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President[ Franklin D. Roosevelt

         Date[ January 3, 1934

Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Senators and Representatives in Congress:

I come before you at the opening of the Regular Session of the 73d

Congress, not to make requests for special or detailed items of

legislation; I come, rather, to counsel with you, who, like myself, have

been selected to carry out a mandate of the whole people, in order that

without partisanship you and I may cooperate to continue the restoration of

our national wellbeing and, equally important, to build on the ruins of the

past a new structure designed better to meet the present problems of modern

civilization.

Such a structure includes not only the relations of industry and

agriculture and finance to each other but also the effect which all of

these three have on our individual citizens and on the whole people as a

Nation.

Now that we are definitely in the process of recovery, lines have been

rightly drawn between those to whom this recovery means a return to old

methods--and the number of these people is small--and those for whom

recovery means a reform of many old methods, a permanent readjustment of

many of our ways of thinking and therefore of many of our social and

economic arrangements. . . . .

Civilization cannot go back; civilization must not stand still. We have

undertaken new methods. It is our task to perfect, to improve, to alter

when necessary, but in all cases to go forward. To consolidate what we are

doing, to make our economic and social structure capable of dealing with

modern life is the joint task of the legislative, the judicial, and the

executive branches of the national Government.

Without regard to party, the overwhelming majority of our people seek a

greater opportunity for humanity to prosper and find happiness. They

recognize that human welfare has not increased and does not increase

through mere materialism and luxury, but that it does progress through

integrity, unselfishness, responsibility and justice.

In the past few months, as a result of our action, we have demanded of many

citizens that they surrender certain licenses to do as they please in

their business relationships; but we have asked this in exchange for the

protection which the State can give against exploitation by their fellow

men or by combinations of their fellow men.

I congratulate this Congress upon the courage, the earnestness and the

efficiency with which you met the crisis at the Special Session. It was

your fine understanding of the national problem that furnished the example

which the country has so splendidly followed. I venture to say that the

task confronting the First Congress of 1789 was no greater than your own.

I shall not attempt to set forth either the many phases of the crisis which

we experienced last March, or the many measures which you and I undertook

during the Special Session that we might initiate recovery and reform.

It is sufficient that I should speak in broad terms of the results of our

common counsel. The credit of the Government has been fortified by drastic

reduction in the cost of its permanent agencies through the Economy Act.

With the twofold purpose of strengthening the whole financial structure and

of arriving eventually at a medium of exchange which over the years will

have less variable purchasing and debt paying power for our people than

that of the past, I have used the authority granted me to purchase all

American-produced gold and silver and to buy additional gold in the world

markets. Careful investigation and constant study prove that in the matter

of foreign exchange rates certain of our sister Nations find themselves so

handicapped by internal and other conditions that they feel unable at this

time to enter into stabilization discussion based on permanent and

world-wide objectives.

The overwhelming majority of the banks, both national and State, which

reopened last spring, are in sound condition and have been brought within

the protection of Federal insurance. In the case of those banks which were

not permitted to reopen, nearly six hundred million dollars of frozen

deposits are being restored to the depositors through the assistance of the

national Government.

We have made great strides toward the objectives of the National Industrial

Recovery Act, for not only have several millions of our unemployed been

restored to work, but industry is organizing itself with a greater

understanding that reasonable profits can be earned while at the same time

protection can be assured to guarantee to labor adequate pay and proper

conditions of work. Child labor is abolished. Uniform standards of hours

and wages apply today to 95 percent of industrial employment within the

field of the National Industrial Recovery Act. We seek the definite end of

preventing combinations in furtherance of monopoly and in restraint of

trade, while at the same time we seek to prevent ruinous rivalries within

industrial groups which in many cases resemble the gang wars of the

underworld and in which the real victim in every case is the public

itself.

Under the authority of this Congress, we have brought the component parts

of each industry together around a common table, just as we have brought

problems affecting labor to a common meeting ground. Though the machinery,

hurriedly devised, may need readjustment from time to time, nevertheless I

think you will agree with me that we have created a permanent feature of

our modernized industrial structure and that it will continue under the

supervision but not the arbitrary dictation of Government itself.

You recognized last spring that the most serious part of the debt burden

affected those who stood in danger of losing their farms and their homes. I

am glad to tell you that refinancing in both of these cases is proceeding

with good success and in all probability within the financial limits set by

the Congress.

But agriculture had suffered from more than its debts. Actual experience

with the operation of the Agricultural Adjustment Act leads to my belief

that thus far the experiment of seeking a balance between production and

consumption is succeeding and has made progress entirely in line with

reasonable expectations toward the restoration of farm prices to parity. I

continue in my conviction that industrial progress and prosperity can only

be attained by bringing the purchasing power of that portion of our

population which in one form or another is dependent upon agriculture up to

a level which will restore a proper balance between every section of the

country and between every form of work.

