"State of the Union"

Six hundred listeners below him on the floor, 600 listeners above him in the galleries, cheered and applauded as Franklin Roosevelt mounted to the desk of the Clerk in the House of Representatives one evening last week. The President unstrapped his gold wrist watch, laid it on the desk before him; removed his pince nez and laid them beside his manuscript. Then spreading his feet wide, he took a firm grip on the sides of the desk. "Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives. . . ." Solemnly the best radio voice in the U. S. pronounced the ancient formula by which a President begins his annual message to Congress on the State of the Union.* But neither the 600 auditors below nor the 600 auditors above were his real audience. That audience, consisting of no man knew how many radio listeners throughout the U. S., had had a special invitation to hear. For the first time since the coming of broadcasting, a Presidential message to Congress was being delivered in the evening for the primary purpose of reaching the home folks of the nation by radio. For that extraordinary gathering Franklin Roosevelt had prepared a treat: the most pretentious piece of oratory he has delivered as President, a speech publicly proclaiming a turning point in U. S. history. For 45 minutes he spoke, sometimes allowing his voice to swell in a sonorous diapason, sometimes letting it sink low as he leaned forward confidentially over the desk. In the glare of klieg lights which made the large mole over his left eye stand out in pitiless relief, he turned the pages of his manuscript with shaking fingers. Time & again his visible audience burst into applause, cheers and halloos as if at a political rally. When they did so, without looking down, the President grabbed a glass of water standing at his elbow, took a hasty gulp, then drove home his point with an additional turn of Ciceronian rhetoric. As in all State of the Union messages to Congress, President Roosevelt surveyed the world at large, assaying U. S. international relations. Naming no names, the man who Republicans pretend to fear may become a U. S. dictator, said some hard, blunt things about dictatorships which made Italy and Germany wince (see p. 16). Excerpts:

The Rub. ''Among the nations of the great Western Hemisphere the policy of the good neighbor has happily prevailed. . . . There is neither war, nor rumor of war, nor desire for war. The inhabitants of this vast area, 250,000,000 strong . . . believe in, and propose to follow, the policy of the good neighbor. And they wish with all their heart that the rest of the world might do likewise. "The rest of the world--Ah! There's the rub. . . . The people of the Americas must take cognizance of growing ill will, of marked trends toward aggression, of increasing armaments, of shortening tempers--a situation which has in it many of the elements that lead to the tragedy of general war. ... To say the least, there are grounds for pessimism. . . . "Nations seeking expansion, seeking the rectification of injustices springing from former wars or seeking outlets for trade, for population or even for their own peaceful contributions to the progress of civilization . . . have . . . impatiently reverted to the old belief in the law of the sword or to the fantastic conception that they, and they alone, are chosen to fulfill a mission and that all the others among the billion and a half of human beings in the rest of the world must and shall learn from and be subject to them. "I recognize that these words which I have chosen with deliberation will not prove popular in any nation that chooses to fit this shoe to its foot. . . . World peace and world goodwill are blocked by only ten or 15% of the world's population. . . . And that is why even efforts to continue the existing limits on naval armaments into the years to come show such little current success. . . . "In the field of international finance we have, so far as we are concerned, put an end to dollar diplomacy, to money grabbing, to speculation for the benefit of the powerful and rich, at the expense of the small and the poor." [Applause] Neutrality. Because U. S. peace lovers have, within the past year, whipped up the question of U. S. neutrality in a dark and dangerous world to the first legislative rank (see p. 11), all ears pricked up in solemn attention when the President came to this ticklish problem. Said he: "First, we decline to encourage the prosecution of war by permitting belligerents to obtain arms, ammunition or implements of war from the United States; second, we seek to discourage the use by belligerent nations of any and all American products calculated to facilitate the prosecution of a war in quantities over and above our normal exports of them in time of peace. . . . "Peace is jeopardized by the few and not by the many. Peace is threatened by those who seek selfish power. ... If face it we must, then the United States and the rest of the Americas can play but one role: "Through a well-ordered neutrality to do naught to encourage the contest, through adequate defense to save ourselves from embroilment and attack, and through example and all legitimate encouragement and assistance to persuade other nations to return to the ways of peace and goodwill.'" Entrenched Greed, Making an abrupt transition from world affairs to domestic matters, the President fell violently upon his political enemies at home. Almost in a twinkling the whole trend and temper of his speech changed from a State document to a campaign address. Declared the President: "Within democratic nations the chief concern of the people is to prevent the continuation or the rise of autocratic institutions that beget slavery at home and aggression abroad. Within our borders, as in the world at large, popular opinion is at war with a power-seeking minority. . . . "In March 1933, I appealed to the Congress and to the people in a new effort to restore power to those to whom it rightfully belonged. The response to that appeal resulted in the writing of a new chapter in the history of popular government. You, the members of the legislative branch, and I, the Executive, contended for and established a new relationship between government and people. . . . "We had to build, you in the Congress and I, as the Executive, upon a broad base. Now, after 34 months of work, we contemplate a fairly rounded whole. "We have returned the control of the Federal Government to the city of Washington. [Loud applause and rebel yells]

