Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: In addressing the Congress on the state of the Union present facts and future hazards demand that I speak clearly and earnestly of the causes which underlie events of profound concern to all. In spite of the determination of this Nation for peace, it has become clear that acts and policies of nations in other parts of the world have far-reaching effects not only upon their immediate neighbors but also on us. I am thankful that I can tell you that our Nation is at peace. It has been kept at peace despite provocations which in other days, because of their seriousness, could well have engendered war. The people of the United States and the Government of the United States have shown capacity for restraint and a civilized approach to the purposes of peace, while at the same time we maintain the integrity inherent in the sovereignty of 130,000,000 people, lest we weaken or destroy our influence for peace and jeopardize the sovereignty itself. It is our traditional policy to live at peace with other nations. More than that, we have been among the leaders in advocating the use of pacific methods of discussion and conciliation in international differences. We have striven for the reduction of military forces. But in a world of high tension and disorder, in a world where stable civilization is actually threatened, it becomes the responsibility of each nation which strives for peace at home and peace with and among others to be strong enough to assure the observance of those fundamentals of peaceful solution of conflicts which are the only ultimate basis for orderly existence. Resolute in our determination to respect the rights of others, and to command respect for the rights of ourselves, we must keep ourselves adequately strong in self-defense. There is a trend in the world away from the observance both of the letter and the spirit of treaties. We propose to observe, as we have in the past, our own treaty obligations to the limit; but we cannot be certain of reciprocity on the part of others. Disregard for treaty obligations seems to have followed the surface trend away from the democratic representative form of government. It would seem, therefore, that world peace through international agreements is most safe in the hands of democratic representative governments—or, in other words, peace is most greatly jeopardized in and by those nations where democracy has been discarded or has never developed. I have used the words "surface trend," for I still believe that civilized man increasingly insists and in the long run will insist on genuine participation in his own government. Our people believe that over the years democracies of the world will survive, and that democracy will be restored or established in those nations which today know it not. In that faith lies the future peace of mankind. At home, conditions call for my equal candor. Events of recent months are new proof that we cannot conduct a national government after the practice of 1787, or 1837 or 1887, for the obvious reason that human needs and human desires are infinitely greater, infinitely more difficult to meet than in any previous period in the life of our Republic. Hitherto it has been an acknowledged duty of government to meet these desires and needs: nothing has occurred of late to absolve the Congress, the Courts or the President from that task. It faces us as squarely, as insistently, as in March, 1933. Much of trouble in our own lifetime has sprung from a long period of inaction—from ignoring what fundamentally was happening to us, and from a time-serving unwillingness to face facts as they forced themselves upon us. Our national life rests on two nearly equal producing forces, agriculture and industry, each employing about one-third of our citizens. The other third transports and distributes the products of the first two, or performs special services for the whole. The first great force, agriculture—and with it the production of timber, minerals and other natural resources—went forward feverishly and thoughtlessly until nature rebelled and we saw deserts encroach, floods destroy, trees disappear and soil exhausted. At the same time we have been discovering that vast numbers of our farming population live in a poverty more abject than that of many of the farmers of Europe whom we are wont to call peasants; that the prices of our products of agriculture are too often dependent on speculation by non-farming groups; and that foreign nations, eager to become self-sustaining or ready to put virgin land under the plough are no longer buying our surpluses of cotton and wheat and lard and tobacco and fruit as they had before. Since 1933 we have knowingly faced a choice of three remedies. First, to cut our cost of farm production below that of other nations—an obvious impossibility in many crops today unless we revert to human slavery or its equivalent. Second, to make the government the guarantor of farm prices and the underwriter of excess farm production without limit-a course which would bankrupt the strongest government in the world in a decade. Third, to place the primary responsibility directly on the farmers themselves, under the principle of majority rule, so that they may decide, with full knowledge of the facts of surpluses, scarcities, world markets and domestic needs, what the planting of each crop should be in order to maintain a reasonably adequate supply which will assure a minimum adequate price under the normal processes of the law of supply and demand. That means adequacy of supply but not glut. It means adequate reserves against the day of drought. It is shameless misrepresentation to call this a policy of scarcity. It is in truth insurance before the fact, instead of government subsidy after the fact. Any such plan for the control of excessive surpluses and the speculation they bring has two enemies. There are those well meaning theorists who harp on the inherent right of every free born American to do with his land what he wants-to cultivate it well—or badly; to conserve his timber by cutting only the annual increment thereof—or to strip it clean, let fire burn the slash, and erosion complete the ruin; to raise only one crop-and if that crop fails, to look for food and support from his neighbors or his government. That, I assert is not an inherent right of citizenship. For if a man farms his land to the waste of the soil or the trees, he destroys not only his own assets but the Nation's assets as well. Or if by his methods he makes himself, year after year, a financial hazard of the community and the government, he becomes not only a social problem but an economic menace. The day has gone by when it could be claimed that government has no interest in such ill-considered practices and no right through representative methods to stop them. The other group of enemies is perhaps less well-meaning. It includes those who for partisan purposes oppose each and every practical effort to help the situation, and also those who make money from undue fluctuations in crop prices. I gladly note that measures which seek to initiate a government program for a balanced agriculture are now in conference between the two Houses of the Congress. In their final consideration, I hope for a sound consistent measure which will keep the cost of its administration within the figure of current government expenditures in aid of agriculture. The farmers of this Nation know that a balanced output can be put into effect without excessive cost and with the cooperation of the great majority of them. If this balance can be created by an all-weather farm program, our farm population will soon be assured of relatively constant purchasing power. From this will flow two other practical results: the consuming public will be protected against excessive food and textile prices, and the industries of the Nation and their workers will find a steadier demand for wares sold to the agricultural third of our people. To raise the purchasing power of the farmer is, however, not enough. It will not stay raised if we do not also raise the purchasing power of that third of the Nation which receives its income from industrial employment. Millions of industrial workers receive pay so low that they have little buying power. Aside from the undoubted fact that they thereby suffer great human hardship, they are unable to buy adequate food and shelter, to maintain health or to buy their share of manufactured goods. We have not only seen minimum wage and maximum hour provisions prove their worth economically and socially under government auspices in 1933, 1934 and 1935, but the people of this country, by an overwhelming vote, are in favor of having the Congress—this Congress—put a floor below which industrial wages shall not fall, and a ceiling beyond which the hours of industrial labor shall not rise. Here again let us analyze the opposition. A part of it is sincere in believing that an effort thus to raise the purchasing power of lowest paid industrial workers is not the business of the Federal Government. Others give "lip service" to a general objective, but do not like any specific measure that is proposed. In both cases it is worth our while to wonder whether some of these opponents are not at heart opposed to any program for raising the wages of the underpaid or reducing the hours of the overworked. Another group opposes legislation of this type on the ground that cheap labor will help their locality to acquire industries and outside capital, or to retain industries which today are surviving only because of existing low wages and long hours. It has been my thought that, especially during these past five years, this Nation' has grown away from local or sectional selfishness and toward national patriotism and unity. I am disappointed by some recent actions and by some recent utterances which sound like the philosophy of half a century ago. There are many communities in the United States where the average family income is pitifully low. It is in those communities that we find the poorest educational facilities and the worst conditions of health. Why? It is not because they are satisfied to live as they do. It is because those communities have the lowest per capita wealth and income; therefore, the lowest ability to pay taxes; and, therefore, inadequate functioning of local government. Such communities exist in the East, in the Middle West, in the Far West, and in the South. Those who represent such areas in every part of the country do their constituents ill service by blocking efforts to raise their incomes, their property values and, therefore, their whole scale of living. In the long run, the profits from Child labor, low pay and overwork enure not to the locality or region where they exist but to the absentee owners who have sent their capital into these exploited communities to gather larger profits for themselves. Indeed, new enterprises and new industries which bring permanent wealth will come more readily to those communities which insist on good pay and reasonable hours, for the simple reason that there they will find a greater industrial efficiency and happier workers. No reasonable person seeks a complete uniformity in wages in every part of the United States; nor does any reasonable person seek an immediate and drastic change from the lowest pay to the highest pay. We are seeking, of course, only legislation to end starvation wages and intolerable hours; more desirable wages are and should continue to be the product of collective bargaining. Many of those who represent great cities have shown their understanding of the necessity of helping the agricultural third of the Nation. I hope that those who represent constituencies primarily agricultural will not underestimate the importance of extending like aid to the industrial third. Wage and hour legislation, therefore, is a problem which is definitely before this Congress for action. It is an essential part of economic recovery. It has the support of an overwhelming majority of our people in every walk of life. They have expressed themselves through the ballot box. Again I revert to the increase of national purchasing power as an underlying necessity of the day. If you increase that purchasing power for the farmers and for the industrial workers, especially for those in both groups who have least of it today, you will increase the purchasing power of the final third of our population—those who transport and distribute the products of farm and factory, and those of the professions who serve all groups. I have tried to make clear to you, and through you to the people of the United States, that this is an urgency which must be met by complete and not by partial action. If it is met, if the purchasing power of the Nation as a whole—in other words, the total of the Nation's income—can be still further increased, other happy results will flow from such increase. We have raised the Nation's income from thirty-eight billion dollars in the year 1932 to about sixty-eight billion dollars in the year 1937. Our goal, our objective is to raise it to ninety or one hundred billion dollars. We have heard much about a balanced budget, and it is interesting to note that many of those who have pleaded for a balanced budget as the sole need now come to me to plead for additional government expenditures at the expense of unbalancing the budget. As the Congress is fully aware, the annual deficit, large for several years, has been declining the last fiscal year and this. The proposed budget for 1939, which I shall shortly send to the Congress, will exhibit a further decrease in the deficit, though not a balance between income and outgo. To many who have pleaded with me for an immediate balancing of the budget, by a sharp curtailment or even elimination of government functions, I have asked the question: "What present expenditures would you reduce or eliminate?" And the invariable answer has been "that is not my business—I know nothing of the details, but I am sure that it could be done." That is not what you or I would call helpful citizenship. On only one point do most of them have a suggestion. They think that relief for the unemployed by the giving of work is wasteful, and when I pin them down I discover that at heart they are actually in favor of substituting a dole in place of useful work. To that neither I nor, I am confident, the Senators and Representatives in the Congress will ever consent. I am as anxious as any banker or industrialist