Page:GPO-CRECB-1937-pt2-v82.pdf/884

1938 8. In a country so large and so complex as ours, it is always difficult to fix uniform nat ional standards for universal application in respect to the lives and livelihoods of our people. Except where State and local control are proven definitely inadequate, we favor the vigorous maintenance of States' rights, home rule, and local self-government. Otherwise we shall create more problems than we solve.

9. We propose that there shall be no suffering for food, fuel, clothing, and shelter; and that pending the contemplated revival of industry, useful work shall be provided to an extent consistent with the principles of this address. The deserving must be provided for when and if their resources of energy, skill, or funds cease to avail. To be done well, this must be done economically, with the view to encouraging individual self-reliance, the return to self-dependence at the first opportunity, the natural impulses of kinship and benevolence, local responsibility in county, city, and State, and without the slightest catering to political favor. The administration of relief ought to be nonpolitical and nonpartisan and temporary.

We hold to the conviction that private investment and personal initiative, properly encouraged, will provide opportunity for all who are capable, and we propose employment for all who are capable as the goal of our efforts to justify the investment of savings in productive enterprise.

10. We propose to preserve and rely upon the American system of private enterprise and initiative, and our American form of government. It is not necessary to claim perfection for them. On the record they are far superior to and infinitely to be preferred to any other so far devised. They carry the priceless content of liberty and the dignity of man. They carry spiritual values of infinite import, and which constitute the source of the American spirit. We call upon all Americans to renew their faith in them and press an invincible demand in their behalf.

SAFEGUARDING LIBERTY AND SELF-RELIANCE

We can and will erect appropriate safeguards under the common-law principles of free men without surrendering in any degree the vital principles and self-reliant spirit on which we must depend.

Our economic system must be such as to stimulate ambition, afford opportunity, and excite in each boy and girl a sense of responsibility to produce to his capacity.

Through individual self-reliance and service only can abundance, security, and happiness be attained.

Pledging ourselves to uphold these principles, we summon our fellow citizens, without regard to party, to join with us in advancing them as the only hope of permanent recovery, and further progress. They will serve to take us safely through the period of transition now suddenly thrust upon us as they have taken us through every emergency. They will not fail us, if we adhere to them. But if we shall abandon them, the consequences will far outweigh in penalty the sacrifices we may make to our faith in them.

The heart of the American people is sound. They have met every emergency and demand. We will meet those of today, and so hand down to our children our most precious heritage enhanced by a new and major trophy of free institutions. Let us not be dismayed, but press on in the great liberal tradition and 1n its spirit of courageous self-reliance which has won through all the vicissitudes of a great period, and has made our country the strongest, the most progressive, and the best of nations.

Mr. President, I have never seen the hour in my life when I would not have signed a statement like that, and I hope never to be able to see the hour or the day when any other American will be ashamed or afraid to sign a statement like that.

In my judgment, Mr. President, that is what this country needs and must have. Hear me a moment. I am not going to make a prolonged speech.

We have reached the period of transition in America. There is a recession. That recession is the sharpest in the entire history of the country. Starting 4 months ago, every line on the charts of business has made a precipitate descent, and Sunday's papers carried the first chart that showed a tendency to stop the decline. But where has it stopped?

The orders in the steel industry have reached the point where the figure is 28 as compared with the old figure above 100. Down in my section of the country, in the cotton-mill section, in the textile industry 60,000 workers have been turned off. That is their Christmas present. There are no orders for new goods. There is a pause in America. The President himself informs us of the recession.

I know some Senators have a little question about quoting anything from the stock exchange. The stock exchange is an exchange on which about 1,200 of the most important corporate stocks of the country are bought and sold, day after day. I look at that chart and realize that the average loss in the value of those stocks is between 40 and 50 percent in the short space of 4 months, and the collapse of values is equal to about $30,000,000,000.

I do not wish to alarm anybody. I am saying here that we can get out of it, but I am also saying that we cannot get out of it by borrowing public funds and spending them. I am saying we can get out of it, but we cannot do it by doing nothing. We cannot do it by twisting around or playing politics. There is a way to get out of it. There is no reason for people to lose hope. There is no reason for the country to get the jitters. Let us look at the facts as they are and, in the language of this instrument, let us arrest and avert the consequences of this recession. Let us hope it is temporary. Let us make it temporary.

Congress is the policy-forming department of the Government. We can frame the policy. The President is calling upon us to create an atmosphere favorable to the investment of funds in private enterprise. This instrument simply undertakes to show us one way. If there is a better way, if any Senator has an improvement, let him come forward with it. Let him write it into this document and I will sign it with him.

But what I want and what the country demands is a united Congress—not a group of Republicans seeking advantage, not a group of New Dealers defending and apologizing, not a group of Socialists scheming to gain power, not a group of Democrats trying to see how they will win the next election; but a group of American Senators and Members of the House of Representatives who have a sense of responsibility to their circumstances and who are willing to unite in the common task of putting employment and business and industry in this country upon a firm foundation.

Hear me, Senators. This is the transition. I am not going to say what brought on the recession. It came suddenly. I read what Mr. Eccles said. I have read in this paper what Mr. Robert Jackson said. I have read a great many documents trying to find out all about it. I do not think we have time here to appraise that just now. The recession is here. It is up to us to frame a policy, and the President of the United States has indicated to us the policy. This is not going counter to the President. This follows right down the line he indicated when he said that it is our obvious task to induce the investment of private funds in enterprise and industry.

Can we go on with the old spending idea? Can we go on with the Treasury living on forced loans, with a public debt of $38,000,000,000? Can we go on and on and on and make a $50,000,000,000 or $60,000,000,000 debt, and get anywhere? I say we cannot. When we do it we will find our money will not be worth anything. I think the money can be squeezed out of the banks, but I do not think the money would have any consequence, it would be worth so little.

I do not criticize the other policy. I think it was necessary. I think in the emergency of 1932-34 it was the duty of the Federal Government to throw itself in between the people of America and the disaster which had overtaken · them. But I say now that it will not work again. If we try to work it, we will run into all the consequences of an unbalanced Budget. If we were dealing with a Budget that had been unbalanced just a year or two, it would be different; but we are dealing with a Budget which has been unbalanced 7 long years. We are dealing with a situation in which the public credit is involved. We are dealing with a situation in which the borrowing of more money may destroy the value of all the money there is. We have about reached that point. We have not gotten there yet.

I rejoice in the fact that if there is one man in America who has made stronger statements for the balancing of the Budget and against inflation than any other, that man is the President of the United States. I have not always agreed with him. I have voted with him whenever I could. Whenever I thought measures were unconstitutional I regarded my loyalty to my oath as above my loyalty to my party or the President or anybody else, and have always been sorry that I had to do it. But when the President makes a fight for a