LAD # 33 FDR's FIrst Inaugral Address

Before Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, the economy was spiraling downwards at a freakish pace. Banks were failing, businesses were going under, and Americans who were once living comfortable were then living on the streets. Hoovervilles were constructed outside major cities and the poor wandered the dirty cities looking for work. Wilson could do nothing but sit in horror. Although once FDR was elected, he boosted the spirits of the American people by his first inaugural address. He begins his speech stating that "our distress comes from no failure of substances." He says this to show the people this is not something they can not control. "We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply." He continues to say that the money changers that had caused the failure of the banks had " fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit." This means that FDR has faith in the country that they work together and overcome the greedy in order to become a economically stable nation again. FDR also calls for action at that very moment to help the struggling economy. He says that we must "recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms." Instead of Wilson's ideas of letting the people solve the problems of the nation, he decides to take charge and tell people what to do so the nation can be fixed.