Historic Adresses

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32^nd President of the United States of America, spoke to the people on the morning of March 4, 1933 to give his inauguration speech. His speech directly and memorably addressed the Great Depression and his hope to rectify it and bring America back on its feet. In his speech, FDR spoke with an air of hope and inspiration that was well needed during that time of anguish and despair. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inauguration speech makes connections to present day events such as the current recession and the multiple bank foreclosures.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn into presidency in 1933, the country was already crumbling. At the time, the country had suffered three years of economic depression already and it was still going. Almost half America’s 24,000 banks had failed which had destroyed the savings of many depositors. In addition, millions of people were either out of work or had jobs that couldn’t pay enough to survive during this economic crisis. FDR had proposed a plan to help change all this. His plan was very fittingly called the New Deal.

The New Deal was a “sequence of programs he initiated between 1933 and 1936 with the goal of giving work (relief) to the unemployed, reform of business and financial practices, and recovery of the economy during The Great Depression.” The First New Deal was a plan for short-term relief which Paul Krugman states “wasn’t as successful in the short run as it was in the long run.” FDR’s Second New Deal is the long-term, more successful of the two plans. His Second New Deal focused on “labor union support, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief program, the Social Security Act, and programs to aid farmers, including tenant farmers and migrant workers.” In his first inauguration speech, FDR proclaims “Our greatest primary task is to put people to work.” This definitely relates to why the second of the two New Deal plans worked so much better, because he put people to work with the second plan.

In this economic recession, President Barack Obama and his cabinet have probably the toughest decisions to make in regards to fixing the situation of banks failing. In addition to this, they are also faced with the task of helping decrease the unemployment rate. Although they aren’t pressed for short-term solutions, nor have any, Obama and his economic team are working towards reaching a solid one.

You can see that through the first inauguration speech made by FDR, there are many things that are said about the times then that still pertain to the times today. Mainly being the state of the economy and how he, as a newly-elected president at the time, would attempt to rectify it.

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"FDR's First Inaugural Address Declaring 'War' on the Great Depression." National Archives and Records Administration. 22 Jan. 2009 .

"New Deal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 22 Jan. 2009 .