or business man or investor or economist that the budget of the United States Government be brought into balance as quickly as possible. But I lay down certain conditions which seem reasonable and which I believe all should accept. The first condition is that we continue the policy of not permitting any needy American who can and is willing to work to starve because the Federal Government does not provide the work. The second is that the Congress and the Executive join hands in eliminating or curtailing any Federal activity which can be eliminated or curtailed or even postponed without harming necessary government functions or the safety of the Nation from a national point of view. The third is to raise the purchasing power of the Nation to the point that the taxes on this purchasing power—or, in other words, on the Nation's income—will be sufficient to meet the necessary expenditures of the national government. I have hitherto stated that, in my judgment, the expenditures of the national government cannot be cut much below seven billion dollars a year without destroying essential functions or letting people starve. That sum can be raised and will be cheerfully provided by the American people, if we can increase the Nation's income to a point well beyond the present level. This does not mean that as the Nation's income goes up the Federal expenditures should rise in proportion. On the contrary, the Congress and the Executive should use every effort to hold the normal Federal expenditures to approximately the present level, thus making it possible, with an increase in the Nation's income and the resulting increase in tax receipts, not only to balance future budgets but to reduce the debt. In line with this policy fall my former recommendations for the reorganization and improvement of the administrative structure of the government, both for immediate Executive needs and for the planning of future national needs. I renew those recommendations. In relation to tax changes, three things should be kept in mind. First, the total sum to be derived by the Federal Treasury must not be decreased as a result of any changes in schedules. Second, abuses by individuals or corporations designed to escape tax-paying by using various methods of doing business, corporate and otherwise—abuses which we have sought, with great success, to end—must not be restored. Third, we should rightly change certain provisions where they are proven to work definite hardship, especially on the small business men of the Nation. But, speculative income should not be favored over earned income. It is human nature to argue that this or that tax is responsible for every ill. It is human nature on the part of those who pay graduated taxes to attack all taxes based on the principle of ability to pay. These are the same complainants who for a generation blocked the imposition of a graduated income tax. They are the same complainants who would impose the type of flat sales tax which places the burden of government more on those least able to pay and less on those most able to pay. Our conclusion must be that while proven hardships should be corrected, they should not be corrected in such a way as to restore abuses already terminated or to shift a greater burden to the less fortunate. This subject leads naturally into the wider field of the public attitude toward business. The objective of increasing the purchasing power of the farming third, the industrial third and the service third of our population presupposes the cooperation of what we call capital and labor. Capital is essential; reasonable earnings on capital are essential; but misuse of the powers of capital or selfish suspension of the employment of capital must be ended, or the capitalistic system will destroy itself through its own abuses. The overwhelming majority of business men and bankers intend to be good citizens. Only a small minority have displayed poor citizenship by engaging in practices which are dishonest or definitely harmful to society. This statement is straightforward and true. No person in any responsible place in the Government of the United States today has ever taken any position contrary to it. But, unfortunately for the country, when attention is called to, or attack is made on specific misuses of capital, there has been a deliberate purpose on the part of the condemned minority to distort the criticism into an attack on all capital. That is wilful deception but it does not long deceive. If attention is called to, or attack made on, certain wrongful business practices, there are those who are eager to call it "an attack on all business." That, too, is wilful deception that will not long deceive. Let us consider certain facts: There are practices today which most people believe should be ended. They include tax avoidance through corporate and other methods, which I have previously mentioned; excessive capitalization, investment write-ups and security manipulations; price rigging and collusive bidding in defiance of the spirit of the antitrust laws by methods which baffle prosecution under the present statutes. They include high-pressure salesmanship which creates cycles of overproduction within given industries and consequent recessions in production until such time as the surplus is consumed; the use of patent laws to enable larger corporations to maintain high prices and withhold from the public the advantages of the progress of science; unfair competition which drives the smaller producer out of business locally, regionally or even on a national scale; intimidation of local or state government to prevent the enactment of laws for the protection of labor by threatening to move elsewhere; the shifting of actual production from one locality or region to another in pursuit of the cheapest wage scale. The enumeration of these abuses does not mean that business as a whole is guilty of them. Again, it is deception that will not long deceive to tell the country that an attack on these abuses is an attack on business. Another group of problems affecting business, which cannot be termed specific abuses, gives us food for grave thought about the future. Generically such problems arise out of the concentration of economic control to the detriment of the body politic-control of other people's money, other people's labor, other people's lives. In many instances such concentrations cannot be justified on the ground of operating efficiency, but have been created for the sake of securities profits, financial control, the suppression of competition and the ambition for power over others. In some lines of industry a very small numerical group is in such a position of influence that its actions are of necessity followed by the other units operating in the same field. That such influences operate to control banking and finance is equally true, in spite of the many efforts, through Federal legislation, to take such control out of the hands of a small group. We have but to talk with hundreds of small bankers throughout the United States to realize that irrespective of local conditions, they are compelled in practice to accept the policies laid down by a small number of the larger banks in the Nation. The work undertaken by Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson is not finished yet. The ownership of vast properties or the organization of thousands of workers creates a heavy obligation of public service. The power should not be sought or sanctioned unless the responsibility is accepted as well. The man who seeks freedom from such responsibility in the name of individual liberty is either fooling himself or trying to cheat his fellow men. He wants to eat the fruits of orderly society without paying for them. As a Nation we have rejected any radical revolutionary program. For a permanent correction of grave weaknesses in our economic system we have relied on new applications of old democratic processes. It is not necessary to recount what has been accomplished in preserving the homes and livelihood of millions of workers on farms and in cities, in reconstructing a sound banking and credit system, in reviving trade and industry, in reestablishing security of life and property. All we need today is to look upon the fundamental, sound economic conditions to know that this business recession causes more perplexity than fear on the part of most people and to contrast our prevailing mental attitude with the terror and despair of five years ago. Furthermore, we have a new moral climate in America. That means that we ask business and finance to recognize that fact, to cure such inequalities as they can cure without legislation but to join their government in the enactment of legislation where the ending of abuses and the steady functioning of our economic system calls for government assistance. The Nation has no obligation to make America safe either for incompetent business men or for business men who fail to note the trend of the times and continue the use of machinery of economics and practices of finance as outworn as the cotton spindle of 1870. Government can be expected to cooperate in every way with the business of the Nation provided the component parts of business abandon practices which do not belong to this day and age, and adopt price and production policies appropriate to the times. In regard to the relationship of government to certain processes of business, to which I have referred, it seems clear to me that existing laws undoubtedly require reconstruction. I expect, therefore, to address the Congress in a special message on this subject, and I hope to have the help of business in the efforts of government to help business. I have spoken of labor as another essential in the three great groups of the population in raising the Nation's income. Definite strides in collective bargaining have been made and the right of labor to organize has been nationally accepted. Nevertheless in the evolution of the process difficult situations have arisen in localities and among groups. Unfortunate divisions relating to jurisdiction among the workers themselves have retarded production within given industries and have, therefore, affected related industries. The construction of homes and other buildings has been hindered in some localities not only by unnecessarily high prices for materials but also by certain hourly wage scales. For economic and social reasons our principal interest for the near future lies along two lines: first, the immediate desirability of increasing the wages of the lowest paid groups in all industry; and, second, in thinking in terms of regularizing the work of the individual worker more greatly through the year—in other words, in thinking more in terms of the worker's total pay for a period of a whole year rather than in terms of his remuneration by the hour or by the day. In the case of labor as in the case of capital, misrepresentation of the policy of the government of the United States is deception which will not long deceive. In both cases we seek cooperation. In every case power and responsibility must go hand in hand. I have spoken of economic causes which throw the Nation's income out of balance; I have spoken of practices and abuses which demand correction through the cooperation of capital and labor with the government. But no government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal. There must be proof that sectional and class interests are prepared more greatly than they are today to be national in outlook. A government can punish specific acts of spoliation; but no government can conscript cooperation. We have improved some matters by way of remedial legislation. But where in some particulars that legislation has failed we cannot be sure whether it fails because some of its details are unwise or because it is being sabotaged. At any rate, we hold our objectives and our principles to be sound. We will never go back on them. Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make fitting response. It is the opportunity and the duty of all those who have faith in democratic methods as applied in industry, in agriculture and in business, as well as in the field of politics, to do their utmost to cooperate with government—without regard to political affiliation, special interests or economic prejudices—in whatever program may be sanctioned by the chosen representatives of the people. That presupposes on the part of the representatives of the people, a program, its enactment and its administration. Not because of the pledges of party programs alone, not because of the clear policies of the past five years, but chiefly because of the need of national unity in ending mistakes of the past and meeting the necessities of today, we must carry on. I do not propose to let the people down. I am sure the Congress of the United States will not let the people down.
