Franklin Delano Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address

by Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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insistence that the Federal, the State, and the local governments act
forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can
be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often
scattered, uneconomical, unequal. It can be helped by national planning
for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of
communications and other utilities that have a definitely public
character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can
never be helped by merely talking about it. We must act; we must act
quickly.

And finally, in our progress towards 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, my friends, 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
forty-eight 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 that
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 of America--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 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 realized 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 can be made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know,

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