         FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
                         March 4, 1933


        President Hoover, Mr. Chief Justice, my friends:

        This is a day of national consecration, and 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 pre-eminently 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
wrong doing.

        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 the 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 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.

        These 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 the 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, and 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 before, our interdependence on each other; that we
cannot 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 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.

        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!
