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Those Of You Who Have Been There [haiti] Know It Is One Of The Most Beautiful Countries In The World. It Has Everything. It Has Everything Above The Ground, And Everything Under The Ground.... It Is An Amazing Place. I Strongly Recommend That Whenever You Get A Chance, If You Haven't Been There, That You Go To Haiti. I Think It Was A Certain Queen Of England Who Said That After Her Death "calais" Would Be Found Written On Her Heart. When I Die, I Think That "haiti" Is Going To Be Written On My Heart.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

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Those Of You Who

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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Those Of You Who Have Been There [haiti] Know It Is One Of The Most Beautiful Countries In The World. It Has Everything. It Has Everything Above The Ground, And Everything Under The Ground.... It Is An Amazing Place. I Strongly Recommend That Whenever You Get A Chance, If You Haven't Been There, That You Go To Haiti. I Think It Was A Certain Queen Of England Who Said That After Her Death "calais" Would Be Found Written On Her Heart. When I Die, I Think That "haiti" Is Going To Be Written On My Heart.

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More From Franklin D. Roosevelt

Put Two Or Three Men In Positions Of Conflicting Authority. This Will Force Them To Work At Loggerheads, Allowing You To Be The Ultimate Arbiter.

If The Nation Is Living Within Its Income, Its Credit Is Good. If, In Some Crises, It Lives Beyond Its Income For A Year Or Two, It Can Usually Borrow Temporarily At Reasonable Rates. But If, Like A Spendthrift, It Throws Discretion To The Winds, And Is Willing To Make No Sacrifice At All In Spending; If It Extends Its Taxing To The Limit Of The Peoples Power To Pay And Continues To Pile Up Deficits, Then It Is On The Road To Bankruptcy.

I Sometimes Think We Consider Too Much The Good Luck Of The Early Bird And Not Enough The Bad Luck Of The Early Worm.

One Thing Is Sure. We Have To Do Something. We Have To Do The Best We Know How At The Moment... If It Doesn't Turn Out Right, We Can Modify It As We Go Along.

True Wealth Is Not A Static Thing. It Is A Living Thing Made Out Of The Disposition Of Men To Create And Distribute The Good Things Of Life With Rising Standards Of Living.

I Consider It A Public Duty To Answer Falsifications With Facts. I Will Not Pretend That I Find This An Unpleasant Duty. I Am An Old Campaigner, And I Love A Good Fight.

No Group And No Government Can Properly Prescribe Precisely What Should Constitute The Body Of Knowledge With Which True Education Is Concerned.

Let Us Never Forget That Government Is Ourselves And Not An Alien Power Over Us.

Democracies Have

A World Turned Into A Stereotype, A Society Converted Into A Regiment, A Life Translated Into A Routine, Make It Difficult For Either Art Or Artists To Survive. Crush Individuality In Society And You Crush Art As Well. Nourish The Conditions Of A Free Life And You Nourish The Arts, Too.

What Worries Me, Especially, Is That Public Opinion Over Here Is Patting Itself On The Back Every Morning And Thanking God For Theatlantic Ocean (and The Pacific Ocean). We Greatly Underestimate The Serious Implications To Our Own Future.... Things Move With Such Terrific Speed These Days, That It Is Really Essential To Us To Think In Broader Terms And, In Effect, To Warn The American People That They, Too, Should Think Of Possible Ultimate Results In Europe And The Far East.

The School Is The Last Expenditure Upon Which America Should Be Willing To Economize.

The Core Of Our Defense Is The Faith We Have In The Institutions We Defend.

General De Gaulle Was A Thoroughly Bad Boy. The Day He Arrived, He Thought He Was Joan Of Arc And The Following Day He Insisted That He Was Georges Clemenceau.

I Am Neither Bitter Nor Cynical But I Do Wish There Was Less Immaturity In Political Thinking.

The Only Limit To Our Realization Of Tomorrow Will Be Our Doubts Of Today.

Those (who) Seek To Establish Systems Of Government Based On The Regimentation Of All Human Beings By A Handful Of Individual Rulers...call This A New Order. It Is Not New And It Is Not Order.

All That Is Within Me Cries Out To Go Back To My Home On The Hudson River

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 Little.

Economic Inequality

To Return To Higher Standards Of Living We Must Abandon The False Prophets And Seek New Leaders Of Our Own Choosing.

The Country Needs And, Unless I Mistake Its Temper, The Country Demands Bold, Persistent Experimentation. It Is Common Sense To Take A Method And Try It; If It Fails, Admit It Frankly And Try Another. But Above All, Try Something. The Millions Who Are In Want Will Not Stand By Silently Forever While The Things To Satisfy Their Needs Are Within Easy Reach.