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: In addressing the Congress on the state of the Union present facts and future hazards demand that I speak clearly and earnestly of the causes which underlie events of profound concern to all. In spite of the determination of this Nation for peace, it has become clear that acts and policies of nations in other parts of the world have far-reaching effects not only upon their immediate neighbors but also on us. I am thankful that I can tell you that our Nation is at peace. It has been kept at peace despite provocations which in other days, because of their seriousness, could well have engendered war. The people of the United States and the Government of the United States have shown capacity for restraint and a civilized approach to the purposes of peace, while at the same time we maintain the integrity inherent in the sovereignty of 130,000,000 people, lest we weaken or destroy our influence for peace and jeopardize the sovereignty itself. It is our traditional policy to live at peace with other nations. More than that, we have been among the leaders in advocating the use of pacific methods of discussion and conciliation in international differences. We have striven for the reduction of military forces. But in a world of high tension and disorder, in a world where stable civilization is actually threatened, it becomes the responsibility of each nation which strives for peace at home and peace with and among others to be strong enough to assure the observance of those fundamentals of peaceful solution of conflicts which are the only ultimate basis for orderly existence. Resolute in our determination to respect the rights of others, and to command respect for the rights of ourselves, we must keep ourselves adequately strong in self-defense. There is a trend in the world away from the observance both of the letter and the spirit of treaties. We propose to observe, as we have in the past, our own treaty obligations to the limit; but we cannot be certain of reciprocity on the part of others. Disregard for treaty obligations seems to have followed the surface trend away from the democratic representative form of government. It would seem, therefore, that world peace through international agreements is most safe in the hands of democratic representative governments—or, in other words, peace is most greatly jeopardized in and by those nations where democracy has been discarded or has never developed. I have used the words "surface trend," for I still believe that civilized man increasingly insists and in the long run will insist on genuine participation in his own government. Our people believe that over the years democracies of the world will survive, and that democracy will be restored or established in those nations which today know it not. In that faith lies the future peace of mankind. At home, conditions call for my equal candor. Events of recent months are new proof that we cannot conduct a national government after the practice of 1787, or 1837 or 1887, for the obvious reason that human needs and human desires are infinitely greater, infinitely more difficult to meet than in any previous period in the life of our Republic. Hitherto it has been an acknowledged duty of government to meet these desires and needs: nothing has occurred of late to absolve the Congress, the Courts or the President from that task. It faces us as squarely, as insistently, as in March, 1933. Much of trouble in our own lifetime has sprung from a long period of inaction—from ignoring what fundamentally was happening to us, and from a time-serving unwillingness to face facts as they forced themselves upon us. Our national life rests on two nearly equal producing forces, agriculture and industry, each employing about one-third of our citizens. The other third transports and distributes the products of the first two, or performs special services for the whole. The first great force, agriculture—and with it the production of timber, minerals and other natural resources—went forward feverishly and thoughtlessly until nature rebelled and we saw deserts encroach, floods destroy, trees disappear and soil exhausted. At the same time we have been discovering that vast numbers of our farming population live in a poverty more abject than that of many of the farmers of Europe whom we are will not to call peasants; that the prices of our products of agriculture are too often dependent on speculation by non-farming groups; and that foreign nations, eager to become self-sustaining or ready to put virgin land under the plough are no longer buying our surpluses of cotton and wheat and lard and tobacco and fruit as they had before. Since 1933 we have knowingly faced a choice of three remedies. First, to cut our cost of farm production below that of other nations—an obvious impossibility in many crops today unless we revert to human slavery or its equivalent. Second, to make the government the guarantor of farm prices and the underwriter of excess farm production without limit-a course which would bankrupt the strongest government in the world in a decade. Third, to place the primary responsibility directly on the farmers themselves, under the principle of majority rule, so that they may decide, with full knowledge of the facts of surpluses, scarcities, world markets and domestic needs, what the planting of each crop should be in order to maintain a reasonably adequate supply which will assure a minimum adequate price under the normal processes of the law of supply and demand. That means adequacy of supply but not glut. It means adequate reserves against the day of drought. It is shameless misrepresentation to call this a policy of scarcity. It is in truth insurance before the fact, instead of government subsidy after the fact. Any such plan for the control of excessive surpluses and the speculation they bring has two enemies. There are those well meaning theorists who harp on the inherent right of every free born American to do with his land what he wants-to cultivate it well—or badly; to conserve his timber by cutting only the annual increment thereof—or to strip it clean, let fire burn the slash, and erosion complete the ruin; to raise only one crop-and if that crop fails, to look for food and support from his neighbors or his government. That, I assert is not an inherent right of citizenship. For if a man farms his land to the waste of the soil or the trees, he destroys not only his own assets but the Nation's assets as well. Or if by his methods he makes himself, year after year, a financial hazard of the community and the government, he becomes not only a social problem but an economic menace. The day has gone by when it could be claimed that government has no interest in such ill-considered practices and no right through representative methods to stop them. The other group of enemies is perhaps less well-meaning. It includes those who for partisan purposes oppose each and every practical effort to help the situation, and also those who make money from undue fluctuations in crop prices. I gladly note that measures which seek to initiate a government program for a balanced agriculture are now in conference between the two Houses of the Congress. In their final consideration, I hope for a sound consistent measure which will keep the cost of its administration within the figure of current government expenditures in aid of agriculture. The farmers of this Nation know that a balanced output can be put into effect without excessive cost and with the cooperation of the great majority of them. If this balance can be created by an all-weather farm program, our farm population will soon be assured of relatively constant purchasing power. From this will flow two other practical results: the consuming public will be protected against excessive food and textile prices, and the industries of the Nation and their workers will find a steadier demand for wares sold to the agricultural third of our people. To raise the purchasing power of the farmer is, however, not enough. It will not stay raised if we do not also raise the purchasing power of that third of the Nation which receives its income from industrial employment. Millions of industrial workers receive pay so low that they have little buying power. Aside from the undoubted fact that they thereby suffer great human hardship, they are unable to buy adequate food and shelter, to maintain health or to buy their share of manufactured goods. We have not only seen minimum wage and maximum hour provisions prove their worth economically and socially under government auspices in 1933, 1934 and 1935, but the people of this country, by an overwhelming vote, are in favor of having the Congress—this Congress—put a floor below which industrial wages shall not fall, and a ceiling beyond which the hours of industrial labor shall not rise. Here again let us analyze the opposition. A part of it is sincere in believing that an effort thus to raise the purchasing power of lowest paid industrial workers is not the business of the Federal Government. Others give "lip service" to a general objective, but do not like any specific measure that is proposed. In both cases it is worth our while to wonder whether some of these opponents are not at heart opposed to any program for raising the wages of the underpaid or reducing the hours of the overworked. Another group opposes legislation of this type on the ground that cheap labor will help their locality to acquire industries and outside capital, or to retain industries which today are surviving only because of existing low wages and long hours. It has been my thought that, especially during these past five years, this Nation' has grown away from local or sectional selfishness and toward national patriotism and unity. I am disappointed by some recent actions and by some recent utterances which sound like the philosophy of half a century ago. There are many communities in the United States where the average family income is pitifully low. It is in those communities that we find the poorest educational facilities and the worst conditions of health. Why? It is not because they are satisfied to live as they do. It is because those communities have the lowest per capita wealth and income; therefore, the lowest ability to pay taxes; and, therefore, inadequate functioning of local government. Such communities exist in the East, in the Middle West, in the Far West, and in the South. Those who represent such areas in every part of the country do their constituents ill service by blocking efforts to raise their incomes, their property values and, therefore, their whole scale of living. In the long run, the profits from Child labor, low pay and overwork enure not to the locality or region where they exist but to the absentee owners who have sent their capital into these exploited communities to gather larger profits for themselves. Indeed, new enterprises and new industries which bring permanent wealth will come more readily to those communities which insist on good pay and reasonable hours, for the simple reason that there they will find a greater industrial efficiency and happier workers. No reasonable person seeks a complete uniformity in wages in every part of the United States; nor does any reasonable person seek an immediate and drastic change from the lowest pay to the highest pay. We are seeking, of course, only legislation to end starvation wages and intolerable hours; more desirable wages are and should continue to be the product of collective bargaining. Many of those who represent great cities have shown their understanding of the necessity of helping the agricultural third of the Nation. I hope that those who represent constituencies primarily agricultural will not underestimate the importance of extending like aid to the industrial third. Wage and hour legislation, therefore, is a problem which is definitely before this Congress for action. It is an essential part of economic recovery. It has the support of an overwhelming majority of our people in every walk of life. They have expressed themselves through the ballot box. Again I revert to the increase of national purchasing power as an underlying necessity of the day. If you increase that purchasing power for the farmers and for the industrial workers, especially for those in both groups who have least of it today, you will increase the purchasing power of the final third of our population—those who transport and distribute the products of farm and factory, and those of the professions who serve all groups. I have tried to make clear to you, and through you to the people of the United States, that this is an urgency which must be met by complete and not by partial action. If it is met, if the purchasing power of the Nation as a whole—in other words, the total of the Nation's income—can be still further increased, other happy results will flow from such increase. We have raised the Nation's income from thirty-eight billion dollars in the year 1932 to about sixty-eight billion dollars in the year 1937. Our goal, our objective is to raise it to ninety or one hundred billion dollars. We have heard much about a balanced budget, and it is interesting to note that many of those who have pleaded for a balanced budget as the sole need now come to me to plead for additional government expenditures at the expense of unbalancing the budget. As the Congress is fully aware, the annual deficit, large for several years, has been declining the last fiscal year and this. The proposed budget for 1939, which I shall shortly send to the Congress, will exhibit a further decrease in the deficit, though not a balance between income and outgo. To many who have pleaded with me for an immediate balancing of the budget, by a sharp curtailment or even elimination of government functions, I have asked the question: "What present expenditures would you reduce or eliminate?" And the invariable answer has been "that is not my business—I know nothing of the details, but I am sure that it could be done." That is not what you or I would call helpful citizenship. On only one point do most of them have a suggestion. They think that relief for the unemployed by the giving of work is wasteful, and when I pin them down I discover that at heart they are actually in favor of substituting a dole in place of useful work. To that neither I nor, I am confident, the Senators and Representatives in the Congress will ever consent. I am as anxious as any banker or industrialist or business man or investor or economist that the budget of the United States Government be brought into balance as quickly as possible. But I lay down certain conditions which seem reasonable and which I believe all should accept. The first condition is that we continue the policy of not permitting any needy American who can and is willing to work to starve because the Federal Government does not provide the work. The second is that the Congress and the Executive join hands in eliminating or curtailing any Federal activity which can be eliminated or curtailed or even postponed without harming necessary government functions or the safety of the Nation from a national point of view. The third is to raise the purchasing power of the Nation to the point that the taxes on this purchasing power—or, in other words, on the Nation's income—will be sufficient to meet the necessary expenditures of the national government. I have hitherto stated that, in my judgment, the expenditures of the national government cannot be cut much below seven billion dollars a year without destroying essential functions or letting people starve. That sum can be raised and will be cheerfully provided by the American people, if we can increase the Nation's income to a point well beyond the present level. This does not mean that as the Nation's income goes up the Federal expenditures should rise in proportion. On the contrary, the Congress and the Executive should use every effort to hold the normal Federal expenditures to approximately the present level, thus making it possible, with an increase in the Nation's income and the resulting increase in tax