"To be sure, in so doing, we have invited battle. [More applause] We have earned the hatred of entrenched greed [Cheers and applause]. . . . "In March 1933, I spoke of the practices of the unscrupulous money changers who stood indicted in the court of public opinion. ... I said that they had admitted their failure and had abdicated. . "Abdicated? Yes, in 1933, but now with the passing of danger they forget their damaging admissions and withdraw their abdication. [So excited were Democratic Congressmen that they cheered here, too, by mistake. Taken aback, the President lost his place, started to skip a sentence] "They offer. . . . They offer. . . . They seek--let me put it that way," he interjected, covering up his slip. "They seek the restoration of their selfish power. They offer to lead us back round the same old corner into the same old dreary street. . . . "They steal the livery of great national constitutional ideals to serve discredited special interests. As guardians and trustees for great groups of individual stockholders, they wrongfully seek to carry the property and the interests entrusted to them into the arena of partisan politics. . . . "They engage in vast propaganda to spread fear and discord among the people--they would 'gang up' against the people's liberties."

"Shall We Say?" "If these gentlemen believe, as they say they believe, that the measures adopted by this Congress and its predecessor, and carried out by this Administration, have hindered rather than promoted recovery, let them be consistent. Let them propose to this Congress the complete repeal of these measures. . . . The way is open in the Congress of the United States for an expression of opinion by yeas and nays. . . . "Shall we say to the farmer: '. . . Now go and hoe your own row'? Shall we say to the home owners: '. . . We have no further concern with how you keep your home. . . '? Shall we say to the several millions of unemployed: '. . . We will turn you back to the charity of your communities. . . '? Shall we say to the needy: 'Your problem is a local one. . . '? Shall we say to the children who have worked all day: 'Child labor is a local issue. . . '? Shall we say to the laborer: '. . . If your employer will not even meet with you to discuss your problems and his, that is none of our affair'? "Members of the Congress, let these challenges be met! If this is what these gentlemen want, let them say so to the Congress of the United States! Let them no longer hide their dissent in a cowardly cloak of generality! Yes, let them define the issues! We have been specific in our affirmative action. Let them be specific in their negative attack!" Shackles for Liberty. "Our resplendent economic autocracy does not want to return to that individualism of which they prate, even though the advantages under that system went to the ruthless and the strong. They realize that in 34 months we have built up new instruments of public power. In the hands of a people's government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people. Give them their way and they will take the course of every autocracy of the past--power for themselves, enslavement for the public. "Their weapon is the weapon of fear. I have said, 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,' and that is as true today as it was in 1933. But such fear as they instill today is not natural fear, normal fear; it is a synthetic, manufactured, poisonous fear that is being spread subtly, expensively and cleverly by the same people who cried in those other days--'Save us, save us, else we perish!' "I am confident that the Congress . . . is ready to wage unceasing warfare against those who seek a continuation of that fear. The carrying out of the laws of the land as enacted by the Congress requires protection until final adjudication by the highest tribunal of the land. The Congress has the right and can find the means to protect its own prerogatives." '1 recommend." Having thus belabored the nameless forces which will oppose his re-election tooth " nail this autumn, the President calmed down for a summary look at the state of the nation: "We approach a balance of the national budget. [Applause, first of the evening from Republicans] National income increases. Tax receipts, based on that income, increase without the levying of new taxes. That is why I am able to say . . . that ... it is my belief that no new taxes, over and above the present taxes, are either advisable or necessary. [Unanimous applause] "National income increases: Employment increases. Therefore, we can look forward to a reduction in the number of those citizens who are in need. Therefore, also, we can anticipate a reduction in our appropriations for relief. In the light of our substantial material progress, in the light of the increasing effectiveness of the restoration of popular rule, I recommend to the Congress that we advance and that we do not retreat."

Wise Philosophy, ''I cannot better end this message on the State of the Union [a derisive roar from Republicans'] than by repeating the words of a wise philosopher* at whose feet I sat many, many years ago: " 'The human race now passes through one of its great crises. However memory brings back this moment to your minds, let it be able to say to you: That was a great moment. It was the beginning of a new era. . . . This world in its crisis called for volunteers, for men of faith in life, of patience in service, of charity and of insight. I responded to the call however I could. I volunteered to give myself to my Master--the cause of humane and brave living. I studied. I loved. I labored, unsparingly and hopefully, to be worthy of my generation.' "

*Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution: "He [the President] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary or expedient.''

*Josiah Royce (1855-1916) famed Harvard professor, whose books are used as texts in many an elementary philosophy course.

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