FDR

But the challenge faced by this Congress is more menacing than merely a return to the past--bad as that would be.

Our resplendent economic autocracy does not want to return to that individualism of which they prate, even though the advantages under that system went to the ruthless and the strong.

In the hands of a people's Government this power is wholesome and proper.

But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people.

Give them their way and they will take the course of every autocracy of the past--power for themselves, enslavement for the public.

But such fear as they instill today is not a natural fear, a normal fear; it is a synthetic, manufactured, poisonous fear that is being spread subtly, expensively and cleverly by the same people who cried in those other days, "Save us…

That is why I am able to say to this, the Second Session of the 74th Congress, that it is my belief based on existing laws that no new taxes, over and above the present taxes, are either advisable or necessary.

In the light of our substantial material progress, in the light of the increasing effectiveness of the restoration of popular rule, I recommend to the Congress that we advance; that we do not retreat.

I have confidence that you will not fail the people of the Nation whose mandate you have already so faithfully fulfilled.

What great crises teach all men whom the example and counsel of the brave inspire is the lesson: Fear not, view all the tasks of life as sacred, have faith in the triumph of the ideal, give daily all that you have to give, be loyal and…

You, at this moment, have the honor to belong to a generation whose lips are touched by fire.

But let nothing human be wholly alien to you.

New ideas, new issues--a new call for men to carry on the work of righteousness, of charity, of courage, of patience, and of loyalty. . . .

This world in its crisis called for volunteers, for men of faith in life, of patience in service, of charity and of insight.

I volunteered to give myself to my Master--the cause of humane and brave living.

I studied, I loved, I labored, unsparingly and hopefully, to be worthy of my generation.

More disturbing was the fact that long neglect of the needs of the underprivileged had brought too many of our people to the verge of doubt as to the successful adaptation of our historic traditions to the complex modern world.

In that lay a challenge to our democratic form of Government itself.

Ours was the task to prove that democracy could be made to function in the world of today as effectively as in the simpler world of a hundred years ago.

In the many methods of attack with which we met these problems, you and I, by mutual understanding and by determination to cooperate, helped to make democracy succeed by refusing to permit unnecessary disagreement to arise between two of…

That spirit of cooperation was able to solve difficulties of extraordinary magnitude and ramification with few important errors, and at a cost cheap when measured by the immediate necessities and the eventual results.

I look forward also to a continuance of the basis of that cooperation-- mutual respect for each other's proper sphere of functioning in a democracy which is working well, and a common-sense realization of the need for play in the joints of…

The recovery we sought was not to be merely temporary.

It was to be a recovery protected from the causes of previous disasters.

But Government in a democratic Nation does not exist solely, or even primarily, for that purpose.