receipts, not only to balance future budgets but to reduce the debt. In line with this policy fall my former recommendations for the reorganization and improvement of the administrative structure of the government, both for immediate Executive needs and for the planning of future national needs. I renew those recommendations. In relation to tax changes, three things should be kept in mind. First, the total sum to be derived by the Federal Treasury must not be decreased as a result of any changes in schedules. Second, abuses by individuals or corporations designed to escape tax-paying by using various methods of doing business, corporate and otherwise—abuses which we have sought, with great success, to end—must not be restored. Third, we should rightly change certain provisions where they are proven to work definite hardship, especially on the small business men of the Nation. But, speculative income should not be favored over earned income. It is human nature to argue that this or that tax is responsible for every ill. It is human nature on the part of those who pay graduated taxes to attack all taxes based on the principle of ability to pay. These are the same complainants who for a generation blocked the imposition of a graduated income tax. They are the same complainants who would impose the type of flat sales tax which places the burden of government more on those least able to pay and less on those most able to pay. Our conclusion must be that while proven hardships should be corrected, they should not be corrected in such a way as to restore abuses already terminated or to shift a greater burden to the less fortunate. This subject leads naturally into the wider field of the public attitude toward business. The objective of increasing the purchasing power of the farming third, the industrial third and the service third of our population presupposes the cooperation of what we call capital and labor. Capital is essential; reasonable earnings on capital are essential; but misuse of the powers of capital or selfish suspension of the employment of capital must be ended, or the capitalistic system will destroy itself through its own abuses. The overwhelming majority of business men and bankers intend to be good citizens. Only a small minority have displayed poor citizenship by engaging in practices which are dishonest or definitely harmful to society. This statement is straightforward and true. No person in any responsible place in the Government of the United States today has ever taken any position contrary to it. But, unfortunately for the country, when attention is called to, or attack is made on specific misuses of capital, there has been a deliberate purpose on the part of the condemned minority to distort the criticism into an attack on all capital. That is wilful deception but it does not long deceive. If attention is called to, or attack made on, certain wrongful business practices, there are those who are eager to call it "an attack on all business." That, too, is wilful deception that will not long deceive. Let us consider certain facts: There are practices today which most people believe should be ended. They include tax avoidance through corporate and other methods, which I have previously mentioned; excessive capitalization, investment write-ups and security manipulations; price rigging and collusive bidding in defiance of the spirit of the antitrust laws by methods which baffle prosecution under the present statutes. They include high-pressure salesmanship which creates cycles of overproduction within given industries and consequent recessions in production until such time as the surplus is consumed; the use of patent laws to enable larger corporations to maintain high prices and withhold from the public the advantages of the progress of science; unfair competition which drives the smaller producer out of business locally, regionally or even on a national scale; intimidation of local or state government to prevent the enactment of laws for the protection of labor by threatening to move elsewhere; the shifting of actual production from one locality or region to another in pursuit of the cheapest wage scale. The enumeration of these abuses does not mean that business as a whole is guilty of them. Again, it is deception that will not long deceive to tell the country that an attack on these abuses is an attack on business. Another group of problems affecting business, which cannot be termed specific abuses, gives us food for grave thought about the future. Generically such problems arise out of the concentration of economic control to the detriment of the body politic-control of other people's money, other people's labor, other people's lives. In many instances such concentrations cannot be justified on the ground of operating efficiency, but have been created for the sake of securities profits, financial control, the suppression of competition and the ambition for power over others. In some lines of industry a very small numerical group is in such a position of influence that its actions are of necessity followed by the other units operating in the same field. That such influences operate to control banking and finance is equally true, in spite of the many efforts, through Federal legislation, to take such control out of the hands of a small group. We have but to talk with hundreds of small bankers throughout the United States to realize that irrespective of local conditions, they are compelled in practice to accept the policies laid down by a small number of the larger banks in the Nation. The work undertaken by Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson is not finished yet. The ownership of vast properties or the organization of thousands of workers creates a heavy obligation of public service. The power should not be sought or sanctioned unless the responsibility is accepted as well. The man who seeks freedom from such responsibility in the name of individual liberty is either fooling himself or trying to cheat his fellow men. He wants to eat the fruits of orderly society without paying for them. As a Nation we have rejected any radical revolutionary program. For a permanent correction of grave weaknesses in our economic system we have relied on new applications of old democratic processes. It is not necessary to recount what has been accomplished in preserving the homes and livelihood of millions of workers on farms and in cities, in reconstructing a sound banking and credit system, in reviving trade and industry, in reestablishing security of life and property. All we need today is to look upon the fundamental, sound economic conditions to know that this business recession causes more perplexity than fear on the part of most people and to contrast our prevailing mental attitude with the terror and despair of five years ago. Furthermore, we have a new moral climate in America. That means that we ask business and finance to recognize that fact, to cure such inequalities as they can cure without legislation but to join their government in the enactment of legislation where the ending of abuses and the steady functioning of our economic system calls for government assistance. The Nation has no obligation to make America safe either for incompetent business men or for business men who fail to note the trend of the times and continue the use of machinery of economics and practices of finance as outworn as the cotton spindle of 1870. Government can be expected to cooperate in every way with the business of the Nation provided the component parts of business abandon practices which do not belong to this day and age, and adopt price and production policies appropriate to the times. In regard to the relationship of government to certain processes of business, to which I have referred, it seems clear to me that existing laws undoubtedly require reconstruction. I expect, therefore, to address the Congress in a special message on this subject, and I hope to have the help of business in the efforts of government to help business. I have spoken of labor as another essential in the three great groups of the population in raising the Nation's income. Definite strides in collective bargaining have been made and the right of labor to organize has been nationally accepted. Nevertheless in the evolution of the process difficult situations have arisen in localities and among groups. Unfortunate divisions relating to jurisdiction among the workers themselves have retarded production within given industries and have, therefore, affected related industries. The construction of homes and other buildings has been hindered in some localities not only by unnecessarily high prices for materials but also by certain hourly wage scales. For economic and social reasons our principal interest for the near future lies along two lines: first, the immediate desirability of increasing the wages of the lowest paid groups in all industry; and, second, in thinking in terms of regularizing the work of the individual worker more greatly through the year—in other words, in thinking more in terms of the worker's total pay for a period of a whole year rather than in terms of his remuneration by the hour or by the day. In the case of labor as in the case of capital, misrepresentation of the policy of the government of the United States is deception which will not long deceive. In both cases we seek cooperation. In every case power and responsibility must go hand in hand. I have spoken of economic causes which throw the Nation's income out of balance; I have spoken of practices and abuses which demand correction through the cooperation of capital and labor with the government. But no government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal. There must be proof that sectional and class interests are prepared more greatly than they are today to be national in outlook. A government can punish specific acts of spoliation; but no government can conscript cooperation. We have improved some matters by way of remedial legislation. But where in some particulars that legislation has failed we cannot be sure whether it fails because some of its details are unwise or because it is being sabotaged. At any rate, we hold our objectives and our principles to be sound. We will never go back on them. Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make fitting response. It is the opportunity and the duty of all those who have faith in democratic methods as applied in industry, in agriculture and in business, as well as in the field of politics, to do their utmost to cooperate with government—without regard to political affiliation, special interests or economic prejudices—in whatever program may be sanctioned by the chosen representatives of the people. That presupposes on the part of the representatives of the people, a program, its enactment and its administration. Not because of the pledges of party programs alone, not because of the clear policies of the past five years, but chiefly because of the need of national unity in ending mistakes of the past and meeting the necessities of today, we must carry on. I do not propose to let the people down. I am sure the Congress of the United States will not let the people down.
president speaker members of the senate and of the house of representatives in addressing the congress on the state of the union present facts and future hazards demand that i speak clearly and earnestly of the causes which underlie events of profound concern to all in spite of the determination of this nation for peace it has become clear that acts and policies of nations in other parts of the world have effects not only upon their immediate neighbors but also on us i am thankful that i can tell you that our nation is at peace it has been kept at peace despite provocations which in other days because of their seriousness could well have engendered war the people of the united states and the government of the united states have shown capacity for restraint and a civilized approach to the purposes of peace while at the same time we maintain the integrity inherent in the sovereignty of people lest we weaken or destroy our influence for peace and jeopardize the sovereignty itself it is our traditional policy to live at peace with other nations more than that we have been among the leaders in advocating the use of pacific methods of discussion and conciliation in international differences we have striven for the reduction of military forces but in a world of high tension and disorder in a world where stable civilization is actually threatened it becomes the responsibility of each nation which strives for peace at home and peace with and among others to be strong enough to assure the observance of those fundamentals of peaceful solution of conflicts which are the only ultimate basis for orderly existence resolute in our determination to respect the rights of others and to command respect for the rights of ourselves we must keep ourselves adequately strong in there is a trend in the world away from the observance both of the letter and the spirit of treaties we propose to observe as we have in the past our own treaty obligations to the limit but we can not be certain of reciprocity on the part of others disregard for treaty obligations seems to have followed the surface trend away from the democratic representative form of government it would seem therefore that world peace through international agreements is most safe in the hands of democratic representative in other words peace is most greatly jeopardized in and by those nations where democracy has been discarded or has never developed i have used the words surface trend for i still believe that civilized man increasingly insists and in the long run will insist on genuine participation in his own government our people believe that over the years democracies of the world will survive and that democracy will be restored or established in those nations which today know it not in that faith lies the future peace of mankind at home conditions call for my equal candor events of recent months are new proof that we can not conduct a national government after the practice of 1787 or 1837 or 1887 for the obvious reason that human needs and human desires are infinitely greater infinitely more difficult to meet than in any previous period in the life of our republic hitherto it has been an acknowledged duty of government to meet these desires and needs nothing has occurred of late to absolve the congress the courts or