Private capital and private management are entitled to adequate reward for efficiency, but business must recognize that its reward results from the employment of the resources of the Nation.  Business is a public trust and must adhere to national standards in the conduct of its affairs.  These standards include as a minimum the establishment of fair wages and fair employment practices.

Labor also has its own new peacetime responsibilities.  Under our collective bargaining system, which must become progressively more secure, labor attains increasing political as well as economic power, and this, as with all power, means increased responsibility.

The lives of millions of veterans and war workers will be greatly affected by the success or failure of our program of war liquidation and reconversion.  Their transition to peacetime pursuits will be determined by our efforts to break the bottlenecks in key items of production, to make surplus property immediately available where it is needed, to maintain an effective national employment service, and many other reconversion policies.  Our obligations to the people who won the war will not be paid if we fail to prevent inflation and to maintain employment opportunities.

While our peacetime prosperity will be based on the private enterprise the government can and must assist in many ways.  It is the Government’s responsibility to see that our economic system remains competitive, that new businesses have adequate opportunities, and that our national resources are restored and improved.  Government must realize the effect of its operations on the whole economy.  It is the responsibility of Government to gear its total program to the achievement of full production and full employment.

Our basic objective—­toward which all others lead—­is to improve the welfare of the American people.  In addition to economic prosperity, this means that we use social security in the fullest sense of the word.  And people must be protected from excessive want during old age, sickness, and unemployment.  Opportunities for a good economy and adequate medical care must be readily available.  Every family should build a decent home.  The new economic rights to which I have referred on previous occasions is a charter of economic freedom which seeks to assure that all who will may work toward their own security and the general advancement; that we become a well-housed people, a well-nourished people, an educated people, a people socially and economically secure, an alert and responsible people.

These and other problems which may face us can be met by the cooperation of all of us in furthering a positive and well-balanced Government program—­a program which will further national and international well-being.

II.  THE FEDERAL PROGRAM

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

I. FOREIGN POLICY