Perfectionism, No Less Than Isolationism Or Imperialism Or Power Politics, May Obstruct The Paths To International Peace. Let Us Not Forget That The Retreat To Isolationism A Quarter Of A Century Ago Was Started Not By A Direct Attack Against International Cooperation But Against The Alleged Imperfections Of The Peace.

We Have Always Held To The Hope, The Belief, The Conviction That There Is A Better Life, A Better World, Beyond The Horizon.

A Liberal Is A Man Who Uses His Legs And His Hands At The Behest-at The Command-of His Head.

To Bring About Government By Oligarchy, Masquerading As Democracy, It Is Fundamentally Essential That Practically All Authority And Control Be Centralized In Our Federal Government. . . The Individual Sovereignty Of Our States Must First Be Destroyed.

The Value Of Love Will Always Be Stronger Than The Value Of Hate. Any Nation Or Group Of Nations Which Employs Hatred Eventually Is Torn To Pieces By Hatred.

These Republican Leaders Have Not Been Content With Attacks On Me, On My Wife, Or On My Sons. No, Not Content With That, They Now Include My Little Dog, Fala. Well, Of Course, I Don't Resent Attacks... But Fala Does Resent Them.

Our Handicaps Exist Only In Our Minds.

The Nazi Danger To Our Western World Has Long Ceased To Be A Mere Possibility. The Danger Is Here Now--not Only From A Military Enemy But From An Enemy Of All Law, All Liberty, All Morality, All Religion.

Private Enterprise Is Ceasing To Be Free Enterprise. Private Enterprise, Indeed, Became Too Private. It Became Privileged Enterprise, Not Free Enterprise.

Free Enterprise

Private Enterprise

The Most Difficult Place In The World To Get A Clear And Open Perspective Of The Country As A Whole Is Washington.

Hostilities Exist. There Is No Blinking At The Fact That Our People, Our Territory And Our Interests Are In Grave Danger. With Confidence In Our Armed Forces, With The Unbounding Determination Of Our People, We Will Gain The Inevitable Triumph, So Help Us God.

Since Becoming President, I Have Come To Know That The Finest Of Americans We Have Abroad Today Are The Missionaries Of The Cross. I Am Humiliated That I Am Not Finding This Out Until This Late Day The Worth Of Foreign Missions And The Nobility Of The Missionaries.

In Politics, Nothing Happens By Accident. If It Happens, You Can Bet It Was Planned That Way.

We Are Not Isolationists Except In So Far As We Seek To Isolate Ourselves Completely From War. Yet We Must Remember That So Long As War Exists On Earth There Will Be Some Danger That Even The Nation Which Most Ardently Desires Peace May Be Drawn Into War.

Always Will We Remember The Character Of The Onslaught Against Us. No Matter How Long It May Take Us To Overcome This Premeditated Invasion, The American People In Their Righteous Might Will Win Through To Absolute Victory.... We Will Not Only Defend Ourselves To The Uttermost, But Will Make Very Certain That This Form Of Treachery Shall Never Endanger Us Again.

Every Time An Artist Dies, Part Of The Vision Of Mankind Passes With Him.

An Election Cannot Give A Country A Firm Sense Of Direction If It Has Two Or More National Parties Which Merely Have Different Names But Are As Alike In Their Principles And Aims As Peas In The Same Pod.

There Are Many Ways Of Going Forward, But Only One Way Of Standing Still.

I've Never Been Unemployed. I've Never Been Very Fully Employed Either.

In This Nation I See Tens Of Millions Of Its Citizens, A Substantial Part Of Its Whole Population, 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 One Third Of A Nation Ill-housed, Ill-clad, Ill-nourished. 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.

We Continue To Recognize The Greater Ability Of Some To Earn More Than Others. But We Do Assert That The Ambition Of The Individual To Obtain For Him A Proper Security Is An Ambition To Be Preferred To The Appetite For Great Wealth And Great Power.

Inside The Polling Booth Every American Man And Woman Stands As The Equal Of Every Other American Man And Woman. There They Have No Superiors. There They Have No Masters Save Their Own Minds And Consciences.

Chamberlain's Visit To Hitler Today May Bring Things To A Head Or May Result In A Temporary Postponement Of What Looks To Me Likean Inevitable Conflict Within The Next Five Years.

The First Theory Is That If We Make The Rich Richer, Somehow They Will Let A Part Of Their Prosperity Trickle Down To The Rest Of Us. The Second Theory Was The Theory That If We Make The Average Of Mankind Comfortable And Secure, Their Prosperity Will Rise Upward Through The Ranks.