the president from that task it faces us as squarely as insistently as in march 1933 much of trouble in our own lifetime has sprung from a long period of ignoring what fundamentally was happening to us and from a unwillingness to face facts as they forced themselves upon us our national life rests on two nearly equal producing forces agriculture and industry each employing about of our citizens the other third transports and distributes the products of the first two or performs special services for the whole the first great force with it the production of timber minerals and other natural forward feverishly and thoughtlessly until nature rebelled and we saw deserts encroach floods destroy trees disappear and soil exhausted at the same time we have been discovering that vast numbers of our farming population live in a poverty more abject than that of many of the farmers of europe whom we are will not to call peasants that the prices of our products of agriculture are too often dependent on speculation by groups and that foreign nations eager to become or ready to put virgin land under the plough are no longer buying our surpluses of cotton and wheat and lard and tobacco and fruit as they had before since 1933 we have knowingly faced a choice of three remedies first to cut our cost of farm production below that of other obvious impossibility in many crops today unless we revert to human slavery or its equivalent second to make the government the guarantor of farm prices and the underwriter of excess farm production without course which would bankrupt the strongest government in the world in a decade third to place the primary responsibility directly on the farmers themselves under the principle of majority rule so that they may decide with full knowledge of the facts of surpluses scarcities world markets and domestic needs what the planting of each crop should be in order to maintain a reasonably adequate supply which will assure a minimum adequate price under the normal processes of the law of supply and demand that means adequacy of supply but not glut it means adequate reserves against the day of drought it is shameless misrepresentation to call this a policy of scarcity it is in truth insurance before the fact instead of government subsidy after the fact any such plan for the control of excessive surpluses and the speculation they bring has two enemies there are those well meaning theorists who harp on the inherent right of every free born american to do with his land what he cultivate it badly to conserve his timber by cutting only the annual increment to strip it clean let fire burn the slash and erosion complete the ruin to raise only one if that crop fails to look for food and support from his neighbors or his government that i assert is not an inherent right of citizenship for if a man farms his land to the waste of the soil or the trees he destroys not only his own assets but the nation assets as well or if by his methods he makes himself year after year a financial hazard of the community and the government he becomes not only a social problem but an economic menace the day has gone by when it could be claimed that government has no interest in such practices and no right through representative methods to stop them the other group of enemies is perhaps less it includes those who for partisan purposes oppose each and every practical effort to help the situation and also those who make money from undue fluctuations in crop prices i gladly note that measures which seek to initiate a government program for a balanced agriculture are now in conference between the two houses of the congress in their final consideration i hope for a sound consistent measure which will keep the cost of its administration within the figure of current government expenditures in aid of agriculture the farmers of this nation know that a balanced output can be put into effect without excessive cost and with the cooperation of the great majority of them if this balance can be created by an farm program our farm population will soon be assured of relatively constant purchasing power from this will flow two other practical results the consuming public will be protected against excessive food and textile prices and the industries of the nation and their workers will find a steadier demand for wares sold to the agricultural third of our people to raise the purchasing power of the farmer is however not enough it will not stay raised if we do not also raise the purchasing power of that third of the nation which receives its income from industrial employment millions of industrial workers receive pay so low that they have little buying power aside from the undoubted fact that they thereby suffer great human hardship they are unable to buy adequate food and shelter to maintain health or to buy their share of manufactured goods we have not only seen minimum wage and maximum hour provisions prove their worth economically and socially under government auspices in 1933 1934 and 1935 but the people of this country by an overwhelming vote are in favor of having the a floor below which industrial wages shall not fall and a ceiling beyond which the hours of industrial labor shall not rise here again let us analyze the opposition a part of it is sincere in believing that an effort thus to raise the purchasing power of lowest paid industrial workers is not the business of the federal government others give lip service to a general objective but do not like any specific measure that is proposed in both cases it is worth our while to wonder whether some of these opponents are not at heart opposed to any program for raising the wages of the underpaid or reducing the hours of the overworked another group opposes legislation of this type on the ground that cheap labor will help their locality to acquire industries and outside capital or to retain industries which today are surviving only because of existing low wages and long hours it has been my thought that especially during these past five years this nation has grown away from local or sectional selfishness and toward national patriotism and unity i am disappointed by some recent actions and by some recent utterances which sound like the philosophy of half a century ago there are many communities in the united states where the average family income is pitifully low it is in those communities that we find the poorest educational facilities and the worst conditions of health why it is not because they are satisfied to live as they do it is because those communities have the lowest per capita wealth and income therefore the lowest ability to pay taxes and therefore inadequate functioning of local government such communities exist in the east in the middle west in the far west and in the south those who represent such areas in every part of the country do their constituents ill service by blocking efforts to raise their incomes their property values and therefore their whole scale of living in the long run the profits from child labor low pay and overwork enure not to the locality or region where they exist but to the absentee owners who have sent their capital into these exploited communities to gather larger profits for themselves indeed new enterprises and new industries which bring permanent wealth will come more readily to those communities which insist on good pay and reasonable hours for the simple reason that there they will find a greater industrial efficiency and happier workers no reasonable person seeks a complete uniformity in wages in every part of the united states nor does any reasonable person seek an immediate and drastic change from the lowest pay to the highest pay we are seeking of course only legislation to end starvation wages and intolerable hours more desirable wages are and should continue to be the product of collective bargaining many of those who represent great cities have shown their understanding of the necessity of helping the agricultural third of the nation i hope that those who represent constituencies primarily agricultural will not underestimate the importance of extending like aid to the industrial third wage and hour legislation therefore is a problem which is definitely before this congress for action it is an essential part of economic recovery it has the support of an overwhelming majority of our people in every walk of life they have expressed themselves through the ballot box again i revert to the increase of national purchasing power as an underlying necessity of the day if you increase that purchasing power for the farmers and for the industrial workers especially for those in both groups who have least of it today you will increase the purchasing power of the final third of our who transport and distribute the products of farm and factory and those of the professions who serve all groups i have tried to make clear to you and through you to the people of the united states that this is an urgency which must be met by complete and not by partial action if it is met if the purchasing power of the nation as a other words the total of the nation be still further increased other happy results will flow from such increase we have raised the nation income from billion dollars in the year 1932 to about billion dollars in the year 1937 our goal our objective is to raise it to ninety or one hundred billion dollars we have heard much about a balanced budget and it is interesting to note that many of those who have pleaded for a balanced budget as the sole need now come to me to plead for additional government expenditures at the expense of unbalancing the budget as the congress is fully aware the annual deficit large for several years has been declining the last fiscal year and this the proposed budget for 1939 which i shall shortly send to the congress will exhibit a further decrease in the deficit though not a balance between income and outgo to many who have pleaded with me for an immediate balancing of the budget by a sharp curtailment or even elimination of government functions i have asked the question what present expenditures would you reduce or eliminate and the invariable answer has been that is not my know nothing of the details but i am sure that it could be done that is not what you or i would call helpful citizenship on only one point do most of them have a suggestion they think that relief for the unemployed by the giving of work is wasteful and when i pin them down i discover that at heart they are actually in favor of substituting a dole in place of useful work to that neither i nor i am confident the senators and representatives in the congress will ever consent i am as anxious as any banker or industrialist or business man or investor or economist that the budget of the united states government be brought into balance as quickly as possible but i lay down certain conditions which seem reasonable and which i believe all should accept the first condition is that we continue the policy of not permitting any needy american who can and is willing to work to starve because the federal government does not provide the work the second is that the congress and the executive join hands in eliminating or curtailing any federal activity which can be eliminated or curtailed or even postponed without harming necessary government functions or the safety of the nation from a national point of view the third is to raise the purchasing power of the nation to the point that the taxes on this purchasing in other words on the nation be sufficient to meet the necessary expenditures of the national government i have hitherto stated that in my judgment the expenditures of the national government can not be cut much below seven billion dollars a year without destroying essential functions or letting people starve that sum can be raised and will be cheerfully provided by the american people if we can increase the nation income to a point well beyond the present level this does not mean that as the nation income goes up the federal expenditures should rise in proportion on the contrary the congress and the executive should use every effort to hold the normal federal expenditures to approximately the present level thus making it possible with an increase in the nation income and the resulting increase in tax receipts not only to balance future budgets but to reduce the debt in line with this policy fall my former recommendations for the reorganization and improvement of the administrative structure of the government both for immediate executive needs and for the planning of future national needs i renew those recommendations in relation to tax changes three things should be kept in mind first the total sum to be derived by the federal treasury must not be decreased as a result of any changes in schedules second abuses by individuals or corporations designed to escape by using various methods of doing business corporate and which we have sought with great success to not be restored third we should rightly change certain provisions where they are proven to work definite hardship especially on the small business men of the nation but speculative income should not be favored over earned income it is human nature to argue that this or that tax is responsible for every ill it is human nature on the part of those who pay graduated taxes to attack all taxes based on the principle of ability to pay these are the same complainants who for a generation blocked the imposition of a graduated income tax they are the same complainants who would impose the type of flat sales tax which places the burden of government more on those least able to pay and less on those most able to pay our conclusion must be that while proven hardships should be corrected they should not be corrected in such a way as to restore abuses already terminated or to shift a greater burden to the less fortunate this subject leads naturally into the wider field of the public attitude toward business the objective of increasing the purchasing power of the farming third the industrial third and the service third of our population presupposes the cooperation of what we call capital and labor capital is essential reasonable earnings on capital are essential but misuse of the powers of capital or selfish suspension of the employment of capital must be ended or the capitalistic system will destroy itself through its own abuses the overwhelming majority of business men and bankers intend to be good citizens only a small minority have displayed poor citizenship by