"What do the people of America want more than anything else?"
Franklin D. Roosevelt asked in his unprecedented speech before
the Democratic Convention in Chicago that had just nominated him
the presidential candidate. "Work and security. . . . They are
the spiritual values, the true goal toward which our efforts of
reconstruction should lead." Roosevelt had entered politics with
the conviction that government was responsible for its citizens'
welfare. As governor of New York he had sponsored the Temporary
Emergency Relief Administration that undertook relief and public
works. In September 1931 it was the first agency of its kind in
the nation. Roosevelt's campaign address of October 13, 1932, a
portion of which appears here, explained further his views on
social legislation. The first principle I would lay down is that
the primary duty rests on the community, through local
government and private agencies, to take care of the relief of
unemployment. But we then come to a situation where there are so
many peopl