th Congress 1 SFNATE /Document 
 
 1st Session j \ No. 10 
 
 SECOND 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE CAPITOL 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 JANUARY 20, 193 7 
 
 UNITED STATES 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
 WASHINGTON : 1937 
 
SUBMITTED BY MR. ROBINSON 
 
 In the Senate of the United States, 
 
 January M, 1937. 
 Ordered, That the Inaugural Address of the President of the 
 United States, delivered on Wednesday, January 20, 1937, be printed 
 as a Senate document. 
 
 Attest : 
 
 Edwin A. Halsey, Secretary. 
 
 ii 
 
 f\ kI . II 1 11 O r. \i I l If 
 
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT 
 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT 
 
 When four years ago we met to inaugurate a President, the Re- 
 public, 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. 
 
 But 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 man- 
 kind. 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 con- 
 sidered 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 prob- 
 lems 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 Con- 
 vention our forefathers found the way out of the chaos which fol- 
 lowed 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 
 
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2 SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 
 
 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 con- 
 tinue at stated intervals through an honest and free system of elec- 
 tions. 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 democoracy — 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 patch-work job with second-hand 
 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; 
 Ave know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a 
 prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the con- 
 viction that in the long run economic morality pays. We are begin- 
 ning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the ideal; 
 and in so doing we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined 
 ] lower 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. 
 
 And in <Jiis process evil things formerly accepted will not be so 
 easily condoned. Hard-headedness will not so easily excuse hard- 
 heartedness. 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 
 over-richer life and ever-larger satisfactions to the individual. With 
 this change in our moral climate and our re-discovered 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." 
 
SECOND INAUGURAL, ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 
 
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 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 re- 
 stored. Mental and moral horizons have been extended. 
 
 But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than 
 ordinary circumstance. 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 con- 
 science, irresponsibility and ruthless self-interest already reappear. 
 Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster ! 
 Prosperity already tests the i5ersistenee of our progressive purpose. 
 
 So 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 popu- 
 lation — 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 Xation, 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 dedica- 
 tion — 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. 
 
4 SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 
 
 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 govern- 
 ment does. 
 
 If I know aught of the will of our people, they will demand that 
 these conditions of effective government shall be created and main- 
 tained. They will demand a nation uncorrupted by cancers of in- 
 justice 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. 
 
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