engaging in practices which are dishonest or definitely harmful to society this statement is straightforward and true no person in any responsible place in the government of the united states today has ever taken any position contrary to it but unfortunately for the country when attention is called to or attack is made on specific misuses of capital there has been a deliberate purpose on the part of the condemned minority to distort the criticism into an attack on all capital that is wilful deception but it does not long deceive if attention is called to or attack made on certain wrongful business practices there are those who are eager to call it an attack on all business that too is wilful deception that will not long deceive let us consider certain facts there are practices today which most people believe should be ended they include tax avoidance through corporate and other methods which i have previously mentioned excessive capitalization investment and security manipulations price rigging and collusive bidding in defiance of the spirit of the antitrust laws by methods which baffle prosecution under the present statutes they include salesmanship which creates cycles of overproduction within given industries and consequent recessions in production until such time as the surplus is consumed the use of patent laws to enable larger corporations to maintain high prices and withhold from the public the advantages of the progress of science unfair competition which drives the smaller producer out of business locally regionally or even on a national scale intimidation of local or state government to prevent the enactment of laws for the protection of labor by threatening to move elsewhere the shifting of actual production from one locality or region to another in pursuit of the cheapest wage scale the enumeration of these abuses does not mean that business as a whole is guilty of them again it is deception that will not long deceive to tell the country that an attack on these abuses is an attack on business another group of problems affecting business which can not be termed specific abuses gives us food for grave thought about the future generically such problems arise out of the concentration of economic control to the detriment of the body of other people money other people labor other people lives in many instances such concentrations can not be justified on the ground of operating efficiency but have been created for the sake of securities profits financial control the suppression of competition and the ambition for power over others in some lines of industry a very small numerical group is in such a position of influence that its actions are of necessity followed by the other units operating in the same field that such influences operate to control banking and finance is equally true in spite of the many efforts through federal legislation to take such control out of the hands of a small group we have but to talk with hundreds of small bankers throughout the united states to realize that irrespective of local conditions they are compelled in practice to accept the policies laid down by a small number of the larger banks in the nation the work undertaken by andrew jackson and woodrow wilson is not finished yet the ownership of vast properties or the organization of thousands of workers creates a heavy obligation of public service the power should not be sought or sanctioned unless the responsibility is accepted as well the man who seeks freedom from such responsibility in the name of individual liberty is either fooling himself or trying to cheat his fellow men he wants to eat the fruits of orderly society without paying for them as a nation we have rejected any radical revolutionary program for a permanent correction of grave weaknesses in our economic system we have relied on new applications of old democratic processes it is not necessary to recount what has been accomplished in preserving the homes and livelihood of millions of workers on farms and in cities in reconstructing a sound banking and credit system in reviving trade and industry in reestablishing security of life and property all we need today is to look upon the fundamental sound economic conditions to know that this business recession causes more perplexity than fear on the part of most people and to contrast our prevailing mental attitude with the terror and despair of five years ago furthermore we have a new moral climate in america that means that we ask business and finance to recognize that fact to cure such inequalities as they can cure without legislation but to join their government in the enactment of legislation where the ending of abuses and the steady functioning of our economic system calls for government assistance the nation has no obligation to make america safe either for incompetent business men or for business men who fail to note the trend of the times and continue the use of machinery of economics and practices of finance as outworn as the cotton spindle of 1870 government can be expected to cooperate in every way with the business of the nation provided the component parts of business abandon practices which do not belong to this day and age and adopt price and production policies appropriate to the times in regard to the relationship of government to certain processes of business to which i have referred it seems clear to me that existing laws undoubtedly require reconstruction i expect therefore to address the congress in a special message on this subject and i hope to have the help of business in the efforts of government to help business i have spoken of labor as another essential in the three great groups of the population in raising the nation income definite strides in collective bargaining have been made and the right of labor to organize has been nationally accepted nevertheless in the evolution of the process difficult situations have arisen in localities and among groups unfortunate divisions relating to jurisdiction among the workers themselves have retarded production within given industries and have therefore affected related industries the construction of homes and other buildings has been hindered in some localities not only by unnecessarily high prices for materials but also by certain hourly wage scales for economic and social reasons our principal interest for the near future lies along two lines first the immediate desirability of increasing the wages of the lowest paid groups in all industry and second in thinking in terms of regularizing the work of the individual worker more greatly through the other words in thinking more in terms of the worker total pay for a period of a whole year rather than in terms of his remuneration by the hour or by the day in the case of labor as in the case of capital misrepresentation of the policy of the government of the united states is deception which will not long deceive in both cases we seek cooperation in every case power and responsibility must go hand in hand i have spoken of economic causes which throw the nation income out of balance i have spoken of practices and abuses which demand correction through the cooperation of capital and labor with the government but no government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal there must be proof that sectional and class interests are prepared more greatly than they are today to be national in outlook a government can punish specific acts of spoliation but no government can conscript cooperation we have improved some matters by way of remedial legislation but where in some particulars that legislation has failed we can not be sure whether it fails because some of its details are unwise or because it is being sabotaged at any rate we hold our objectives and our principles to be sound we will never go back on them government has a final responsibility for the of its citizenship if private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate those suffering hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the government for aid and a government worthy of its name must make fitting response it is the opportunity and the duty of all those who have faith in democratic methods as applied in industry in agriculture and in business as well as in the field of politics to do their utmost to cooperate with regard to political affiliation special interests or economic whatever program may be sanctioned by the chosen representatives of the people that presupposes on the part of the representatives of the people a program its enactment and its administration not because of the pledges of party programs alone not because of the clear policies of the past five years but chiefly because of the need of national unity in ending mistakes of the past and meeting the necessities of today we must carry on i do not propose to let the people down i am sure the congress of the united states will not let the people down
president speaker members senate house representatives addressing congress state union present facts future hazards demand speak clearly earnestly causes underlie events profound concern spite determination nation peace become clear acts policies nations parts world effects upon immediate neighbors also us thankful tell nation peace kept peace despite provocations days seriousness could well engendered war people united states government united states shown capacity restraint civilized approach purposes peace time maintain integrity inherent sovereignty people lest weaken destroy influence peace jeopardize sovereignty traditional policy live peace nations among leaders advocating use pacific methods discussion conciliation international differences striven reduction military forces world high tension disorder world stable civilization actually threatened becomes responsibility nation strives peace home peace among others strong enough assure observance fundamentals peaceful solution conflicts ultimate basis orderly existence resolute determination respect rights others command respect rights must keep adequately strong trend world away observance letter spirit treaties propose observe past treaty obligations limit certain reciprocity part others disregard treaty obligations seems followed surface trend away democratic representative form government would seem therefore world peace international agreements safe hands democratic representative words peace greatly jeopardized nations democracy discarded never developed used words surface trend still believe civilized man increasingly insists long run insist genuine participation government people believe years democracies world survive democracy restored established nations today know faith lies future peace mankind home conditions call equal candor events recent months new proof conduct national government practice 1787 1837 1887 obvious reason human needs human desires infinitely greater infinitely difficult meet previous period life republic hitherto acknowledged duty government meet desires needs nothing occurred late absolve congress courts president task faces us squarely insistently march 1933 much trouble lifetime sprung long period ignoring fundamentally happening us unwillingness face facts forced upon us national life rests two nearly equal producing forces agriculture industry employing citizens third transports distributes products first two performs special services whole first great force production timber minerals natural forward feverishly thoughtlessly nature rebelled saw deserts encroach floods destroy trees disappear soil exhausted time discovering vast numbers farming population live poverty abject many farmers europe call peasants prices products agriculture often dependent speculation groups foreign nations eager become ready put virgin land plough longer buying surpluses cotton wheat lard tobacco fruit since 1933 knowingly faced choice three remedies first cut cost farm production obvious impossibility many crops today unless revert human slavery equivalent second make government guarantor farm prices underwriter excess farm production without course would bankrupt strongest government world decade third place primary responsibility directly farmers principle majority rule may decide full knowledge facts surpluses scarcities world markets domestic needs planting crop order maintain reasonably adequate supply assure minimum adequate price normal processes law supply demand means adequacy supply glut means adequate reserves day drought shameless misrepresentation call policy scarcity truth insurance fact instead government subsidy fact plan control excessive surpluses speculation bring two enemies well meaning theorists harp inherent right every free born american land cultivate badly conserve timber cutting annual increment strip clean let fire burn slash erosion complete ruin raise one crop fails look food support neighbors government assert inherent right citizenship man farms land waste soil trees destroys assets nation assets well methods makes year year financial hazard community government becomes social problem economic menace day gone could claimed government interest practices right representative methods stop group enemies perhaps less includes partisan purposes oppose every practical effort help situation also make money undue fluctuations crop prices gladly note measures seek initiate government program balanced agriculture conference two houses congress final consideration hope sound consistent measure keep cost administration within figure current government expenditures aid agriculture farmers nation know balanced output put effect without excessive cost cooperation great majority balance created farm program farm population soon assured relatively constant purchasing power flow two practical results consuming public protected excessive food textile prices industries nation workers find steadier demand wares sold agricultural third people raise purchasing power farmer however enough stay raised also raise purchasing power third nation receives income industrial employment millions industrial workers receive pay low little buying power aside undoubted fact thereby suffer great human hardship unable buy adequate food shelter maintain health buy share manufactured goods seen minimum wage maximum hour provisions prove worth economically socially government auspices 1933 1934 1935 people country overwhelming vote favor floor industrial wages shall fall ceiling beyond hours industrial labor shall rise let us analyze opposition part sincere believing effort thus raise