Franklin Roosevelt, 5th Fireside Chat, 1934
In this radio address from June 1934, Roosevelt
summarized the accomplishments of his first year in
office and addressed mounting criticism of the New Deal.
It has been several months since I have talked with you
concerning the problems of government. … While there
were a few exceptions, this Congress displayed a greater
freedom from mere partisanship than any other peace-time
Congress since the Administration of President Washington
himself. The session was distinguished by the extent and
variety of legislation enacted and by the intelligence and
good will of debate upon these measures.
I mention only a few of the major enactments. It
provided for the readjustment of the debt burden through
the corporate and municipal bankruptcy acts and the farm
relief act. It lent a hand to industry by encouraging loans to
solvent industries unable to secure adequate help from
banking institutions. It strengthened the integrity of finance
through the regulation of securities exchanges. It provided a
rational method of increasing our volume of foreign trade
through reciprocal trading agreements. … It made further
advances towards peace in industry through the labor
adjustment act. It supplemented our agricultural policy
through measures widely demanded by farmers themselves
and intended to avert price destroying surpluses. It
strengthened the hand of the federal government in its
attempts to suppress gangster crime. It took definite steps
towards a national housing program through an act which I
signed today designed to encourage private capital in the
rebuilding of the homes of the nation. It created a permanent
federal body for the just regulation of all forms of
communication, including the telephone, the telegraph and
the radio. Finally, and I believe most important, it
reorganized, simplified and made more fair and just our
monetary system, setting up standards and policies
adequate to meet the necessities of modern economic life. …
In the consistent development of our previous efforts
toward the saving and safeguarding of our national life, I
have continued to recognize three related steps. The first
was relief, because the primary concern of any Government
dominated by the humane ideals of democracy is the simple
principle that in a land of vast resources no one should be
permitted to starve. Relief was and continues to be our first
consideration. It calls for large expenditures and will
continue in modified form to do so for a long time to come.
We may as well recognize that fact. It comes from the
paralysis that arose as the after-effect of that unfortunate
decade characterized by a mad chase for unearned riches
and an unwillingness of leaders in almost every walk of life
to look beyond their own schemes and speculations. In our
administration of relief we follow two principles: First, that
direct giving shall, wherever possible, be supplemented by
provision for useful and remunerative work and, second,
that where families in their existing surroundings will in all
human probability never find an opportunity for full selfmaintenance, happiness and enjoyment, we will try to give
them a new chance in new surroundings.
The second step was recovery, and it is sufficient for me
to ask each and every one of you to compare the situation in
agriculture and in industry today with what it was fifteen
months ago. … I could cite statistics to you as unanswerable
measures of our national progress—statistics to show the
gain in the average weekly pay envelope of workers in the
great majority of industries—statistics to show hundreds of
thousands reemployed in private industries and other
hundreds of thousands given new employment through the
expansion of direct and indirect government assistance …
statistics to cover the great increase in bank deposits and to
show the scores of thousands of homes and of farms which
have been saved from foreclosure.
But the simplest way for each of you to judge recovery
lies in the plain facts of your own individual situation. Are
you better off than you were last year? Are your debts less
burdensome? Is your bank account more secure? Are your
working conditions better? Is your faith in your own
individual future more firmly grounded?
Also, let me put to you another simple question: Have
you as an individual paid too high a price for these gains?
Plausible self-seekers and theoretical die-hards will tell you
of the loss of individual liberty. Answer this question also
out of the facts of your own life. Have you lost any of your
rights or liberty or constitutional freedom of action and
choice? Turn to the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, which I
have solemnly sworn to maintain and under which your
freedom rests secure. Read each provision of that Bill of
Rights and ask yourself whether you personally have
suffered the impairment of a single jot of these great
assurances. I have no question in my mind as to what your
answer will be. The record is written in the experiences of
your own personal lives. …
A few timid people, who fear progress, will try to give
you new and strange names for what we are doing.
