Title:  State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt

Author:  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Release Date:  February, 2004 [EBook #5038] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 11, 2002] [Date last updated:  December 16, 2004]

Edition:  11

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK of addresses by Franklin D. Roosevelt ***

This eBook was produced by James Linden.

The addresses are separated by three asterisks:  ***

Dates of addresses by Franklin D. Roosevelt in this eBook: 
  January 3, 1934
  January 7, 1943
  January 11, 1944
  January 6, 1945
  January 4, 1935
  January 3, 1936
  January 6, 1937
  January 3, 1938
  January 4, 1939
  January 3, 1940
  January 6, 1941
  January 6, 1942

***

State of the Union Address
Franklin D. Roosevelt
January 3, 1934

Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Senators and Representatives in Congress: 

I come before you at the opening of the Regular Session of the 73d Congress, not to make requests for special or detailed items of legislation; I come, rather, to counsel with you, who, like myself, have been selected to carry out a mandate of the whole people, in order that without partisanship you and I may cooperate to continue the restoration of our national wellbeing and, equally important, to build on the ruins of the past a new structure designed better to meet the present problems of modern civilization.

Such a structure includes not only the relations of industry and agriculture and finance to each other but also the effect which all of these three have on our individual citizens and on the whole people as a Nation.

Now that we are definitely in the process of recovery, lines have been rightly drawn between those to whom this recovery means a return to old methods—­and the number of these people is small—­and those for whom recovery means a reform of many old methods, a permanent readjustment of many of our ways of thinking and therefore of many of our social and economic arrangements. . . . .

Civilization cannot go back; civilization must not stand still.  We have undertaken new methods.  It is our task to perfect, to improve, to alter when necessary, but in all cases to go forward.  To consolidate what we are doing, to make our economic and social structure capable of dealing with modern life is the joint task of the legislative, the judicial, and the executive branches of the national Government.

Without regard to party, the overwhelming majority of our people seek a greater opportunity for humanity to prosper and find happiness.  They recognize that human welfare has not increased and does not increase through mere materialism and luxury, but that it does progress through integrity, unselfishness, responsibility and justice.