“I welcome their hatred …They are unanimous in their Hate for me — and I welcome their hatred….
— President FDR on Bankers
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace — business and financial MONOPOLY, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering,”
— President FDR 1936
“GOVERNMENT BY ORGANIZED MONEY IS JUST AS Dangerous AS GOVERNMENT BY ORGANIZED CRlME!”
— President FDR
“It was natural and perhaps human that the PRlVlLEDGED PRlNCES of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for POWER, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.”
— President FDR – Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)
“Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.”
— President FDR
“For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor — other people’s lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.
Against economic TYRANNY such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people’s mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.”
— President FDR – Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)
“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”
— President FDR
“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of PRlVATE (MULTl-NATlONAL) POWER.”
— President FDR
“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.”
— President FDR
“These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their POWER. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of POWER. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the CONSTlTUTlON. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the CONSTlTUTlON stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by MOB rule and the Over-privileged alike.”
— President FDR – Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)
“True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which DlCTATORSHlPS are made.”
— President FDR
“The Bankers should NOT HAVE TAKEN OUR CONSTlTUTlONAL RIGHT TO ISSUE OUR OWN MONEY BACKED BY THE US GOVERNMENT!”
— President FDR
“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private POWER to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is FASClSM — ownership of GOVERNMENT by an individual, by a group, or by any other CONTROLLlNG private POWER.”
— President FDR – CORPORATE POWER is the BRIBING POWER!
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the GOVERNMENT of the U.S. since the days of Andrew JACKSON.”
— President FDR in a letter written Nov. 21, 1933 to Colonel E. Mandell House
“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”
— President FDR
“These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a DlCTATORSHlP by MOB rule and the over-privileged alike.”
— President FDR – Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)
“They had begun to consider the GOVERNMENT of the United States as a mere appendage to their own (BILLIONAIRE) affairs. We know now that GOVERNMENT by organized MONEY is just as dangerous as GOVERNMENT by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today.”
— President FDR
REPUBLlCAN LlES ARE PLANNED!
“Nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
— President FDR–
“Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.”
— President FDR
“A CONSERVATlVE is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.”
— President FDR
“Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion.”
— President FDR
“It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.”
— President FDR
“There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.”
— President FDR
“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
— President FDR, Address at Oglethorpe University (May 22, 1932)
“Those newspapers of the NATlON which most loudly cried DlCTORSHlP against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of DlCTORSHlP by somebody else.”
— President FDR
“It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.”
— President FDR
“Repetition does not transform a LlE into a truth.”
— President FDR, Radio Address to NY Herald Tribune FORUM (October 26, 1939)
“A NATlON that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”
— President FDR
“A number of my friends who belong in these very high upper brackets have suggested to me, more in sorrow than in anger, that if I am reelected they will have to move to some other NATlON because of high taxes here. I shall miss them very much.”
— President FDR
“… the only thing we have to fear is fear itself —nameless, unreasoning, unjustified TERROR which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance…. This NATlON is asking for action, and action now.”
— President FDR
How LONG has it been since any of us Average Citizens have felt like this?
“Let us never forget that GOVERNMENT is Ourselves – and NOT an ALlEN POWER over us. The ultimate ruIers of our democracy are not a President, SENATORs and Congress and GOVERNMENT OFFlClALS – BUT THE VOTERS OF THIS COUNTRY.”
— President FDR
“A FASClST is one whose lust for MONEY or POWER is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, reIigions, cuItures, regions or NATlONS as to make him ruthIess in his use of DECElT or VlOLENCE to attain his ends.”
— VP Henry A. WaIIace, 33rd VP of the US (1941–1945) under FDR
“A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end.”
— Vice President Henry A. WaIIace, 33rd VP of the US (1941–1945) under FDR
“FASClSM is a WORLDWlDE DlSEASE. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after the war, … within the United States itself.”
— Vice President Henry A. WaIIace, 33rd VP of the US (1941–1945) under FDR
“If this liberal potential is properly channeled, we may expect the area of freedom of the United States to increase. The problem is to spend up our rate of SOClAL invention in the service of the welfare of all the people.”
— Vice President Henry A. WaIIace, 33rd VP of the US (1941–1945) under FDR
“Happiness LlES not in the mere possession of MONEY; it LlES in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.”
— President FDR, First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1933)
“The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor — these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial DlCTORSHlP. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age — other people’s money — these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in. Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities. Throughout the nation, opportunity was limited by MONOPOLY. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.”
— President FDR – Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)
“We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”
— President FDR, Address at University of Pennsylvania (September 2O, 194O)
“Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.”
— President FDR, Speech at the People’s Forum in Troy, New York (March 3, 1912)
“Confidence… thrives on HONESTY, on HONOR, on the sacredness of ObIigations, on faithful protection and on unseIfish performance. Without them it cannot live.”
— President FDR (1933)
“We do not see faith, hope, and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.
Faith — in the soundness of democracy in the midst of DlCTATORSHlPS.
Hope — renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.
Charity — in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.”
— President FDR – Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)
“Don’t forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all NATlONAL deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.”
— President FDR
“I do not believe in Communism any more than you do but there is nothing wrong with the Communists in this country; several of the best friends I have got are Communists.”
— President FDR
“Peace, like charity, begins at home.”
— President FDR
“We are trying to construct a more inclusive SOClETY. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.”
— President FDR
“In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up – or else we all go down.”
— President FDR
“Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion.”
— President FDR
“If I went to work in a factory the first thing I’d do is join a union.”
— President FDR
“Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.”
— President FDR
“Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A NATlON does not have to be cruel to be tough.”
— President FDR
“The United States CONSTlTUTlON has proven itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of GOVERNMENT ever written.”
— President FDR
“Books may be burned and cities sacked, but truth like the yearning for freedom, lives in the hearts of humble men and women.”
— President FDR
“The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.”
— President FDR
“If civilization is to SURVlVE, we must cultivate the science of human relationships – the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same WORLD at peace.”
— President FDR
“The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.”
— President FDR
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A NATlON does not have to be cruel to be tough.
— President FDR
“There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”
— President FDR
“We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.”
— President FDR
“I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their GOVERNMENTS.”
— President FDR
“No group and no GOVERNMENT can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.”
— President FDR
“Our NATlONAL DETERMINATlON to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideals and principles that we have cherished are challenged.”
— President FDR
“The brave and clear platform adopted by this convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.”
— President FDR – Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)
I am a huge admirer of Franklin ROOSEVELT’S, and I believe SOClAL security has done untold good in alleviating the once-widespread issue of poverty among the elderly. FDR believed in the greatness and generosity of Americans – but he was also a cold-blooded politician.
— Jon Meacham
Concise Politics -- Your Time should NOT be wasted. 