Sometimes they will call it “Fascism,” sometimes
“Communism,” sometimes “Regimentation,” sometimes
“Socialism.” But in so doing, they are trying to make very
complex and theoretical something that is really very simple
and very practical.
I believe in practical explanations and in practical
policies. I believe that what we are doing today is a
necessary fulfillment of what Americans have always been
doing—a fulfillment of old and tested American ideals. …
All that we do seeks to fulfill the historic traditions of
the American people. Other nations may sacrifice democracy
for the transitory stimulation of old and discredited
autocracies. We are restoring confidence and well-being
under the rule of the people themselves.
Herbert Hoover, “This Challenge to Liberty,” 1936
Defeated by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1932 election,
Hoover continued to be one of the leading critics of the
New Deal (which he privately called “sheer fascism”)
from the political right.
Through four years of experience this New Deal attack
upon free institutions has emerged as the transcendent issue
in America.
All the men who are seeking for mastery in the world
today are using the same weapons. They sing the same
songs. They all promise the joys of Elysium without effort.
But their philosophy is founded on the coercion and
compulsory organization of men. … Freedom does not die
from frontal attack. It dies because men in power no longer
believe in a system based upon Liberty.
Mr. Roosevelt on this eve of election has started using
the phrases of freedom. He talks sweetly of personal liberty,
of individualism, of the American system, of the profit
system. He says now that he thinks well of capitalism, and
individual enterprise. … Has he abandoned his implied
determination to change the Constitution? Why not tell the
American people before election what change he proposes?
Does he intend to stuff the Court itself? Why does the New
Deal not really lay its cards on the table? … Is not this very
increase in personal power the suicide road upon which
every democratic government has died from the time of
Greece and Rome down to the dozen liberal governments
that have perished in Europe during this past twenty years?
I gave the warning against this philosophy of
government four years ago from a heart heavy with anxiety
for the future of our country. It was born from many years’
experience of the forces moving in the world which would
weaken the vitality of American freedom. It grew in four
years of battle as President to uphold the banner of free men.
And that warning was based on sure ground from my
knowledge of the ideas that Mr. Roosevelt and his bosom
colleagues had covertly embraced despite the Democratic
Platform.
Those ideas were not new. Most of them had been urged
upon me. During my four years powerful groups thundered
at the White House with these same ideas. Some were
honest, some promising votes, most of them threatening
reprisals, and all of them yelling “reactionary” at us.
I rejected the notion of great trade monopolies and price
fixing through codes. That could only stifle the little business
man by regimenting him under his big brother. That idea
was born of certain American Big Business and grew up to
be the NRA.
I rejected the schemes of “economic planning” to
regiment and coerce the farmer. That was born of a Roman
despot fourteen hundred years ago and grew up into the
AAA.
I refused national plans to put the government into
business in competition with its citizens. That was born of
Karl Marx.
I vetoed the idea of recovery through stupendous
spending to prime the pump. That was born of a British
professor.
I threw out attempts to centralize relief in Washington
for politics and social experimentation. I defeated other
plans to invade State rights, to centralize power in
Washington. Those ideas were born of American radicals.
I stopped attempts at currency inflation and repudiation
of government obligation. That was robbery of insurancepolicy holders, savings-banks depositors and wage earners.
That was born of the early Brain Trusters.
I rejected all these things because they would not only
delay recovery but because I knew that in the end they
would shackle free men. … I am proud to have carried the
banner of free men to the last hour of the term my
countrymen entrusted it to me. It matters nothing in the
history of a race what happens to those who in their time
have carried the banner of free men. What matters in that the
battle shall go on.
The people know now the aims of this New Deal
philosophy of government. We propose instead leadership
and authority in government within the moral and economic
framework of the American System.
We propose to hold to the Constitutional safeguards of
free men.
We propose to relieve men from fear, coercion and spite
that are inevitable in personal government.
We propose to demobilize and decentralize all this
spending upon which vast personal power is being built. We
propose to amend the tax laws so as not to defeat free men
and free enterprise.
We propose to turn the whole direction of this country
toward liberty, not away from it.