It Is Highly Unlikely That An Airplane, Or Fleet Of Them, Could Ever Sink A Fleet Of Navy Vessels Under Battle Conditions.

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.

A Small Group Had Concentrated Into Their Own Hands An Almost Complete Control Over Other People's Property, Other People's Money, Other People's Labor - Other People's Lives. For Too Many Of Us Life Was No Longer Free; Liberty No Longer Real; Men Could No Longer Follow The Pursuit Of Happiness.

Pursuit Of Happiness

The Real Truth Of The Matter Is, As You And I Know, That A Financial Element In The Larger Centers Has Owned The Government Ever Since The Days Of Andrew Jackson...

World Government

And While I Am Talking To You Mothers And Fathers, I Give You One More Assurance. I Have Said This Before, But I Shall Say It Again And Again And Again: Your Boys Are Not Going To Be Sent Into Any Foreign Wars.

If I Were Starting Life Over Again, I Am Inclined To Think That I Would Go Into The Advertising Business In Preference To Almost Any Other. The General Raising Of The Standards Of Modern Civilization Among All Groups Of People During The Past Half Ce

You Sometimes Find Something Good In The Lunatic Fringe. In Fact, We Have Got As Part Of Our Social And Economic Government Today A Whole Lot Of Things Which In My Boyhood Were Considered Lunatic Fringe, And Yet They Are Now Part Of Everyday Life.

Courage Is Not The Absence Of Fear, But Rather The Assessment That Something Else Is More Important Than Fear.

No Greater Tragedy Exists In Modern Civilization Than The Aged, Worn-out Worker Who After A Life Of Ceaseless Effort And Useful Productivity Must Look Forward For His Declining Years To A Poorhouse. A Modern Social Consciousness Demands A More Humane And Efficient Arrangement.

Democracy, The Practice Of Self-government, Is A Covenant Among Free Men To Respect The Rights And Liberties Of Their Fellows.

I Have Seen Children Starving. I Have Seen The Agony Of Mothers And Wives. I Hate War.

A Point Has Been Reached Where The Peoples Of The Americas Must Take Cognizance Of Growing Ill-will, Of Marked Trends Toward Aggression, Of Increasing Armaments, Of Shortening Tempers--a Situation Which Has In It Many Of The Elements That Lead To The Tragedy Of General War.... Peace Is Threatened By Those Who Seek Selfish Power.

Let Me Make It Clear That I Do Not Assert That A President And The Congress Must On All Points Agree With Each Other At All Times. Many Times In History There Has Been Complete Disagreement Between The Two Branches Of The Government, And In These Disagreements Sometimes The Congress Has Won And Sometimes The President Has Won. But During The Administration Of The Present President We Have Had Neither Agreement Nor A Clear-cut Battle.

Dec. 7, 1941 - A Date Which Will Live In Infamy - No Matter How Long It May Take Us To Overcome This Premeditated Invasion, The American People In Their Righteous Might Will Win Through To Absolute Victory.

[the United States Is] Founded On The Principles Of Christianity

Confidence... Thrives On Honesty, On Honor, On The Sacredness Of Obligations, On Faithful Protection And On Unselfish Performance. Without Them It Cannot Live.

To Some Generations Much Is Given. Of Other Generations, Much Is Expected.

This Generation

I Am ... Willing To Make It Clear That American Foreign Policy Must Uphold The Sanctity Of International Treaties. That Is The Cornerstone On Which All Relations Between Nations Must Rest.

Coming To Grips With The Reality That Our Planet Is Not The Only One Harboring Intelligent Life The Universe.

We Must Recognize The Fundamental Rights Of Man. There Can Be No True National Life In Our Democracy Unless We Give Unqualified Recognition To Freedom Of Religious Worship And Freedom Of Education.

We Must Be The Great Arsenal Of Democracy. For Us This Is An Emergency As Serious As War Itself. We Must Apply Ourselves To Our Task With The Same Resolution, The Same Sense Of Urgency, The Same Spirit Of Patriotism And Sacrifice As We Would Show Were We At War.

Is The United States Going To Decide, Are The People Of This Country Going To Decide That Their Federal Government Shall In The Future Have No Right Under Any Implied Power Or Any Court-approved Power To Enter Into A Solution Of A National Economic Problem, But That That National Economic Problem Must Be Decided Only By The States?... We Thought We Were Solving It, And Now It Has Been Thrown Right Straight In Our Faces. We Have Been Relegated To The Horse-and-buggy Definition Of Interstate Commerce.

