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Our covenant with
ourselves did not stop there. Instinctively
we recognized a deeper need—the need
to find through government the instrument
of our united purpose to solve for the individual
the ever-rising problems of a complex civilization.
Repeated attempts at their solution without
the aid of government had left us baffled
and bewildered. For, without that aid, we
had been unable to create those moral controls
over the services of science which are necessary
to make science a useful servant instead
of a ruthless master of mankind. To do this
we knew that we must find practical controls
over blind economic forces and blindly selfish
men.
We of the Republic
sensed the truth that democratic government
has innate capacity to protect its people
against disasters once considered inevitable,
to solve problems once considered unsolvable.
We would not admit that we could not find
a way to master economic epidemics just
as, after centuries of fatalistic suffering,
we had found a way to master epidemics of
disease. We refused to leave the problems
of our common welfare to be solved by the
winds of chance and the hurricanes of disaster.
In this we Americans
were discovering no wholly new truth; we
were writing a new chapter in our book of
self-government.
This year marks the
one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of
the Constitutional Convention which made
us a nation. At that Convention our forefathers
found the way out of the chaos which followed
the Revolutionary War; they created a strong
government with powers of united action
sufficient then and now to solve problems
utterly beyond individual or local solution.
A century and a half ago they established
the Federal Government in order to promote
the general welfare and secure the blessings
of liberty to the American people.
Today we invoke those
same powers of government to achieve the
same objectives.
Four years of new
experience have not belied our historic
instinct. They hold out the clear hope that
government within communities, government
within the separate States, and government
of the United States can do the things the
times require, without yielding its democracy.
Our tasks in the last four years did not
force democracy to take a holiday.
Nearly all of us
recognize that as intricacies of human relationships
increase, so power to govern them also must
increase power to stop evil; power to do
good. The essential democracy of our Nation
and the safety of our people depend not
upon the absence of power, but upon lodging
it with those whom the people can change
or continue at stated intervals through
an honest and free system of elections.
The Constitution of 1787 did not make our
democracy impotent.
In fact, in these
last four years, we have made the exercise
of all power more democratic; for we have
begun to bring private autocratic powers
into their proper subordination to the public's
government. The legend that they were invincible
above and beyond the processes of a democracy—has
been shattered. They have been challenged
and beaten.
Our progress out
of the depression is obvious. But that is
not all that you and I mean by the new order
of things. Our pledge was not merely to
do a patchwork job with second-hand materials.
By using the new materials of social justice
we have undertaken to erect on the old foundations
a more enduring structure for the better
use of future generations.
In that purpose we
have been helped by achievements of mind
and spirit. Old truths have been relearned;
untruths have been unlearned. We have always
known that heedless self-interest was bad
morals; we know now that it is bad economics.
Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose
builders boasted their practicality has
come the conviction that in the long run
economic morality pays. We are beginning
to wipe out the line that divides the practical
from the ideal; and in so doing we are fashioning
an instrument of unimagined power for the
establishment of a morally better world.
This new understanding
undermines the old admiration of worldly
success as such. We are beginning to abandon
our tolerance of the abuse of power by those
who betray for profit the elementary decencies
of life.
In this process evil
things formerly accepted will not be so
easily condoned. Hard-headedness will not
so easily excuse hardheartedness. We are
moving toward an era of good feeling. But
we realize that there can be no era of good
feeling save among men of good will.
For these reasons
I am justified in believing that the greatest
change we have witnessed has been the change
in the moral climate of America.
Among men of good
will, science and democracy together offer
an ever-richer life and ever-larger satisfaction
to the individual. With this change in our
moral climate and our rediscovered ability
to improve our economic order, we have set
our feet upon the road of enduring progress.
Shall we pause now
and turn our back upon the road that lies
ahead? Shall we call this the promised land?
Or, shall we continue on our way? For "each
age is a dream that is dying, or one that
is coming to birth."
Many voices are heard
as we face a great decision. Comfort says,
"Tarry a while." Opportunism says,
"This is a good spot." Timidity
asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?"
True, we have come
far from the days of stagnation and despair.
Vitality has been preserved. Courage and
confidence have been restored. Mental and
moral horizons have been extended.
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