The New Dealers say that all this that we propose is a
worn-out System; that this machine age requires new
measures for which we must sacrifice some part of the
freedom of men. Men have lost their way with a confused
idea that governments should run machines. Man-made
machines cannot be of more worth than men themselves.
Free men made these machines. Only free spirits can master
them to their proper use.
The relation of our government with all these questions
is complicated and difficult. They rise into the very highest
ranges of economics, statesmanship, and morals.
And do not mistake. Free government is the most
difficult of all government. But it is everlastingly true that
the plain people will make fewer mistakes than any other
group of men no matter how powerful. But free government
implies vigilant thinking and courageous living and selfreliance in a people.
Let me say to you that any measure which breaks our
dykes of freedom will flood the land with misery.
Huey Long, “Every Man a King,” 1934
Huey Long was Governor of Louisiana in the 1920s and
elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930. Long was a noisy critic
of the New Deal because he felt it did not go far enough
against Wall Street, bankers, and big business. Long
aimed to run for president in 1936 or 1940 but was
assassinated by a disgruntled political opponent in 1935.
I contend, my friends, that we have no difficult problem
to solve in America, and that is the view of nearly everyone
with whom I have discussed the matter here in Washington
and elsewhere throughout the United States—that we have
no very difficult problem to solve.
It is not the difficulty of the problem which we have; it is
the fact that the rich people of this country—and by rich
people I mean the super-rich—will not allow us to solve the
problems, or rather the one little problem that is afflicting
this country, because in order to cure all of our woes it is
necessary to scale down the big fortunes, that we may scatter
the wealth to be shared by all of the people…
We have in America today more wealth, more goods,
more food, more clothing, more houses than we have ever
had. We have everything in abundance here. We have the
farm problem, my friends, because we have too much
cotton, because we have too much wheat, and have too
much corn, and too much potatoes. We have a home-loan
problem because we have too many houses, and yet nobody
can buy them and live in them…
Both of these men, Mr. Hoover and Mr. Roosevelt, came
out and said there had to be a decentralization of wealth, but
neither one of them did anything about it … Nothing that
has been done up to this date has taken one dime away from
these big-fortune holders; they own just as much as they did,
and probably a little bit more. … It is necessary to save the
Government of the country, but is much more necessary to
save the people of America…
Now, we have organized a society, and we call it “Share
Our Wealth Society,” a society with the motto “every man a
king.” … What do we propose by this society? We propose
to limit the wealth of big men in the country. There is an
average of $15,000 in wealth to every family in America.
That is right here today. We do not propose to divide it up
equally. We do not propose a division of wealth, but we
propose to limit poverty that we will allow to be inflicted
upon any man’s family. We will not say we are going to try
to guarantee any equality, or $15,000 to families. No; but we
do say that one third of the average is low enough for any
one family to hold, that there should be a guaranty of a
family wealth of around $5,000; enough for a home, and
automobile, a radio, and the ordinary conveniences, and the
opportunity to educate their children; a fair share of the
income of this land thereafter to that family so there will be
no such thing as merely the select to have those things, and
so there will be no such thing as a family living in poverty
and distress.
We have to limit fortunes. Our present plan is that we
will allow no one man to own more than $50 million. We
think that with that limit we will be able to carry out the
balance of the program. It may be necessary that we limit it
to less than $50 million. It may be necessary, in working out
of the plans, that no man’s fortune would be more than $10
million or $15 million. But be that as it may, it will still be
more than any one man, or any one man and his children
and their children, will be able to spend in their lifetimes;
and it is not necessary or reasonable to have wealth piled up
beyond that point where we cannot prevent poverty among
the masses. …
We will not have any trouble taking care of the
agricultural situation. All you have to do is balance your
production with your consumption. You simply have to
abandon a particular crop that you have too much of, and all
you have to do is store the surplus for the next year, and the
Government will take it over….
Those are the things we propose to do. “Every man a
king.” Every man to eat when there is something to eat; all to
wear something when there is something to wear. That
makes us all sovereign.
