Franklin D. Roosevelt
Fireside Chat 7 (April 28, 1935)
On the Works Relief Program and Social Security Act
Since my annual message to the Congress on January fourth, last, I have not
addressed the general public over the air. In the many weeks since that time
the Congress has devoted itself to the arduous task of formulating legislation
necessary to the country's welfare. It has made and is making distinct
progress.
Before I come to any of the specific measures, however, I want to leave in
your minds one clear fact. The Administration and the Congress are not
proceeding in any haphazard fashion in this task of government. Each of our
steps has a definite relationship to every other step. The job of creating a
program for the Nation's welfare is, in some respects, like the building of a
ship. At different points on the coast where I often visit they build great
seagoing ships. When one of these ships is under construction and the steel
frames have been set in the keel, it is difficult for a person who does not
know ships to tell how it will finally look when it is sailing the high seas.
It may seem confused to some, but out of the multitude of detailed parts
that go into the making of the structure the creation of a useful instrument
for man ultimately comes. It is that way with the making of a national policy.
The objective of the Nation has greatly changed in three years. Before that
time individual self-interest and group selfishness were paramount in public
thinking. The general good was at a discount.
Three years of hard thinking have changed the picture. More and more people,
because of clearer thinking and a better understanding, are considering the
whole rather than a mere part relating to one section or to one crop, or to one
industry, or to an individual private occupation. That is a tremendous gain for
the principles of democracy. The overwhelming majority of people in this
country know how to sift the wheat from the chaff in what they hear and what
they read. They know that the process of the constructive rebuilding of
The most difficult place in the world to get a clear open perspective of the
country as a whole is
My most immediate concern is in carrying out the purposes of the great work
program just
enacted by the Congress. Its first objective is to put men and women now on the
relief rolls to work and, incidentally, to assist materially in our already
unmistakable march toward recovery. I shall not confuse my discussion by a
multitude of figures. So many figures are quoted to prove so many things.
Sometimes it depends upon what paper you read and what broadcast you hear.
Therefore, let us keep our minds on two or three simple, essential facts in
connection with this problem of unemployment. It is true that while business
and industry are definitely better our relief rolls are still too large.
However, for the first time in five years the relief rolls have declined
instead of increased during the winter months. They are still declining. The
simple fact is that many million more people have private work today than two
years ago today or one year ago today, and every day that passes offers more
chances to work for those who want to work. In spite of the fact that
unemployment remains a serious problem here as in every other nation, we have
come to recognize the possibility and the necessity of certain helpful remedial
measures. These measures are of two kinds. The first is to make provisions
intended to relieve, to minimize, and to prevent future unemployment; the second
is to establish the practical means to help those who are unemployed in this
present emergency. Our social security legislation is an attempt to answer the
first of these questions. Our work relief program the second.
The program for social security now pending before the Congress is a
necessary part of the future unemployment policy of the government. While our
present and projected expenditures for work relief are wholly within the
reasonable limits of our national credit resources, it is obvious that we
cannot continue to create governmental deficits for that purpose year after
year. We must begin now to make provision for the future. That is why our
social security program is an important part of the complete picture. It
proposes, by means of old age pensions, to help those who have reached the age
of retirement to give up their jobs and thus give to the younger generation
greater opportunities for work and to give to all a feeling of security as they
look toward old age.
The unemployment insurance part of the legislation will not only help to
guard the individual in future periods of lay-off against dependence upon
relief, but it will, by sustaining purchasing power, cushion the shock of
economic distress. Another helpful feature of unemployment insurance is the
incentive it will give to employers to plan more carefully in order that
unemployment may be prevented by the stabilizing of employment itself.
Provisions for social security, however, are protections for the future. Our
responsibility for the immediate necessities of the unemployed has been met by
the Congress through the most comprehensive work plan in the history of the
Nation. Our problem is to put to work three and one-half million employable
persons now on the relief rolls. It is a problem quite as much for private
industry as for the government.
We are losing no time getting the government's vast work relief program
underway, and we have every reason to believe that it should be in full swing
by autumn. In directing it, I shall recognize six fundamental principles:
(1) The projects should be useful.