In this field, through carefully planned flood control, power development

and land-use policies in the Tennessee Valley and in other, great

watersheds, we are seeking the elimination of waste, the removal of poor

lands from agriculture and the encouragement of small local industries,

thus furthering this principle of a better balanced national life. We

recognize the great ultimate cost of the application of this rounded policy

to every part off the Union. Today we are creating heavy obligations to

start the work because of the great unemployment needs of the moment. I

look forward, however, to the time in the not distant future, when annual

appropriations, wholly covered by current revenue, will enable the work to

proceed under a national plan. Such a national plan will, in a generation

or two, return many times the money spent on it; more important, it will

eliminate the use of inefficient tools, conserve and increase natural

resources, prevent waste, and enable millions of our people to take better

advantage of the opportunities which God has given our country.

I cannot, unfortunately, present to you a picture of complete optimism

regarding world affairs.

The delegation representing the United States has worked in close

cooperation with the other American Republics assembled at Montevideo to

make that conference an outstanding success. We have, I hope, made it clear

to our neighbors that we seek with them future avoidance of territorial

expansion and of interference by one Nation in the internal affairs of

another. Furthermore, all of us are seeking the restoration of commerce in

ways which will preclude the building up of large favorable trade balances

by any one Nation at the expense of trade debits on the part of other

Nations.

In other parts of the world, however, fear of immediate or future

aggression and with it the spending of vast sums on armament and the

continued building up of defensive trade barriers prevent any great

progress in peace or trade agreements. I have made it clear that the United

States cannot take part in political arrangements in Europe but that we

stand ready to cooperate at any time in practicable measures on a world

basis looking to immediate reduction of armaments and the lowering of the

barriers against commerce.

I expect to report to you later in regard to debts owed the Government and

people of this country by the Governments and peoples of other countries.

Several Nations, acknowledging the debt, have paid in small part; other

Nations have failed to pay. One Nation--Finland--has paid the installments

due this country in full.

Returning to home problems, we have been shocked by many notorious examples

of injuries done our citizens by persons or groups who have been living off

their neighbors by the use of methods either unethical or criminal.

In the first category--a field which does not involve violations of the

letter of our laws--practices have been brought to light which have shocked

those who believed that we were in the past generation raising the ethical

standards of business. They call for stringent preventive or regulatory

measures. I am speaking of those individuals who have evaded the spirit and

purpose of our tax laws, of those high officials of banks or corporations

who have grown rich at the expense of their stockholders or the public, of

those reckless speculators with their own or other people's money whose

operations have injured the values of the farmers' crops and the savings

of the poor.

In the other category, crimes of organized banditry, coldblooded shooting,

lynching and kidnapping have threatened our security.

These violations of ethics and these violations of law call on the strong

arm of Government for their immediate suppression; they call also on the

country for an aroused public opinion.

The adoption of the Twenty-first Amendment should give material aid to the

elimination of those new forms of crime which came from the illegal traffic

in liquor.

I shall continue to regard it as my duty to use whatever means may be

necessary to supplement State, local and private agencies for the relief of

suffering caused by unemployment. With respect to this question, I have

recognized the dangers inherent in the direct giving of relief and have

sought the means to provide not mere relief, but the opportunity for useful

and remunerative work. We shall, in the process of recovery, seek to move

as rapidly as possible from direct relief to publicly supported work and

from that to the rapid restoration of private employment.

It is to the eternal credit of the American people that this tremendous

readjustment of our national life is being accomplished peacefully, without

serious dislocation, with only a minimum of injustice and with a great,

willing spirit of cooperation throughout the country.

Disorder is not an American habit. Self-help and self-control are the

essence of the American tradition--not of necessity the form of that

tradition, but its spirit. The program itself comes from the American

people.

It is an integrated program, national in scope. Viewed in the large, it is

designed to save from destruction and to keep for the future the genuinely

important values created by modern society. The vicious and wasteful parts

of that society we could not save if we wished; they have chosen the way of

self-destruction. We would save useful mechanical invention, machine

production, industrial efficiency, modern means of communication, broad

education. We would save and encourage the slowly growing impulse among

consumers to enter the industrial market place equipped with sufficient

organization to insist upon fair prices and honest sales.

But the unnecessary expansion of industrial plants, the waste of natural

resources, the exploitation of the consumers of natural monopolies, the

accumulation of stagnant surpluses, child labor, and the ruthless

exploitation of all labor, the encouragement of speculation with other

people's money, these were consumed in the fires that they themselves

kindled; we must make sure that as we reconstruct our life there be no soil

in which such weeds can grow again.

We have plowed the furrow and planted the good seed; the hard beginning is

over. If we would reap the full harvest, we must cultivate the soil where

this good seed is sprouting and the plant is reaching up to mature growth.

A final personal word. I know that each of you will appreciate that. I am

speaking no mere politeness when I assure you how much I value the fine

relationship that we have shared during these months of hard and incessant

work. Out of these friendly contacts we are, fortunately, building a strong

and permanent tie between the legislative and executive branches of the

Government. The letter of the Constitution wisely declared a separation,

but the impulse of common purpose declares a union. In this spirit we join

once more in serving the American people.

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