You cannot solve these things through these various and
sundry alphabetical codes. You can have the N.R.A. and
P.W.A. and C.W.A. and the U.U.G. and G.I.N. and any other
kind of dadgummed lettered code. You can wait until
doomsday and see 25 more alphabets, but that is not going
to solve this proposition.
Get together in your community tonight or tomorrow
and organize one of our Share Our Wealth societies. If you
do not understand it, write me and let me send you the
platform; let me give you the proof of it.
This is Huey P. Long talking, United States Senator,
Washington, D.C. Write me and let me send you the data on
this proposition. Enroll with us. Let us make known to the
people what we are going to do. I will send you a button, if I
have got enough of them left.
Upton Sinclair, “End Poverty in California,” 1934
In 1934, Upton Sinclair (a leading American socialist and
author of The Jungle) ran for Governor of California and
won the Democratic nomination—a sign of how far to
the left the Democratic Party moved in those years.
Sinclair’s platform, known as the “EPIC” plan (End
Poverty in California), was similar to Huey Long’s “Share
the Wealth” and Francis Townshend’s “Ham and Eggs”
plan. Sinclair’s opponents denounced him as a
Communist and he lost the election to Republican Frank
Merriam. In 1951, Sinclair said, “The American people
will take socialism, but they won't take the label. I
certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the
Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the
slogan to ‘End Poverty in California’ I got 879,000.”
The meaning of our movement to end poverty in
California and its polling the largest vote ever cast in a
California primary is that our people have reached the
saturation point as regards suffering. We are just about to
begin the sixth year of the depression. We have one-and-aquarter million persons dependent upon public charity, and
probably as many more who are able to get only one or two
days’ work a week or who are dependent upon relatives and
friends. That is too heavy a burden of suffering for any
civilized community to carry.
A man’s attitude toward this situation depends upon
one factor. If he believes that private industry is “coming
back,” he is willing to wait and endure and patch things up.
But finally it must occur to him to wonder whether the thing
called “prosperity” will ever come back again. If he makes
up his mind that it is not coming back, then his whole
attitude changes and he is ready to consider some new
procedure, thoroughgoing and drastic. I have been telling
the people of California for the past year that this is the
permanent crisis, the one which does not pass away.
I am telling the people of America that we have ten
million unemployed who will never work again while the
present system endures. For the past year I have been telling
the people of California that the burden of supporting their
permanently unemployed million-and-a-quarter is driving
cities, counties, and State directly into bankruptcy. I have
told them that in some hundred and fifty mass meetings,
attended by from one thousand to fifteen thousand persons.
I have told them in some three hundred thousand pamphlets
and some five million copies of weekly newspapers. And in
August some four hundred and fifty thousand of them went
to the polls and said that they agreed with me.
Just what is to be done? No more important question
confronts the American people today. If we do not find an
orderly solution, we are going straight into the course of
horrors which we have witnessed in Germany. … The
“EPIC” (End Poverty in California) movement proposes that
our unemployed shall be put at productive labor, producing
everything which they themselves consume and exchanging
those goods among themselves by a method of barter, using
warehouse receipts or labor certificates or whatever name
you may choose to give to the paper employed. It asserts
that the State must advance sufficient capital to give the
unemployed access to good land and machinery, so that
they may work and support themselves and thus take
themselves off the backs of the taxpayers. The “EPIC”
movement asserts that this will not hurt private industry,
because the unemployed are no longer of any use to
industry.
We plan a new cooperative system for the unemployed.
Whether it will be permanent depends upon whether I am
right in my belief about the permanent nature of the
depression.
To meet the immediate emergency in our State and get
the money to start our new cooperative system, we propose
what we call an “EPIC” tax. That is a … tax on property
assessed above $100,000 … This tax will fall almost entirely
upon our great corporations and utilities, and to make it
easier for them we shall make it payable at the option of the
State, in goods and services. That will give us most of the
raw materials and all of the utility services which the
unemployed will need to get production started.