purchasing power lowest paid industrial workers business federal government others give lip service general objective like specific measure proposed cases worth wonder whether opponents heart opposed program raising wages underpaid reducing hours overworked another group opposes legislation type ground cheap labor help locality acquire industries outside capital retain industries today surviving existing low wages long hours thought especially past five years nation grown away local sectional selfishness toward national patriotism unity disappointed recent actions recent utterances sound like philosophy half century ago many communities united states average family income pitifully low communities find poorest educational facilities worst conditions health satisfied live communities lowest per capita wealth income therefore lowest ability pay taxes therefore inadequate functioning local government communities exist east middle west far west south represent areas every part country constituents ill service blocking efforts raise incomes property values therefore whole scale living long run profits child labor low pay overwork enure locality region exist absentee owners sent capital exploited communities gather larger profits indeed new enterprises new industries bring permanent wealth come readily communities insist good pay reasonable hours simple reason find greater industrial efficiency happier workers reasonable person seeks complete uniformity wages every part united states reasonable person seek immediate drastic change lowest pay highest pay seeking course legislation end starvation wages intolerable hours desirable wages continue product collective bargaining many represent great cities shown understanding necessity helping agricultural third nation hope represent constituencies primarily agricultural underestimate importance extending like aid industrial third wage hour legislation therefore problem definitely congress action essential part economic recovery support overwhelming majority people every walk life expressed ballot box revert increase national purchasing power underlying necessity day increase purchasing power farmers industrial workers especially groups least today increase purchasing power final third transport distribute products farm factory professions serve groups tried make clear people united states urgency must met complete partial action met purchasing power nation words total nation still increased happy results flow increase raised nation income billion dollars year 1932 billion dollars year 1937 goal objective raise ninety one hundred billion dollars heard much balanced budget interesting note many pleaded balanced budget sole need come plead additional government expenditures expense unbalancing budget congress fully aware annual deficit large several years declining last fiscal year proposed budget 1939 shall shortly send congress exhibit decrease deficit though balance income outgo many pleaded immediate balancing budget sharp curtailment even elimination government functions asked question present expenditures would reduce eliminate invariable answer know nothing details sure could done would call helpful citizenship one point suggestion think relief unemployed giving work wasteful pin discover heart actually favor substituting dole place useful work neither confident senators representatives congress ever consent anxious banker industrialist business man investor economist budget united states government brought balance quickly possible lay certain conditions seem reasonable believe accept first condition continue policy permitting needy american willing work starve federal government provide work second congress executive join hands eliminating curtailing federal activity eliminated curtailed even postponed without harming necessary government functions safety nation national point view third raise purchasing power nation point taxes purchasing words nation sufficient meet necessary expenditures national government hitherto stated judgment expenditures national government cut much seven billion dollars year without destroying essential functions letting people starve sum raised cheerfully provided american people increase nation income point well beyond present level mean nation income goes federal expenditures rise proportion contrary congress executive use every effort hold normal federal expenditures approximately present level thus making possible increase nation income resulting increase tax receipts balance future budgets reduce debt line policy fall former recommendations reorganization improvement administrative structure government immediate executive needs planning future national needs renew recommendations relation tax changes three things kept mind first total sum derived federal treasury must decreased result changes schedules second abuses individuals corporations designed escape using various methods business corporate sought great success restored third rightly change certain provisions proven work definite hardship especially small business men nation speculative income favored earned income human nature argue tax responsible every ill human nature part pay graduated taxes attack taxes based principle ability pay complainants generation blocked imposition graduated income tax complainants would impose type flat sales tax places burden government least able pay less able pay conclusion must proven hardships corrected corrected way restore abuses already terminated shift greater burden less fortunate subject leads naturally wider field public attitude toward business objective increasing purchasing power farming third industrial third service third population presupposes cooperation call capital labor capital essential reasonable earnings capital essential misuse powers capital selfish suspension employment capital must ended capitalistic system destroy abuses overwhelming majority business men bankers intend good citizens small minority displayed poor citizenship engaging practices dishonest definitely harmful society statement straightforward true person responsible place government united states today ever taken position contrary unfortunately country attention called attack made specific misuses capital deliberate purpose part condemned minority distort criticism attack capital wilful deception long deceive attention called attack made certain wrongful business practices eager call attack business wilful deception long deceive let us consider certain facts practices today people believe ended include tax avoidance corporate methods previously mentioned excessive capitalization investment security manipulations price rigging collusive bidding defiance spirit antitrust laws methods baffle prosecution present statutes include salesmanship creates cycles overproduction within given industries consequent recessions production time surplus consumed use patent laws enable larger corporations maintain high prices withhold public advantages progress science unfair competition drives smaller producer business locally regionally even national scale intimidation local state government prevent enactment laws protection labor threatening move elsewhere shifting actual production one locality region another pursuit cheapest wage scale enumeration abuses mean business whole guilty deception long deceive tell country attack abuses attack business another group problems affecting business termed specific abuses gives us food grave thought future generically problems arise concentration economic control detriment body people money people labor people lives many instances concentrations justified ground operating efficiency created sake securities profits financial control suppression competition ambition power others lines industry small numerical group position influence actions necessity followed units operating field influences operate control banking finance equally true spite many efforts federal legislation take control hands small group talk hundreds small bankers throughout united states realize irrespective local conditions compelled practice accept policies laid small number larger banks nation work undertaken andrew jackson woodrow wilson finished yet ownership vast properties organization thousands workers creates heavy obligation public service power sought sanctioned unless responsibility accepted well man seeks freedom responsibility name individual liberty either fooling trying cheat fellow men wants eat fruits orderly society without paying nation rejected radical revolutionary program permanent correction grave weaknesses economic system relied new applications old democratic processes necessary recount accomplished preserving homes livelihood millions workers farms cities reconstructing sound banking credit system reviving trade industry reestablishing security life property need today look upon fundamental sound economic conditions know business recession causes perplexity fear part people contrast prevailing mental attitude terror despair five years ago furthermore new moral climate america means ask business finance recognize fact cure inequalities cure without legislation join government enactment legislation ending abuses steady functioning economic system calls government assistance nation obligation make america safe either incompetent business men business men fail note trend times continue use machinery economics practices finance outworn cotton spindle 1870 government expected cooperate every way business nation provided component parts business abandon practices belong day age adopt price production policies appropriate times regard relationship government certain processes business referred seems clear existing laws undoubtedly require reconstruction expect therefore address congress special message subject hope help business efforts government help business spoken labor another essential three great groups population raising nation income definite strides collective bargaining made right labor organize nationally accepted nevertheless evolution process difficult situations arisen localities among groups unfortunate divisions relating jurisdiction among workers retarded production within given industries therefore affected related industries construction homes buildings hindered localities unnecessarily high prices materials also certain hourly wage scales economic social reasons principal interest near future lies along two lines first immediate desirability increasing wages lowest paid groups industry second thinking terms regularizing work individual worker greatly words thinking terms worker total pay period whole year rather terms remuneration hour day case labor case capital misrepresentation policy government united states deception long deceive cases seek cooperation every case power responsibility must go hand hand spoken economic causes throw nation income balance spoken practices abuses demand correction cooperation capital labor government government help destinies people insist putting sectional class consciousness ahead general weal must proof sectional class interests prepared greatly today national outlook government punish specific acts spoliation government conscript cooperation improved matters way remedial legislation particulars legislation failed sure whether fails details unwise sabotaged rate hold objectives principles sound never go back government final responsibility citizenship private cooperative endeavor fails provide work willing hands relief unfortunate suffering hardship fault right call upon government aid government worthy name must make fitting response opportunity duty faith democratic methods applied industry agriculture business well field politics utmost cooperate regard political affiliation special interests economic whatever program may sanctioned chosen representatives people presupposes part representatives people program enactment administration pledges party programs alone clear policies past five years chiefly need national unity ending mistakes past meeting necessities today must carry propose let people sure congress united states let people
president speaker member senate house representative address congress state union present fact future hazard demand speak clearly earnestly cause underlie event profound concern spite determination nation peace become clear act policy nation part world effect upon immediate neighbor also u thankful tell nation peace keep peace despite provocation day seriousness could well engender war people united states government unite state show capacity restraint civilize approach purpose peace time maintain integrity inherent sovereignty people lest weaken destroy influence peace jeopardize sovereignty traditional policy live peace nation among leader advocate use pacific method discussion conciliation international difference strive reduction military force world high tension disorder world stable civilization actually threaten becomes responsibility nation strive peace home peace among others strong enough assure observance fundamental peaceful solution conflict ultimate basis orderly existence resolute determination respect right others command respect right must keep adequately strong trend world away observance letter spirit treaty propose observe past treaty obligation limit certain reciprocity part others disregard treaty obligation seem followed surface trend away democratic representative form government would seem therefore world peace international agreement safe hand democratic representative word peace greatly jeopardized nation democracy discard never develop use word surface trend still believe civilized man increasingly insist long run insist genuine participation government people believe year democracies world survive democracy restore establish nation today know faith lie future peace mankind home condition call equal candor event recent month new proof conduct national government practice 1787 1837 1887 obvious reason human need human desire infinitely great infinitely difficult meet previous period life republic hitherto acknowledge duty government meet desire need nothing occur late absolve congress court president task face u squarely insistently march 1933 much trouble lifetime sprung long period ignore fundamentally happen u unwillingness face fact force upon u national life rest two nearly equal produce force agriculture industry employ citizen third transport distribute product first two performs special service whole first great force production timber mineral natural