On the Works Relief Program- April 28, 1935
Address of the President Delivered by Radio from the
White House
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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
5. The most
difficult place in the world to get a clear open perspective of the country as
a whole is
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
FDR on Social Security
"This law represents a
cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means completed--a
structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions, to act as
a protection to future administrations of the Government against the necessity
of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy--a law to flatten out
the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation--in other words, a law that
will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United
States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness." -August 14,
1935