We have a great irrigation and power project known as
the Central Valley Project. We propose to send fifty
thousand unemployed into this work and ask the farmers of
the Central Valleys to bring their surplus food crops, taking
credits which will be good for water and power when the
project is completed. The “EPIC” tax will give us the needed
lumber, cement, rock and gravel, steel, etc., and light, heat,
power, and transportation. The project will be carried out by
our Public Works Department, and it will bring industry
back to life in California.
Wendell Willkie, “The End of the Road,” 1940
Willkie, a corporate lawyer and Wall Street industrialist,
was the Republican candidate for president in 1940. Most had
assumed that New York Governor Thomas Dewey or Ohio
Senator Robert Taft would be the Republican nominee. But
Dewey and Taft were isolationists, against going to war with
Germany. In the summer of 1940, as France fell to Germany,
public support for isolationism plummeted and the
Republicans scrambled to find a candidate more committed to
aid for Britain. With little difference in foreign policy between
Willkie and Roosevelt, the election of 1940 became a
referendum on the New Deal and Roosevelt himself,
particularly Roosevelt’s unprecedented bid for a third term.
When the present administration came to power in 1933,
we heard a lot about the forgotten man. The Government,
we were told, must care for those who had no other means
of support. With this proposition all of us agreed. And we
still hold firmly to the principle that those whom private
industry cannot support must be supported by government
agency, whether federal or state.
But I want to ask anyone in this audience who is, or has
been, on relief whether the support that the Government
gives him is enough. Is it enough for the free and ablebodied American to be given a few scraps of cash or credit
with which to keep himself and his children just this side of
starvation and nakedness? Is that what the forgotten man
wanted us to remember?
What that man wanted us to remember was his chance
his right—to take part in our great American adventure. But
this administration never remembered that. It launched a
vitriolic and well-planned attack against those very
industries in which the forgotten man wanted a chance. It
carried on a propaganda campaign to convince the people
that businessmen are iniquitous. It seized upon its taxing
power for political purposes. It has levied taxes to punish
one man, to force another to do what he did not want to do,
to take a crack at a third whom some government agency
disliked, or to promote the experiments of a brain-trust.
The direct effect of the New Deal taxes has been to
inhibit opportunity. It has diverted the money of the rich
from productive enterprises to government bonds, so that
the United States treasury—and no one else—may have
plenty to spend. …
The New Deal's attack on business has had inevitable
results. The investor has been afraid to invest his capital, and
therefore billions of dollars now lie idle in the banks. The
businessman has been afraid to expand his operations, and
therefore millions of men have been turned away from the
employment offices. Low incomes in the cities, and
irresponsible experiments in the country, have deprived the
farmer of his markets.
For the first time in our history, American industry has
remained stationary for a decade. It offers no more jobs
today than it did ten years ago—and there are 6,000,000
more persons seeking jobs. As a nation of producers we have
become stagnant. Much of our industrial machinery is
obsolete. And the national standard of living has declined.
It is a statement of fact, and no longer a political
accusation, that the New Deal has failed in its program of
economic rehabilitation. And the victims of its failures are
the very persons whose cause it professes to champion. The
little business men are victims because their chances are
more restricted than ever before. The farmers are victims
because many of them are forced to subsist on what is
virtually a dole, under centralized direction from
Washington. The nine or ten million unemployed are victims
because their chances for jobs are fewer. Approximately
6,000,000 families are victims because they are on relief. …
To accomplish these results, the present administration
has spent sixty billion dollars. And I say there must be
something wrong with a theory of government or a theory of
economics, by which, after the expenditure of such a
fantastic sum, we have less opportunity than we had before.
The New Deal believes, as frequently declared, that the
spending of vast sums by the government is a virtue in itself.
They tell us that government spending insures recovery.
Where is the recovery?
The New Deal stands for doing what has to be done by
spending as much money as possible. I propose to do it by
spending as little money as possible. This is one great issue
in domestic policy and I propose in this campaign to make it
clear.
And I make this grave charge against this
administration:
I charge that the course this administration is following
will lead us, like France, to the end of the road. I say that this
course will lead us to economic disintegration and
dictatorship.