The Trade Agreement Which I Had The Privilege Of Signing With Your Prime Minister Last Autumn Is Tangible Evidence Of The Desire Of The People Of Both Countries To Practice What They Preach When They Speak Of The Good Neighbor. In The Solution Of The Grave Problems That Face The World Today, Frank Dealing, Cooperation And A Spirit Of Give And Take Between Nations Is More Important Than Ever Before.

I Never Forget That I Live In A House Owned By All The American People And That I Have Been Given Their Trust.

We Have Learned That We Cannot Live Alone, At Peace; That Our Own Well-being Is Dependent On The Well-being Of Other Nations Far Away. We Have Learned That We Must Live As Men, Not As Ostriches, Nor As Dogs In The Manger.

We Have Our Difficulties, True; But We Are A Wiser And A Tougher Nation Than We Were In 1932. Never Have There Been Six Years Of Such Far Flung Internal Preparedness In All Of History. And This Has Been Done Without Any Dictator's Power To Command, Without Conscription Of Labor Or Confiscation Of Capital, Without Concentration Camps And Without A Scratch On Freedom Of Speech, Freedom Of The Press Or The Rest Of The Bill Of Rights.

Freedom Of Speech

No Man Can Tame A Tiger Into A Kitten By Stroking It.

Pearl Harbor Day

Eternal Truths Will Be Neither True Nor Eternal Unless They Have Fresh Meaning For Every New Social Situation.

Meaning Of Life

It Took Six Weeks Of Debate In The Senate To Get The Arms Embargo Law Repealed--and We Face Other Delays During The Present Session Because Most Of The Members Of The Congress Are Thinking In Terms Of Next Autumn's Election. However, That Is One Of The Prices That We Who Live In Democracies Have To Pay. It Is, However, Worth Paying, If All Of Us Can Avoid The Type Of Government Under Which The Unfortunate Population Of Germany And Russia Must Exist.

The Presidency Is Not Merely An Administrative Office...it Is Pre-eminently A Place Of Moral Leadership.

Moral Leadership

My Own Party Can Succeed At The Polls Only So Long As It Continues To Be The Party Of Militant Liberalism.

Liberty Requires Opportunity To Make A Living--a Living Decent According To The Standard Of The Time, A Living Which Gives A Man Not Only Enough To Live By, But Something To Live For.

The Principle On Which This Country Was Founded And By Which It Has Always Been Governed Is That Americanism Is A Matter Of The Mind And Heart; Americanism Is Not, And Never Was, A Matter Of Race Or Ancestry.

The Gains In Education Are Never Really Lost. Books May Be Burned And Cities Sacked, But Truth, Like The Yearning For Freedom, Lives In The Hearts Of Humble Men.

Sometimes The Best Way To Keep Peace In The Family Is To Keep The Members Of The Family Apart For Awhile.

It Is Common Sense To Take A Method And Try It. If It Fails, Admit It Frankly And Try Another. But Above All, Try Something.

There Can Be Little Doubt That In Many Ways The Story Of Bridge Building Is The Story Of Civilisation. By It We Can Readily Measure An Important Part Of A People's Progress.

It Is The Duty Of The President To Propose And It Is The Privilege Of The Congress To Dispose.

Many Causes Produce War. There Are Ancient Hatreds, Turbulent Frontiers, The "legacy Of Old Forgotten, Far-off Things, And Battles Long Ago." There Are New-born Fanaticisms. Convictions On The Part Of Certain Peoples That They Have Become The Unique Depositories Of Ultimate Truth And Right.

Old Women Are The Secret To The Fluffiest Cakes.

All Safe Deposit Boxes In Banks Or Financial Institutions Have Been Sealed... And May Only Be Opened In The Presence Of An Agent Of The I.r.s.

Peace, Like Charity, Begins At Home.

The Royalists Of The Economic Order Have Conceded That Political Freedom Was The Business Of The Government, But They Have Maintained That Economic Slavery Was Nobody's Business. They Granted That The Government Could Protect The Citizen In His Right To Vote, But They Denied That The Government Could Do Anything To Protect The Citizen In His Right To Work And His Right To Live. Today We Stand Committed To The Proposition That Freedom Is No Half-and-half Affair. If The Average Citizen Is Guaranteed Equal Opportunity In The Polling Place, He Must Have Equal Opportunity In The Market Place.

On This Tenth Day Of June, Nineteen Hundred And Forty, The Hand That Held The Dagger Has Struck It Into The Back Of Its Neighbor.... In Our Unity, In Our American Unity We Will Pursue Two Obvious And Simultaneous Courses; We Will Extend To The Opponents Of Force The Material Resources Of This Nation, And At The Same Time We Will Harness And Speed Up The Use Of Those Resources In Order That We Ourselves In The Americas May Have Equipment And Training Equal To The Task Of Any Emergency And Every Defense.