(2) Projects shall be of a nature that a considerable proportion of the money
spent will go into wages for labor.
(3) Projects which promise ultimate return to the Federal Treasury of a considerable
proportion of the costs will be sought.
(4) Funds allotted for each project should be actually and promptly spent and
not held over until later years.
(5) In all cases projects must be of a character to give employment to those on
the relief rolls.
(6) Projects will be allocated to localities or relief areas in relation to the
number of workers on relief rolls in those areas.
I next want to make it clear exactly how we shall direct the work.
(1) I have set up a Division of Applications and Information to which all
proposals for the expenditure of money must go for preliminary study and
consideration.
(2) After the Division of Applications and Information has sifted those
projects, they will be sent to an Allotment Division composed of representatives
of the more important governmental agencies charged with carrying on work
relief projects. The group will also include representatives of cities, and of
labor, farming, banking and industry. This Allotment Division will consider all
of the recommendations submitted to it and such projects as they approve will
be next submitted to the President who under the Act is required to make final
allocations.
(3) The next step will be to notify the proper government agency in whose
field the project falls, and also to notify another agency which I am creating
-- a Progress Division. This Division will have the duty of coordinating the
purchases of materials and supplies and of making certain that people who are
employed will be taken from the relief rolls. It will also have the
responsibility of determining work payments in various localities, of making
full use of existing employment services and to assist people engaged in relief
work to move as rapidly as possible back into private employment when such
employment is available. Moreover, this Division will be charged with keeping
projects moving on schedule.
(4) I have felt it to be essentially wise and prudent to avoid, so far as
possible, the creation of new governmental machinery for supervising this work.
The National Government now has at least sixty different agencies with the
staff and the experience and the competence necessary to carry on the two
hundred and fifty or three hundred kinds of work that will be undertaken. These
agencies, therefore, will simply be doing on a somewhat enlarged scale the same
sort of things that they have been doing. This will make certain that the
largest possible portion of the funds allotted will be spent for actually
creating new work and not for building up expensive overhead organizations here
in
For many months preparations have been under way. The allotment of funds for
desirable projects has already begun. The key men for the major
responsibilities of this great task already have been selected. I well realize
that the country is expecting before this year is out to see the "dirt
fly", as they say, in carrying on the work, and I assure my fellow
citizens that no energy will be spared in using these funds effectively to make
a major attack upon the problem of unemployment.
Our responsibility is to all of the people in this country. This is a great
national crusade to destroy enforced idleness which is an enemy of the human
spirit generated by this depression. Our attack upon these enemies must be without
stint and without discrimination. No sectional, no political distinctions can
be permitted. It must, however, be recognized that when an enterprise of this
character is extended over more than three thousand counties throughout the
Nation, there may be occasional instances of inefficiency, bad management, or
misuse of funds. When cases of this kind occur, there will be those, of course,
who will try to tell you that the exceptional failure is characteristic of the
entire endeavor. It should be remembered that in every big job there are some
imperfections. There are chiselers in every walk of life; there are those in
every industry who are guilty of unfair practices, every profession has its
black sheep, but long experience in government has taught me that the
exceptional instances of wrong-doing in government are probably less numerous
than in almost every other line of endeavor. The most effective means of
preventing such evils in this work relief program will be the eternal vigilance
of the American people themselves. I call upon my fellow citizens everywhere to
cooperate with me in making this the most efficient and the cleanest example of
public enterprise the world has ever seen. It is time to provide a smashing
answer for those cynical men who say that a democracy cannot be honest and
efficient. If you will help, this can be done. I, therefore, hope you will
watch the work in every corner of this Nation. Feel free to criticize. Tell me
of instances where work can be done better, or where improper practices
prevail. Neither you nor I want criticism conceived in a purely fault-finding
or partisan spirit, but I am jealous of the right of every citizen to call to
the attention of his or her government examples of how the public money can be
more effectively spent for the benefit of the American people.
I now come, my friends, to a part of the remaining business before the
Congress. It has under consideration many measures which provide for the
rounding out of the program of economic and social reconstruction with which we
have been concerned for two years. I can mention only a few of them tonight,
but I do not want my mention of specific measures to be interpreted as lack of
interest in or disapproval of many other important proposals that are pending.
