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Franklin D. Roosevelt -Speech at Madison Square Garden (October 31,1936)
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Senator Wagner, Governor Lehman, ladies and gentlemen:
On the eve of a national election, it is well for us to stop for a moment and
analyze calmly and without prejudice the effect on our Nation of a victory by
either of the major political parties.
The problem of the electorate is far deeper, far more vital than the continuance
in the Presidency of any individual. For the greater issue goes beyond units of
humanity—it goes to humanity itself.
In 1932 the issue was the restoration of American democracy; and the American
people were in a mood to win. They did win. In 1936 the issue is the
preservation of their victory. Again they are in a mood to win. Again they will
win.
More than four years ago in accepting the Democratic nomination in Chicago, I
said: "Give me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to
restore America to its own people."
And we know tonight, that the banners of that crusade still fly in the forefront
of a Nation that is still on the march.
It is needless to repeat the details of the program which this Administration
has been hammering out on the anvils of experience. No amount of
misrepresentation or statistical contortion can conceal or blur or smear that
record. Neither the attacks of unscrupulous enemies nor the exaggerations of
over-zealous friends will serve to mislead the American people.
What was our hope in 1932? Above all other things the American people wanted
peace. They wanted peace of mind instead of gnawing fear.
First, they sought escape from the personal terror which had stalked them for
three years. They wanted the peace that comes from security in their homes:
safety for their savings, permanence in their jobs, a fair profit from their
enterprise.
Next, they wanted peace in the community, the peace that springs from the
ability to meet the needs of community life: schools, playgrounds, parks,
sanitation, highways—those things which are expected of solvent local
government. They sought escape from disintegration and bankruptcy in local and
state affairs.
They also sought peace within the Nation: protection of their currency, fairer
wages, the ending of long hours of toil, the abolition of child labor, the
elimination of wild-cat speculation, and the safety of their children from
kidnappers.
And, finally, they sought peace with other Nations—peace in a world of unrest.
The Nation knows that I hate war, and I know that the Nation hates war.
I submit to you a record of peace; and on that record a well-founded expectation
for future peace—peace for the individual, peace for the community, peace for
the Nation, and peace with the world.
Tonight I call the roll—the roll of honor of those who stood with us in 1932 and
still stand with us today.
Written on that roll of honor are the names of millions who never had a
chance—men at starvation wages, women in sweatshops, children at looms.
Written on it are the names of those who despaired, young men and young women
for whom opportunity had become a will-o'-the-wisp.
Written on it are the names of farmers whose acres yielded only bitterness,
business men whose books were portents of disaster, home owners who were faced
with eviction, frugal citizens whose savings were insecure.
Written there in large letters are the names of countless other Americans of all
parties and all faiths, Americans who had eyes to see and hearts to understand,
whose consciences were burdened because too many of their fellows were burdened,
who looked on these things four years ago and said, "This can be changed. We
will change it."
We still lead that army in 1936. They stood with us then in 1932 because they
believed. They stand with us today because in 1936 they know. And with them
stand millions of new recruits who have come to know.
Their hopes have become our record.
We have not come thus far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go
further without a struggle.
For twelve years our Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing,
do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to that Government but that Government
looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the
scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines!
Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences
strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that
Government is best which is most indifferent to mankind.
For nearly four years now, you have had an Administration which instead of
twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. And I can assure you that we will
keep our sleeves rolled up.
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial
monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war
profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere
appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money
is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one
candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I
welcome their hatred.
I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces
of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it
said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.
The American people know from a four-year record that today there is only one
entrance to the White House—by the front door. Since March 4, 1933, there has
been only one pass-key to the White House. I have carried that key in my own
pocket. It is there tonight. So long as I am President, it will remain in my
pocket.
Those who used to have pass-keys are not happy. Some of them indeed are
desperate. Only desperate men with their backs to the wall would descend so far
below the level of decent citizenship as to foster the current pay-envelope
campaign against America's working people. Only reckless men, heedless of
consequences, would risk the disruption of the hope for a new peace between
worker and employer by returning to the tactics of the labor spy.
Here is an amazing paradox! The very employers and politicians and newspapers
who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American
system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage
earners of this country. It is the 1936 version of the old threat to close down
the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old
strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for
them.
Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote
according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse—it is
deceit.
They tell the worker his wage will be reduced by a contribution to some vague
form of old-age insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for
every dollar of premium he pays for that insurance, the employer pays another
dollar. That omission is deceit.
They carefully conceal from him the fact that under the federal law, he receives
another insurance policy to help him if he loses his job, and that the premium
of that policy is paid 100 percent by the employer and not one cent by the
worker. They do not tell him that the insurance policy that is bought for him is
far more favorable to him than any policy that any private insurance company
could afford to issue. That omission is deceit.