I Read In A Newspaper That I Was To Be Received With All The Honors Customarily Rendered To A Foreign Ruler. I Am Grateful For The Honors; But Something Within Me Rebelled At That Word 'foreign'. I Say This Because When I Have Been In Canada, I Have Never Heard A Canadian Refer To An American As A 'foreigner'. He Is Just An 'american'. And, In The Same Way, In The United States, Canadians Are Not 'foreigners', They Are 'canadians'. That Simple Little Distinction Illustrates To Me Better Than Anything Else The Relationship Between Our Two Countries.

Our National Determination To Keep Free Of Foreign Wars And Foreign Entanglements Cannot Prevent Us From Feeling Deep Concern When Ideals And Principles That We Have Cherished Are Challenged.

Men And Nature Must Work Hand In Hand. The Throwing Out Of Balance Of The Resources Of Nature Throws Out Of Balance Also The Lives Of Men.

No Business Is Above Government; And Government Must Be Empowered To Deal Adequately With Any Business That Tries To Rise Above Government.

New Ideas Can Be Good And Bad, Just The Same As Old Ones.

It Is One Of The Characteristics Of A Free And Democratic Nation That It Have Free And Independent Labor Unions.

Organized Labor

Books Cannot Be Killed By Fire.

If You Hold Your Fire Until You See The Whites Of His Eyes, You Will Never Know What Hit You.

Our Government Is Based On The Belief That A People Can Be Both Strong And Free, That Civilized Men Need No Restraint But That Imposed By Themselves Against Abuse Of Freedom.

I Have A Terrific Pain In The Back Of My Head.

We, Too, Born To Freedom, And Believing In Freedom, Are Willing To Fight To Maintain Freedom. We, And All Others Who Believe As Deeply As We Do, Would Rather Die On Our Feet Than Live On Our Knees.

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.

We Must Save The Constitution From The [supreme] Court And The Court From Itself.

Wise And Prudent Men And Intelligent Conservatives Have Long Known That In A Changing World Worthy Institutions Can Be Conserved Only By Adjusting Them To The Changing Time.

The Winds That Blow Through The Wide Sky In These Mounts, The Winds That Sweep From Canada To Mexico, From The Pacific To The Atlantic - Have Always Blown On Free Men.

We Think Of Our Land And Water And Human Resources Not As Static And Sterile Possessions But As Life Giving Assets To Be Directed By Wise Provisions For Future Days.

We Have Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself.

The Moment A Mere Numerical Superiority By Either States Or Voters In This Country Proceeds To Ignore The Needs And Desires Of The Minority, And For Their Own Selfish Purpose Or Advancement, Hamper Or Oppress That Minority, Or Debar Them In Any Way From Equal Privileges And Equal Rights-that Moment Will Mark The Failure Of Our Constitutional System.

The Overwhelming Majority Of Americans Are Possessed Of Two Great Qualities A Sense Of Humor And A Sense Of Proportion.

Hitler Built A Fortress Around Europe, But He Forgot To Put A Roof On It.

I'm Not The Smartest Fellow In The World, But I Can Sure Pick Smart Colleagues.

A Nation, Like A Person, Has A Mind - A Mind That Must Be Kept Informed And Alert, That Must Know Itself, That Understands The Hopes And Needs Of Its Neighbors - All The Other Nations That Live Within The Narrowing Circle Of The World

All Of Us In All The Americas Will Be Living At The Point Of A Gun.

As A Nation, We May Take Pride In The Fact That We Are Softhearted; But We Cannot Afford To Be Soft-headed.

We Defend And We Build A Way Of Life, Not For America Alone, But For All Mankind.

The Motto Of War Is: "let The Strong Survive; Let The Weak Die." The Motto Of Peace Is: "let The Strong Help The Weak To Survive."

The Creed Of Our Democracy Is That Liberty Is Acquired And Kept By Men And Women Who Are Strong And Self-reliant, And Possessed Of Such Wisdom As God Gives Mankind - Men And Women Who Are Just, And Understanding, And Generous To Others - Men And Women Who Are Capable Of Disciplining Themselves. For They Are The Rulers And They Must Rule Themselves.

Failure Is Not An American Habit.

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 A Date Which Will Live In Infamy The United States Of America Was Suddenly And Deliberately Attacked By Naval And Air Forces Of The Empire Of Japan... We Will Gain The Inevitable Triumph So Help Us God.

Those Newspapers Of The Nation Which Most Loudly Cried Dictatorship Against Me Would Have Been The First To Justify The Beginnings Of Dictatorship By Somebody Else.