The National Industrial Recovery Act expires on the sixteenth of June. After
careful consideration, I have asked the Congress to extend the life of this
useful agency of government. As we have proceeded with the administration of
this Act, we have found from time to time more and more useful ways of
promoting its purposes. No reasonable person wants to abandon our present gains
-- we must continue to protect children, to enforce minimum wages, to prevent
excessive hours, to safeguard, define and enforce collective bargaining, and,
while retaining fair competition, to eliminate so far as humanly possible, the
kinds of unfair practices by selfish minorities which unfortunately did more
than anything else to bring about the recent collapse of industries.
There is likewise pending before the Congress legislation to provide for the
elimination of unnecessary holding companies in the public utility field.
I consider this legislation a positive recovery measure. Power production in
this country is virtually back to the 1929 peak. The operating companies in the
gas and electric utility field are by and large in good condition. But under
holding company domination the utility industry has long been hopelessly at war
within itself and with public sentiment. By far the greater part of the general
decline in utility securities had occurred before I was inaugurated. The
absentee management of unnecessary holding company control has lost touch with
and has lost the sympathy of the communities it pretends to serve. Even more significantly,
it has given the country as a whole an uneasy apprehension of over concentrated
economic power.
A business that loses the confidence of its customers and the good will of
the public cannot long continue to be a good risk for the investor. This
legislation will serve the investor by ending the conditions which have caused
that lack of confidence and good will. It will put the public utility operating
industry on a sound basis for the future, both in its public relations and in
its internal relations.
This legislation will not only in the long run result in providing lower
electric and gas rates to the consumer, but it will protect the actual value
and earning power of properties now owned by thousands of investors who have
little protection under the old laws against what used to be called frenzied
finance. It will not destroy values.
Not only business recovery, but the general economic recovery of the Nation
will be greatly stimulated by the enactment of legislation designed to improve
the status of our transportation agencies. There is need for legislation
providing for the regulation of interstate transportation by buses and trucks,
to regulate transportation by water, new provisions for strengthening our
Merchant Marine and air transport, measures for the strengthening of the
Interstate Commerce Commission to enable it to carry out a rounded conception
of the national transportation system in which the benefits of private
ownership are retained, while the public stake in these important services is
protected by the public's government.
Finally, the reestablishment of public confidence in the banks of the Nation
is one of the most hopeful results of our efforts as a Nation to reestablish
public confidence in private banking. We all know that private banking actually
exists by virtue of the permission of and regulation by the people as a whole,
speaking through their government. Wise public policy, however, requires not
only that banking be safe but that its resources be most fully utilized, in the
economic life of the country. To this end it was decided more than twenty years
ago that the government should assume the responsibility of providing a means
by which the credit of the Nation might be controlled, not by a few private
banking institutions, but by a body with public prestige and authority. The
answer to this demand was the Federal Reserve System. Twenty years of
experience with this system have justified the efforts made to create it, but
these twenty years have shown by experience definite possibilities for
improvement. Certain proposals made to amend the Federal Reserve Act deserve
prompt and favorable action by the Congress. They are a minimum of wise
readjustment of our Federal Reserve system in the
light of past experience and present needs.
These measures I have mentioned are, in large part, the program which under
my constitutional duty I have recommended to the Congress. They are essential
factors in a rounded program for national recovery. They contemplate the
enrichment of our national life by a sound and rational ordering of its various
elements and wise provisions for the protection of the weak against the strong.
Never since my inauguration in March, 1933, have I felt so unmistakably the
atmosphere of recovery. But it is more than the recovery of the material basis
of our individual lives. It is the recovery of confidence in our democratic
processes and institutions. We have survived all of the arduous burdens and the
threatening dangers of a great economic calamity. We have in the darkest
moments of our national trials retained our faith in our own ability to master
our destiny. Fear is vanishing and confidence is growing on every side, renewed
faith in the vast possibilities of human beings to improve their material and
spiritual status through the instrumentality of the democratic form of
government. That faith is receiving its just reward. For that we can be
thankful to the God who watches over