FDR and the Money Changers

Here are some of the “words that burned and scourged” (as the NYT’s Arthur Krock put it) that Franklin Delano Roosevelt employed in his first inaugural address 76 years ago: And yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers […]

Here are some of the “words that burned and scourged” (as the NYT’s Arthur Krock put it) that Franklin Delano Roosevelt employed in his first inaugural address 76 years ago:

And 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.
True, they have tried. But their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They only know the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
Yes, 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 that restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Krock described it as “a Jacksonian speech, a fighting speech, implicit with criticism of the lack of leadership and the philosophy of government which the President imputed to his predecessor, who sat there. listening.” Listen to it yourself.

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