I Pledge You, Pledge Myself, To A New Deal For The American People. Let Us All Here Assembled Constitute Ourselves Prophets Of A New Order Of Competence And Of Courage. This Is More Than A Political Campaign; It Is A Call To Arms. Give Me Your Help, Not To Win Votes Alone, But To Win In This Crusade To Restore America To Its Own People.

But The Challenge Is Always The Same - Whether Each Generation Facing Its Own Circumstances Can Summon The Practical Devotion To Attain And Retain That Greatest Good For The Greatest Number Which This Government Of The People Was Created To Ensure.

I Am Much Interested And Deeply Impressed By What He Has Accomplished And By His Evidenced Honest Purpose Of Restoring Italy And Seeking To Prevent General European Trouble.

That, In Its Essence, Is Fascism — Ownership Of Government By An Individual, By A Group, Or By Any Other Controlling Private Power.

The Only Sure Bulwark Of Continuing Liberty Is A Government Strong Enough To Protect The Interests Of The People, And A People Strong Enough And Well Enough Informed To Maintain Its Sovereign Control Over The Goverment.

Preparation For Defense Is An Inalienable Prerogative Of A Sovereign State.

More Than Just An End To War, We Want An End To The Beginnings Of All Wars.

If You Treat People Right They Will Treat You Right... Ninety Percent Of The Time.

We Are A Nation Of Many Nationalities, Many Races, Many Religions-bound Together By A Single Unity, The Unity Of Freedom And Equality. Whoever Seeks To Set One Nationality Against Another, Seeks To Degrade All Nationalities.

True Individual Freedom Cannot Exist Without Economic Security And Independence. People Who Are Hungry And Out Of A Job Are The Stuff Of Which Dictatorships Are Made.

...since 1775 The United States Marines Have Upheld A Fine Tradition Of Service To Their Country. They Are Doing So Today. I Am Confident They Will Continue To Do So.

They Have Given Their Sons To The Military Services. They Have Stoked The Furnaces And Hurried The Factory Wheels. They Have Made The Planes And Welded The Tanks. Riveted The Ships And Rolled The Shells.

History Proves That Dictatorships Do Not Grow Out Of Strong And Successful Governments, But Out Of Weak And Helpless Ones. If By Democratic Methods People Get A Government Strong Enough To Protect Them From Fear And Starvation, Their Democracy Succeeds; But If They Do Not, They Grow Impatient. Therefore, The Only Sure Bulwark Of Continuing Liberty Is A Government Strong Enough To Protect The Interests Of The People, And A People Strong Enough And Well Enough Informed To Maintain Its Sovereign Control Over Its Government.

More Striking Still, It Appeared That, If The Process Of Concentration Goes On At The Same Rate, At The End Of Another Century We Shall Have All American Industry Controlled By A Dozen Corporations And Run By Perhaps A Hundred Men. Put Plainly, We Are Steering A Steady Course Toward Economic Oligarchy, If We Are Not There Already.

The Presidency Is Not Merely An Administrative Office. Thats The Least Of It. It Is More Than An Engineering Job, Efficient Or Inefficient. It Is Pre-eminently A Place Of Moral Leadership. All Our Great Presidents Were Leaders Of Thought At Times When Certain Historic Ideas In The Life Of The Nation Had To Be Clarified.

Moral Leadership

It Is Time To Extend Planning To A Wider Field, In This Instance Comprehending In One Great Project Many States Directly Concerned With The Basin Of One Of Our Greatest Rivers.

I Tell The American People Solemnly That The United States Will Never Survive As A Happy And Fertile Oasis Of Liberty Surrounded By A Cruel Desert Of Dictatorship.

Concentration Of Wealth And Power Has Been Built Upon Other People's Money, Other People's Business, Other People's Labor. Under This Concentration, Independent Business Has Been A Menace To American Society.

Concentration Of Wealth

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. And My Friends, For All Of These We Have Only Begun To Fight.

Are You Laboring Under The Impression That I Read These Memoranda Of Yours? I Can't Even Lift Them.

We Must Be The Great Arsenal Of Democracy.

It Is The Purpose Of The Government To See That Not Only The Legitimate Interests Of The Few Are Protected But That The Welfare And Rights Of The Many Are Conserved.

In These Days Of Difficulty, We Americans Everywhere Must And Shall Choose The Path Of Social Justice…, The Path Of Faith, The Path Of Hope, And The Path Of Love Toward Our Fellow Man.

I Call For Effort, Courage, Sacrifice, Devotion. Granting The Love Of Freedom, All Of These Are Possible. And The Love Of Freedom Is Still Fierce And Steady In The Nation Today. June 10, 1940

To Carry Adequate Life Insurance Is A Moral Obligation Incumbent Upon The Great Majority Of Citizens.

