Handout 1: Excerpts from Franklin D. Roosevelt's Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933 (NAID 197333)
1. “This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly.
Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great
Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me
assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless,
unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into
advance. In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and vigor has
met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to
victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these
critical days…”
2. “Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of
locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they
believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers
her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a
generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because
the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed through their own
stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure and have
abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of
public opinion rejected by the hearts and minds of men…
The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization.
We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration
lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary
profit.”
3. “I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a
stricken Nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such
other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall
seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.
But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the
event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of
duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining
instrument to meet the crisis – broad Executive power to wage a war against the
emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded
by a foreign foe.”
Launching the New Deal:
FDR and Congress Respond to the Great Depression
Center for Legislative Archives
National Archives and Records Administration
www. archives. gov/legislative
Worksheet 1: Excerpts from Franklin D. Roosevelt's
Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933 (NAID 197333)
Instructions: Read one excerpt from Handout 1 and answer the appropriate questions below.
1. What words would you choose to describe President Roosevelt’s tone in the
assigned excerpt?
2. Excerpt 1: Excerpt one features two variations of the term frank: frankly and
frankness. Contrast how President Roosevelt used these words with the concept of
fear that was used in the same excerpt.
3. Excerpt 2: In the second excerpt, President Roosevelt contrasted nature’s bounty
with the goods of mankind. What does each phrase mean, and which of the two
does he link most directly related to the peril the nation faces?
4. Excerpt 3: What two courses of action does the President propose in the third
excerpt? What role does he assert for Congress and the President in choosing one
of the courses of action?
5. As an American hearing this speech, live or on radio, how would it make you feel
about the launch of the FDR administration?