If we were invaded, the people of this country would expect the President to use any and all means to repel the invader.
FDR
The Public Record
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1933, until his death on April 12, 1945. A member of the Democratic Party, he was born in New York and is best known for his leadership during two of the most significant crises in American history: the Great Depression and World War II. Roosevelt implemented the New Deal, a series of programs and reforms aimed at economic recovery and social welfare, which fundamentally reshaped the role of the federal government in American life.
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Now the revolution and the war between the states were fought on our own soil, but today this war will be won or lost on other continents and in remote seas.
The American people can be sure that I will use my powers with a full sense of responsibility to the Constitution and to my country.
And when the war is over, the powers under which I act will automatically revert to the people of the United States--to the people to whom those powers belong.
Nobody knows better than farmers the disastrous effects of wartime inflationary booms, and postwar deflationary panics.
In this way we will be able to avoid the collapse of farm prices that happened after the last war.
Taxation is the only practical way of preventing the incomes and profits of individuals and corporations from getting too high.
I have told the Congress once more that all net individual incomes, after payment of all taxes, should be limited effectively by further taxation to a maximum net income of $25,000 a year.
For this is a global war, and it will cost this nation nearly one hundred billion dollars in 1943.
Yes, the Russians are killing more Nazis, and destroying more airplanes and tanks than are being smashed on any other front.
They are fighting not only bravely but brilliantly.
In spite of any setbacks Russia will hold out, and with the help of her Allies will ultimately drive every Nazi from her soil.
We have stopped one major Japanese offensive; and we have inflicted heavy losses on their fleet.
The power of Germany must be broken on the battlefields of Europe.
Certainly, it could not be seriously urged that we abandon aid to Russia, or that we surrender all of the Pacific to Japan, or the Mediterranean and Middle East to Germany, or give up an offensive against Germany.
The American people may be sure that we shall neglect none of the four great theaters of war.
We have done this in spite of greater danger and fewer ships.
And every week sees a gain in the actual number of American men and weapons in the fighting areas.
This war will finally be won by the coordination of all the armies, navies and air forces of all of the United Nations operating in unison against our enemies.
Battles are not won by soldiers or sailors who think first of their own personal safety.
And wars are not won by people who are concerned primarily with their own comfort, their own convenience, their own pocketbooks.
We Americans of today bear the gravest of responsibilities.
All of us here at home are being tested--for our fortitude, for our selfless devotion to our country and to our cause.
We need not leave it to historians of the future to answer the question whether we are tough enough to meet this unprecedented challenge.
It is the plain fact that the American people are united as never before in their determination to do a job and to do it well.
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