In The Formative Days Of The Republic, The Directing Influence The Bible Exercised Upon The Fathers Of The Nation Is Conspicuously Evident.

We Can Afford All That We Need; But We Can Not Afford All [that] We Want.

The True Conservative Seeks To Protect The System Of Private Property And Free Enterprise By Correcting Such Injustices And Inequalities As Arise From It. The Most Serious Threat To Our Institutions Comes From Those Who Refuse To Face The Need For Change. Liberalism Becomes The Protection For The Far-sighted Conservative.

No Business Which Depends For Existence On Paying Less Than Living Wages To Its Workers Has Any Right To Continue In This Country... By Living Wages I Mean More Than A Bare Subsistence Level - I Mean The Wages Of Decent Living.

Taxes Are Paid In The Sweat Of Every Man Who Labors.

It [concentration Of Wealth And Power] Has Been A Menace To . . . American Democracy.

Concentration Of Wealth

"appeasement" Is The Policy Of Feeding Your Friends To A Crocodile, One At A Time, In Hopes That The Crocodile Will Eat You Last.

The Frontier Of America Is On The Rhine.

What I Seek Is The Highest Possible Batting Average.

The Chief Problem Is, Of Course, Whether The Marching Of The General Spirit Of Things Is Heading Consciously Or Sub- Consciously Toward An Idea Of Extension Of Boundaries.

In The Truest Sense, Freedom Cannot Be Bestowed; It Must Be Achieved.

The Structure Of World Peace Cannot Be The Work Of One Man Or One Party Or One Nation. It Must Be A Peace Which Rests On The Cooperative Effort Of The Whole World.

The Driving Force Of A Nation Lies In Its Spiritual Purpose, Made Effective By Free, Tolerant But Unremitting National Will.

The United States Constitution Has Proved Itself The Most Marvelously Elastic Compilation Of Rules Of Government Ever Written.

Better The Occasional Faults Of A Government That Lives In A Spirit Of Charity Than The Consistent Omissions Of A Government Frozen In The Ice Of Its Own Indifference.

Great Power Involves Great Responsibility

Power And Responsibility

In Time Of This Grave National Danger, When All Excess Income Should Go To Win The War, No American Citizen Ought To Have A Net Income, After He Has Paid His Taxes, Of More Than $25,000 A Year.

Nobody Will Ever Deprive The American People Of The Right To Vote Except The American People Themselves And The Only Way They Could Do This Is By Not Voting.

Peace Can Endure Only So Long As Humanity Really Insists Upon It, And Is Willing To Work For It And Sacrifice For It.

I Believe That The Fundamental Proposition Is That We Must Recognize That The Hostilities In Europe, In Africa, And In Asia Are All Parts Of A Single World Conflict. We Must, Consequently, Recognize That Our Interests Are Menaced Both In Europe And In The Far East.

But While They Prate Of Economic Laws, Men And Women Are Starving. We Must Lay Hold Of The Fact That Economic Laws Are Not Made By Nature. They Are Made By Human Beings.

Slowly, And In Spite Of Anything We Americans Do Or Do Not Do, It Looks A Little As If You And Some Other Good People Are Going To Have To Answer The Old Question Of Whether You Want To Keep Your Country Unshackled By Taking Even More Definite Steps To Do So

Buying And Selling Securities On The Stock Exchange Do Not Start New Industries. Big Business Never Starts Anything New. It Merely Absorbs, Consolidates And Profits At The Expense Of Others.

It Is A Good Thing To Demand Liberty For Ourselves And For Those Who Agree With Us, But It Is A Better Thing And A Rarer Thing To Give Liberty To Others Who Do Not Agree With Us.

I Pledge You, I Pledge Myself, To A New Deal For The American People.

Whoever Seeks To Set One Religion Against Another Seeks To Destroy All Religion.

All Of Our People All Over The Country-except The Pure-blooded Indians-are Immigrants Or Descendants Of Immigrants, Including Even Those Who Came Over Here On The Mayflower.

To Reach A Port We Must Set Sail

As Commander-in-chief, I Take Pleasure In Commending The Reading Of The Bible To All Who Serve In The Armed Forces Of The United States. Throughout The Centuries, Men Of Many Faiths And Diverse Origins Have Found In The Sacred Book Words Of Wisdom, Counsel, And Inspiration. It Is A Fountain Of Strength...an Aid In Attaining The Highest Aspiration Of The Human Soul.

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.

Are We Going To Take The Hands Of The Federal Government Completely Off Any Effort To Adjust The Growing Of National Crops, And Go Right Straight Back To The Old Principle That Every Farmer Is A Lord Of His Own Farm And Can Do Anything He Wants, Raise Anything, Any Old Time, In Any Quantity, And Sell Any Time He Wants?

