FDR FIRESIDE CHAT DUST BOWL TRANSCRIPT PROFESSIONAL

One of them was fear - fear of war abroad, fear of inflation, fear of nation-wide strikes. 'There were many reasons for this over-production. Again production had (outran) outrun the ability to buy.' 'But the very vigor of the recovery in both durable goods and consumers' goods brought into the picture early in 1937, a year ago, certain highly undesirable practices, which were in large part responsible for the economic decline which began in the later months of that year. Gradually, and up to a few months ago, it had risen to a total, an annual total of sixty-eight billion dollars - a pretty good come- back from the low point. By 1932 this had fallen to thirty-eight billion dollars.

FDR FIRESIDE CHAT DUST BOWL TRANSCRIPT PROFESSIONAL

Today I pointed out to the Congress that the national income - not the Government's income but the total of the income of all the individual citizens and families of the United States - every farmer, every worker, every banker, every professional man and every person who lived on income derived from investments - that national income had amounted, in the year 1929, to eighty-one billion dollars. Hence the tragic years from 1929 to 1933.' Unemployment and closed factories resulted. millions of people, to be sure, had been put to work, but the products of their hands had exceeded the purchasing power of their pocketbooks.Under the inexorable law of supply and demand, supplies so overran demand (which would pay)that production was compelled to stop. 'over-speculation in and over-production of practically every article or instrument used by man. In that Message I analyzed the causes of the collapse of 1929 in these words: I want to read to you tonight certain passages from that Message, and to talk with you about them. Therefore, my friends, I have sent a Message of far-reaching importance to the Congress. We have all learned the lesson that government cannot afford to wait until it has lost the power to act. I said in my Message opening the last session of the Congress that if private enterprise did not provide jobs this spring, government would take up the slack - that I would not let the people down. But I conceive the first duty of government is to protect the economic welfare of all the people in all sections and in all groups. I know that the effect of our present difficulties has been uneven that they have affected some groups and some localities seriously but that they have been scarcely felt in others. Your money in the bank is safe farmers are no longer in deep distress and have greater purchasing power dangers of security speculation have been minimized national income is almost 50% higher than it was in 1932 and government has an established and accepted responsibility for relief.īut I know that many of you have lost your jobs or have seen your friends or members of your families lose their jobs, and I do not propose that the Government shall pretend not to see these things. This recession has not returned to us (to) the disasters and suffering of the beginning of 1933. It is only in the past seven months that it has received a visible setback.Īnd it is only within the past two months, as we have waited patiently to see whether the forces of business itself would counteract it, that it has become apparent that government itself can no longer safely fail to take aggressive government steps to meet it. For four and a half years that recovery proceeded apace. In this decision I have been strengthened by the thought that by speaking tonight there may be greater peace of mind and that the hope of Easter may be more real at firesides everywhere, and therefore that it is not inappropriate to encourage peace when so many of us are thinking of the Prince of Peace.įive years ago we faced a very serious problem of economic and social recovery. But what I want to say to you, the people of the country, is of such immediate need and relates so closely to the lives of human beings and the prevention of human suffering that I have felt that there should be no delay. I had hoped to be able to defer this talk until next week because, as we all know, this is Holy Week. Five months have gone by since I last spoke to the people of the Nation about the state of the Nation.

Fdr fireside chat dust bowl transcript