Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the President of the United States from 1933 to 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and dominated his party after 1932 as a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war. His program for relief, recovery and reform, known as the New Deal, involved...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionUS President
Date of Birth30 January 1882
CityHyde Park, NY
CountryUnited States of America
In a democratic nation, power must be linked with responsibility, and obliged to defend and justify itself within the framework of the general good.
The Nazi danger to our Western world has long ceased to be a mere possibility. The danger is here now--not only from a military enemy but from an enemy of all law, all liberty, all morality, all religion.
We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.
Private enterprise is ceasing to be free enterprise.
Frankly, I do not know how to effect a permanency in American foreign policy.
We are not isolationists except in so far as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war. Yet we must remember that so long as war exists on earth there will be some danger that even the Nation which most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war.
But the challenge is always the same whether each generation facing its own circumstances can summon the practical devotion to attain and retain that greatest good for the greatest number which this government of the people was created to ensure.
Old women are the secret to the fluffiest cakes.
Let us move forward with strong and active faith.
Democracy can thrive only when it enlists the devotion of those whom Lincoln called the common people. Democracy can hold that devotion only when it adequately respects their dignity by so ordering society as to assure to the masses of men and women reasonable security and hope for themselves and for their children.
Let us not confuse objectives with methods. Too many so-called leaders of the nation fail to see the forest because of the trees. Too many of them fail to recognize the vital necessity of planning for definite objectives. True leadership calls for the setting forth of the objectives and the rallying of public opinion in support of these objectives.
Do not confuse objectives with methods. When the nation becomes substantially united in favor of planning the broad objectives of civilization, then true leadership must unite thought behind definite methods.
We need enthusiasm, imagination and the ability to face facts, even unpleasant ones, bravely. We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer. We need the courage of the young. Yours is not the task of making your way in the world, but the task of remaking the world which you will find before you. May every one of us be granted the courage, the faith and the vision to give the best that is in us to that remaking!
A program whose basic thesis is, not that the system of free enterprise for profit has failed in this generation, but that it has not yet been tried!