We Must Remember That Any Oppression, Any Injustice, Any Hatred, Is A Wedge Designed To Attack Our Civilization.

I Have Seen War. I Have Seen War On Land And Sea. I Have Seen Blood Running From The Wounded. I Have Seen Men Coughing Out Their Gassed Lungs. I Have Seen The Dead In The Mud. I Have Seen Cities Destroyed. I Have Seen 200 Limping, Exhausted Men Come Out Of Line—the Survivors Of A Regiment Of 1,000 That Went Forward 48 Hours Before. I Have Seen Children Starving. I Have Seen The Agony Of Mothers And Wives. I Hate War.

The Future Lies With Those Wise Political Leaders Who Realize That The Great Public Is Interested More In Government Than In Politics. The Growing Independence Of Voters, After All, Has Been Proven By The Votes In Every Presidential Election Since My Childhood And The Tendency, Frankly, Is On The Increase.

The Function Of Government Must Be To Favor No Small Group At The Expense Of Its Duty To Protect The Rights Of Personal Freedom And Of Private Property Of All Its Citizens.

It Takes A Long Time To Bring The Past Up To The Present.

People Die, But Books Never Die. No Man And No Force Can Abolish Memory.

The Ultimate Victory Of Tomorrow Is Democracy, And Through Democracy With Education, For No People In All The World Can Be Kept Eternally Ignorant Or Eternally Enslaved.

Friendship Among Nations, As Among Individuals, Calls For Constructive Efforts To Muster The Forces Of Humanity In Order That An Atmosphere Of Close Understanding And Cooperation May Be Cultivated.

For Every Advance That The Japanese Have Made Since They Started Their Frenzied Career Of Conquest, They Have Had To Pay A Very Heavy Toll In Warships, In Transports, In Planes, And In Men. They Are Feeling The Effects Of Those Losses.

...we Now Realize As We Have Never Before Our Interdependence On Each Other; That We Cannot Merely Take, But We Must Be Willing To Sacrifice For The Good Of A Common Discipline, Because Without Such Discipline, No Progress Is Made, No Leadership Becomes Effective.

Taxes Are Paid In The Sweat Of Every Man Who Labors. If Those Taxes Are Excessive, They Are Reflected In Idle Factories, In Tax-sold Farms, And In Hordes Of Hungry People, Tramping The Streets And Seeking Jobs In Vain. Our Workers May Never See A Tax Bill, But They Pay. They Pay In Deductions From Wages, In Increased Cost Of What They Buy, Or - As Now - In Broad Unemployment Throughout The Land.

In Our Democracy Officers Of The Government Are The Servants, And Never The Masters Of The People.

The People Of America Are In Agreement In Defending Their Liberties At Any Cost, And The First Line Of That Defense Lies In The Protection Of Economic Security.

The Fate Of America Cannot Depend On Any One Man. The Greatness Of America Is Grounded In Principles And Not On Any Single Personality.

In The Final Analysis, The Progress Of Our Civilization Will Be Retarded If Any Large Body Of Citizens Falls Behind. Without The Help Of Thousands Of Others, Any One Of Us Would Die, Naked And Starved.

We Know That Equality Of Individual Ability Has Never Existed And Never Will, But We Do Insist That Equality Of Opportunity Still Must Be Sought.

I Suggest A Nationwide Reading Of The Holy Scriptures During The Period From Thanksgiving Day To Christmas.

Thanksgiving Day

Unless The Peace That Follows Recognizes That The Whole World Is One Neighborhood And Does Justice To The Whole Human Race, The Germs Of Another World War Will Remain As A Constant Threat To Mankind.

A Program Whose Basic Thesis Is, Not That The System Of Free Enterprise For Profit Has Failed In This Generation, But That It Has Not Yet Been Tried!

This Generation

The Democratic Aspiration Is No Mere Recent Phase In Human History. It Is Human History.

I've Fired My Last Shot. I Think I Should Have Another Round In My Belt.

Repetition Does Not Transform A Lie Into A Truth.

Research Is One Of The Nation's Very Greatest Resources And The Role Of The Federal Government In Supporting And Stimulating It Needs To Reexamined.

Dealing With The State Department Is Like Watching An Elephant Become Pregnant.

If I Went To Work In A Factory The First Thing I'd Do Is Join A Union.

Organized Labor

You'll Have To Learn That Public Life Takes A Lot Of Sweat; But It Doesn't Need To Worry You. You Won't Always Be Right, But You Mustn't Suffer From Being Wrong. That's What Kills People Like Us.

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William Lyon Phelps

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