"Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ablility 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.
"Primarily, this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubborness 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 outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit,they have proposed only the lending of more money.
"They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish."
"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."
This is part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address delivered on March 4, 1933 in Washington, D.C.
No comments:
Post a Comment