social justice we have undertaken to erect on the
old foundations a more enduring structure for the better use of
future generations.

In that purpose we have been helped by achievements of mind and
spirit. Old truths have been relearned; untruths have been unlearned.
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we
know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a
prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the
conviction that in the long run economic morality pays. We are
beginning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the
ideal; and in so doing we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined
power for the establishment of a morally better world.

This new understanding undermines the old admiration of worldly
success as such. We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the
abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary
decencies of life.

In this process evil things formerly accepted will not be so easily
condoned. Hard-headedness will not so easily excuse hardheartedness.
We are moving toward an era of good feeling. But we realize that
there can be no era of good feeling save among men of good will.

For these reasons I am justified in believing that the greatest
change we have witnessed has been the change in the moral climate of
America.

Among men of good will, science and democracy together offer an
ever-richer life and ever-larger satisfaction to the individual. With
this change in our moral climate and our rediscovered ability to
improve our economic order, we have set our feet upon the road of
enduring progress.

Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead?
Shall we call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our
way? For "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to
birth."

Many voices are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says,
"Tarry a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity
asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?"

True, we have come far from the days of stagnation and despair.
Vitality has been preserved. Courage and confidence have been
restored. Mental and moral horizons have been extended.

But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than
ordinary circumstances. Advance became imperative under the goad of
fear and suffering. The times were on the side of progress.

To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled
conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already
reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of
disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive
purpose.

Let us ask again: Have we reached the goal of our vision of that
fourth day of March 1933? Have we found our happy valley?

I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great
wealth of natural resources. Its hundred and thirty million people
are at peace among themselves; they are making their country a good
neighbor among the nations. I see a United States which can
demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national
wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts
hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far
above the level of mere subsistence.

But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens
of millions of its citizens--a substantial part of its whole
population--who at this very moment are denied the greater part of
what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of
life.

I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that
the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under
conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a
century ago.

I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to
better their lot and the lot of their children.

I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and
factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many
other millions.

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for
you in hope--because the Nation, seeing and understanding the
injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make
every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and
concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group
within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not
whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is
whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

If I know aught of the spirit and purpose of our Nation, we will not
listen to Comfort, Opportunism, and Timidity. We will carry on.

Overwhelmingly, we of the Republic are men and women of good will;
men and women who have more than warm hearts of dedication; men and
women who have cool heads and willing hands of practical purpose as
well. They will insist that every agency of popular government use
effective instruments to carry out their will.

Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for
the whole people. It can make constant progress when it keeps abreast
of all the facts. It can obtain justified support and legitimate
criticism when the people receive true information of all that
government does.

If I know aught of the will of our people, they will demand that
these conditions of effective government shall be created and
maintained. They will demand a nation uncorrupted by cancers of
injustice and, therefore, strong among the nations in its example of
the will to peace.

Today we reconsecrate our country to long-cherished ideals in a
suddenly changed civilization. In every land there are always at work
forces that drive men apart and forces that draw men together. In our
personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for
economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up, or else we
all go down, as one people.

To maintain a democracy of effort requires a vast amount of patience
in dealing with differing methods, a vast amount of humility. But out
of the confusion of many voices rises an understanding of dominant
public need. Then political leadership can voice common ideals, and
aid in their realization.

In taking again the oath of office as President of the United States,
I assume the solemn obligation of leading the American people forward
along the road over which they have chosen to advance.

While this duty rests upon me I shall do my utmost to speak their
purpose and to do their will, seeking Divine guidance to help us each
and every one to give light to them that sit in darkness and to guide
our feet into the way of peace.