forward feverishly thoughtlessly nature rebel saw desert encroach flood destroy tree disappear soil exhaust time discover vast number farm population live poverty abject many farmer europe call peasant price product agriculture often dependent speculation group foreign nation eager become ready put virgin land plough longer buying surplus cotton wheat lard tobacco fruit since 1933 knowingly face choice three remedy first cut cost farm production obvious impossibility many crop today unless revert human slavery equivalent second make government guarantor farm price underwriter excess farm production without course would bankrupt strong government world decade third place primary responsibility directly farmer principle majority rule may decide full knowledge fact surpluses scarcity world market domestic need plant crop order maintain reasonably adequate supply assure minimum adequate price normal process law supply demand mean adequacy supply glut mean adequate reserve day drought shameless misrepresentation call policy scarcity truth insurance fact instead government subsidy fact plan control excessive surplus speculation bring two enemy well mean theorist harp inherent right every free bear american land cultivate badly conserve timber cut annual increment strip clean let fire burn slash erosion complete ruin raise one crop fail look food support neighbor government assert inherent right citizenship man farm land waste soil tree destroy asset nation asset well method make year year financial hazard community government become social problem economic menace day go could claim government interest practice right representative method stop group enemy perhaps less include partisan purpose oppose every practical effort help situation also make money undue fluctuation crop price gladly note measure seek initiate government program balance agriculture conference two house congress final consideration hope sound consistent measure keep cost administration within figure current government expenditure aid agriculture farmer nation know balance output put effect without excessive cost cooperation great majority balance create farm program farm population soon assure relatively constant purchasing power flow two practical result consume public protect excessive food textile price industry nation worker find steady demand ware sell agricultural third people raise purchase power farmer however enough stay raise also raise purchase power third nation receive income industrial employment million industrial worker receive pay low little buying power aside undoubted fact thereby suffer great human hardship unable buy adequate food shelter maintain health buy share manufacture good see minimum wage maximum hour provision prove worth economically socially government auspex 1933 1934 1935 people country overwhelming vote favor floor industrial wage shall fall ceiling beyond hour industrial labor shall rise let u analyze opposition part sincere believe effort thus raise purchase power low pay industrial worker business federal government others give lip service general objective like specific measure propose case worth wonder whether opponent heart oppose program raise wage underpaid reducing hour overwork another group oppose legislation type ground cheap labor help locality acquire industry outside capital retain industry today survive exist low wage long hour think especially past five year nation grow away local sectional selfishness toward national patriotism unity disappointed recent action recent utterance sound like philosophy half century ago many community united state average family income pitifully low community find poor educational facility worst condition health satisfy live community low per caput wealth income therefore low ability pay tax therefore inadequate function local government community exist east middle west far west south represent area every part country constituent ill service block effort raise incomes property value therefore whole scale living long run profit child labor low pay overwork enure locality region exist absentee owner send capital exploited community gather large profit indeed new enterprise new industry bring permanent wealth come readily community insist good pay reasonable hour simple reason find great industrial efficiency happy worker reasonable person seek complete uniformity wage every part united state reasonable person seek immediate drastic change low pay high pay seek course legislation end starvation wage intolerable hour desirable wage continue product collective bargaining many represent great city show understanding necessity help agricultural third nation hope represent constituency primarily agricultural underestimate importance extend like aid industrial third wage hour legislation therefore problem definitely congress action essential part economic recovery support overwhelm majority people every walk life express ballot box revert increase national purchase power underlying necessity day increase purchase power farmer industrial worker especially group least today increase purchase power final third transport distribute product farm factory profession serve group try make clear people united state urgency must meet complete partial action meet purchase power nation word total nation still increase happy result flow increase raise nation income billion dollar year 1932 billion dollar year 1937 goal objective raise ninety one hundred billion dollar heard much balanced budget interesting note many plead balanced budget sole need come plead additional government expenditures expense unbalance budget congress fully aware annual deficit large several year decline last fiscal year propose budget 1939 shall shortly send congress exhibit decrease deficit though balance income outgo many plead immediate balancing budget sharp curtailment even elimination government function ask question present expenditure would reduce eliminate invariable answer know nothing detail sure could do would call helpful citizenship one point suggestion think relief unemployed give work wasteful pin discover heart actually favor substitute dole place useful work neither confident senator representative congress ever consent anxious banker industrialist business man investor economist budget united state government bring balance quickly possible lay certain condition seem reasonable believe accept first condition continue policy permit needy american willing work starve federal government provide work second congress executive join hand eliminate curtail federal activity eliminate curtail even postpone without harm necessary government function safety nation national point view third raise purchase power nation point tax purchase word nation sufficient meet necessary expenditure national government hitherto state judgment expenditure national government cut much seven billion dollar year without destroy essential function let people starve sum raise cheerfully provide american people increase nation income point well beyond present level mean nation income go federal expenditure rise proportion contrary congress executive use every effort hold normal federal expenditure approximately present level thus make possible increase nation income result increase tax receipt balance future budget reduce debt line policy fall former recommendation reorganization improvement administrative structure government immediate executive need plan future national need renew recommendation relation tax change three thing keep mind first total sum derive federal treasury must decrease result change schedule second abuse individual corporation design escape use various method business corporate seek great success restore third rightly change certain provision prove work definite hardship especially small business men nation speculative income favor earned income human nature argue tax responsible every ill human nature part pay graduate tax attack tax base principle ability pay complainant generation block imposition graduate income tax complainant would impose type flat sale tax place burden government least able pay less able pay conclusion must prove hardship correct correct way restore abuse already terminate shift great burden less fortunate subject lead naturally wide field public attitude toward business objective increase purchase power farm third industrial third service third population presuppose cooperation call capital labor capital essential reasonable earnings capital essential misuse power capital selfish suspension employment capital must end capitalistic system destroy abuse overwhelm majority business men banker intend good citizen small minority display poor citizenship engage practice dishonest definitely harmful society statement straightforward true person responsible place government unite state today ever take position contrary unfortunately country attention call attack make specific misuse capital deliberate purpose part condemn minority distort criticism attack capital wilful deception long deceive attention call attack make certain wrongful business practice eager call attack business wilful deception long deceive let u consider certain fact practice today people believe end include tax avoidance corporate method previously mention excessive capitalization investment security manipulation price rig collusive bidding defiance spirit antitrust law method baffle prosecution present statute include salesmanship creates cycle overproduction within give industry consequent recession production time surplus consume use patent law enable large corporation maintain high price withhold public advantage progress science unfair competition drive small producer business locally regionally even national scale intimidation local state government prevent enactment law protection labor threaten move elsewhere shift actual production one locality region another pursuit cheapest wage scale enumeration abuse mean business whole guilty deception long deceive tell country attack abuse attack business another group problem affect business term specific abuse give u food grave think future generically problem arise concentration economic control detriment body people money people labor people live many instance concentration justify ground operate efficiency create sake security profit financial control suppression competition ambition power others line industry small numerical group position influence action necessity follow unit operate field influence operate control banking finance equally true spite many effort federal legislation take control hand small group talk hundreds small banker throughout united state realize irrespective local condition compel practice accept policy lay small number large bank nation work undertaken andrew jackson woodrow wilson finish yet ownership vast property organization thousand worker creates heavy obligation public service power seek sanction unless responsibility accept well man seek freedom responsibility name individual liberty either fool try cheat fellow men want eat fruit orderly society without pay nation reject radical revolutionary program permanent correction grave weakness economic system rely new application old democratic process necessary recount accomplish preserve home livelihood million worker farm city reconstruct sound banking credit system revive trade industry reestablish security life property need today look upon fundamental sound economic condition know business recession cause perplexity fear part people contrast prevailing mental attitude terror despair five year ago furthermore new moral climate america mean ask business finance recognize fact cure inequalities cure without legislation join government enactment legislation end abuse steady function economic system call government assistance nation obligation make america safe either incompetent business men business men fail note trend time continue use machinery economics practice finance outworn cotton spindle 1870 government expect cooperate every way business nation provide component part business abandon practice belong day age adopt price production policy appropriate time regard relationship government certain process business refer seem clear exist law undoubtedly require reconstruction expect therefore address congress special message subject hope help business effort government help business speak labor another essential three great group population raise nation income definite stride collective bargaining make right labor organize nationally accepted nevertheless evolution process difficult situation arisen locality among group unfortunate division relate jurisdiction among worker retarded production within give industry therefore affect related industry construction home building hinder locality unnecessarily high price material also certain hourly wage scale economic social reason principal interest near future lie along two line first immediate desirability increase wage low pay group industry second thinking term regularize work individual worker greatly word think term worker total pay period whole year rather term remuneration hour day case labor case capital misrepresentation policy government unite state deception long deceive case seek cooperation every case power responsibility must go hand hand speak economic cause throw nation income balance speak practice abuse demand correction cooperation capital labor government government help destiny people insist put sectional class consciousness ahead general weal must proof sectional class interest prepare greatly today national outlook government punish specific act spoliation government conscript cooperation improve matter way remedial legislation particular legislation fail sure whether fails detail unwise sabotage rate hold objective principle sound never go back government final responsibility citizenship private cooperative endeavor fails provide work willing hand relief unfortunate suffering hardship fault right call upon government aid government worthy name must make fitting response opportunity duty faith democratic method apply industry agriculture business well field politics utmost cooperate regard political affiliation special interest economic whatever program may sanction choose representative people presupposes part representative people program enactment administration pledge party program alone clear policy past five year chiefly need national unity end mistake past meeting necessity today must carry propose let people sure congress united state let people