They imply to him that he pays all the cost of both forms of insurance. They
carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar put up by him his
employer puts up three dollars three for one. And that omission is deceit.
But they are guilty of more than deceit. When they imply that the reserves thus
created against both these policies will be stolen by some future Congress,
diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and the honor
of American Government itself. Those who suggest that, are already aliens to the
spirit of American democracy. Let them emigrate and try their lot under some
foreign flag in which they have more confidence.
The fraudulent nature of this attempt is well shown by the record of votes on
the passage of the Social Security Act. In addition to an overwhelming majority
of Democrats in both Houses, seventy-seven Republican Representatives voted for
it and only eighteen against it and fifteen Republican Senators voted for it and
only five against it. Where does this last-minute drive of the Republican
leadership leave these Republican Representatives and Senators who helped enact
this law?
I am sure the vast majority of law-abiding businessmen who are not parties to
this propaganda fully appreciate the extent of the threat to honest business
contained in this coercion.
I have expressed indignation at this form of campaigning and I am confident that
the overwhelming majority of employers and workers and the general public share
that indignation and will show it at the polls on Tuesday next.
Aside from this phase of it, I prefer to remember this campaign not as bitter
but only as hard-fought. There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole
thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the
office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people.
It is because I have sought to think in terms of the whole Nation that I am
confident that today, just as four years ago, the people want more than
promises.
Our vision for the future contains more than promises.
This is our answer to those who, silent about their own plans, ask us to state
our objectives.
Of course we will continue to seek to improve working conditions for the workers
of America—to reduce hours over-long, to increase wages that spell starvation,
to end the labor of children, to wipe out sweatshops. Of course we will continue
every effort to end monopoly in business, to support collective bargaining, to
stop unfair competition, to abolish dishonorable trade practices. For all these
we have only just begun to fight.
Of course we will continue to work for cheaper electricity in the homes and on
the farms of America, for better and cheaper transportation, for low interest
rates, for sounder home financing, for better banking, for the regulation of
security issues, for reciprocal trade among nations, and for the wiping out of
slums. For all these we have only just begun to fight.
Of course we will continue our efforts in behalf of the farmers of America. With
their continued cooperation we will do all in our power to end the piling up of
huge surpluses which spelled ruinous prices for their crops. We will persist in
successful action for better land use, for reforestation, for the conservation
of water all the way from its source to the sea, for drought and flood control,
for better marketing facilities for farm commodities, for a definite reduction
of farm tenancy, for encouragement of farmer cooperatives, for crop insurance
and a stable food supply. For all these we have only just begun to fight.
Of course we will provide useful work for the needy unemployed; we prefer useful
work to the pauperism of a dole.
Here and now I want to make myself clear about those who disparage their fellow
citizens on the relief rolls. They say that those on relief are not merely
jobless—that they are worthless. Their solution for the relief problem is to end
relief—to purge the rolls by starvation. To use the language of the stock
broker, our needy unemployed would be cared for when, as, and if some fairy
godmother should happen on the scene.
You and I will continue to refuse to accept that estimate of our unemployed
fellow Americans. Your Government is still on the same side of the street with
the Good Samaritan and not with those who pass by on the other side.
Again—what of our objectives?
Of course we will continue our efforts for young men and women so that they may
obtain an education and an opportunity to put it to use. Of course we will
continue our help for the crippled, for the blind, for the mothers, our
insurance for the unemployed, our security for the aged. Of course we will
continue to protect the consumer against unnecessary price spreads, against the
costs that are added by monopoly and speculation. We will continue our
successful efforts to increase his purchasing power and to keep it constant.
For these things, too, and for a multitude of others like them, we have only
just begun to fight.
All this—all these objectives—spell peace at home. All our actions, all our
ideals, spell also peace with other nations.
Today there is war and rumor of war. We want none of it. But while we guard our
shores against threats of war, we will continue to remove the causes of unrest
and antagonism at home which might make our people easier victims to those for
whom foreign war is profitable. You know well that those who stand to profit by
war are not on our side in this campaign.
"Peace on earth, good will toward men"—democracy must cling to that message. For
it is my deep conviction that democracy cannot live without that true religion
which gives a nation a sense of justice and of moral purpose. Above our
political forums, above our market places stand the altars of our faith—altars
on which burn the fires of devotion that maintain all that is best in us and all
that is best in our Nation.
We have need of that devotion today. It is that which makes it possible for
government to persuade those who are mentally prepared to fight each other to go
on instead, to work for and to sacrifice for each other. That is why we need to
say with the Prophet: "What doth the Lord require of thee—but to do justly, to
love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God." That is why the recovery we seek,
the recovery we are winning, is more than economic. In it are included justice
and love and humility, not for ourselves as individuals alone, but for our
Nation.
That is the road to peace.
