我們唯一不得不害怕的就是害怕本身
富蘭克林-羅斯福 第一次就職演講
星期六,1933年3月4日
我肯定，同胞們都期待我在就任總統(tǒng)時，會像我國目前形勢所要求的那樣，坦率而果斷地向他們講話�，F(xiàn)在正是但白、勇敢地說出實(shí)話，說出全部實(shí)話的最好時刻，我們不必畏首畏尾，不著老實(shí)實(shí)面對我國今天的情況，這個偉大的國家會一如既住地堅持下去，它會復(fù)興和繁榮起來。因此，讓我首先表明我的堅定信念：我們唯一下得不害怕的就是害怕本身——一種莫明其妙的、喪失理智的、毫無根據(jù)的恐懼，它會把轉(zhuǎn)退為進(jìn)所需的種種努力化為泡影。凡在我國生活陰云密布的時刻，坦率而有活力的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)都得到過人民的理解和支持，從而為勝利準(zhǔn)備了必不可少的條件。我相信，在目前危急時刻，大家會再次給予同樣的支持。我和你們都要以這種槽神，來面對我們共同的困難。感謝上帝，這些困難只是物質(zhì)方面的。價值難以想象地貶縮了；課稅增加了，我們的支付能力下降了；各級政府面臨著嚴(yán)重的收入短缺；交換手段在貿(mào)易過程中遭到了凍結(jié)；工業(yè)企業(yè)枯萎的落葉到處可見；農(nóng)場主的產(chǎn)品找不到銷路；千家萬戶多年的積蓄付之東流。
更重要的是，大批失業(yè)公民正面臨嚴(yán)峻的生育問題，還有大批公民正以艱辛的勞動換取微薄的報酬。只有愚蠢的樂天派會否認(rèn)當(dāng)前這些陰暗的現(xiàn)實(shí)。但是，我們的苦惱決不是因為缺乏物資。我們沒有遭到什么蝗蟲災(zāi)害。我們的先輩曾以信念和無畏一次次轉(zhuǎn)危為安，比起他們經(jīng)歷過的險阻，我們?nèi)源罂筛械叫牢俊４笞匀蝗栽诮o予我們恩惠，人類的努力已使之倍增。富足的憎景近在咫尺，但就在我們見到這種情景的時候，寬裕的生活卻悄然離去。這主要是因為主宰人類物資交換的統(tǒng)治者們失敗了，他們固執(zhí)己見而又無能為力，因而已經(jīng)認(rèn)定失敗，并撒手不管了，貪得無厭的貨幣兌換商的種種行徑，將受到輿論法庭的起訴，將受到人類心靈和理智的唾棄。
幸福并不在于單純地占有主錢；幸福還在于取得成就后的喜悅，在于創(chuàng)造性努力時的激情。務(wù)必不能再忘記勞動帶來的喜悅和激勵，而去瘋狂地追逐那轉(zhuǎn)瞬即逝的利潤。如果這些暗淡的時日能使我們認(rèn)識到，我們真正的夭命不是要別人侍奉，而是為自己和同胞們服務(wù)，那么，我們付出的代價就完全是值得的。認(rèn)識到把物質(zhì)財富當(dāng)作成功的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)是錯誤的，我們就會拋棄以地位尊嚴(yán)和個人收益為唯一標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。來衡量公職和高級政治地位的錯誤信念，我們必須制止銀行界和企業(yè)界的一種行為，它常常使神圣的委托混同于無情和自私的不正當(dāng)行為，難怪信心在減弱，因為增強(qiáng)信心只有靠誠實(shí)、榮譽(yù)感、神圣的責(zé)任感，忠實(shí)地加以維護(hù)和無私地履行職責(zé)，而沒有這些，就不可能有信心。
但是，復(fù)興不僅僅要求改變倫理觀念。這個國家要求行動起來，現(xiàn)在就行動起來。
根據(jù)憲法賦予我的職責(zé)、我準(zhǔn)備提出一些措施，而一個受災(zāi)世界上的受災(zāi)國家也許需要這些措施。對于這些措施，以及國會根據(jù)本身的經(jīng)驗和智慧可能制訂的其他類似措施，我將在憲法賦予我的權(quán)限內(nèi)，設(shè)法迅速地予以采納。
但是，如果國會拒不采納這兩條路線中的一條，如果國家緊急情況依然如故，我將下回避我所面臨的明確的盡責(zé)方向。我將要求國會準(zhǔn)許我使用唯一剩下的手殷來應(yīng)付危機(jī)——向非常情況開戰(zhàn)的廣泛的行政權(quán)，就像我們真的遭到外敵人侵時授予我那樣的廣泛權(quán)力。
對大家寄予我的信任，我一定報以時代所要求的勇氣和獻(xiàn)身精神，我會竭盡全力。
讓我們正視面前的嚴(yán)峻歲月，懷著舉國一致給我們帶來的熱情和勇氣，懷著尋求傳統(tǒng)的、珍貴的道德觀念的明確意識，懷著老老少少都能通過克盡職守而得到的問心無愧的滿足。我們的國標(biāo)是要保證國民生活的圓滿和長治久安。
我們并不懷疑基本民主制度的未來。合眾國人民并沒有失敗。他們在困難中表達(dá)了自己的委托，即要求采取直接而有力的行動。他們要求有領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的紀(jì)律和方向。他們現(xiàn)在選擇了我作為實(shí)現(xiàn)他們的愿望的工具。我接受這份厚贈。
在此舉國奉獻(xiàn)之際，我們謙卑地請求上帝賜福。愿上帝保佑我們大家和每一個人，愿上帝在未來的日子里指引我。
First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt
SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1933
I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.
Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.
Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.
Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.
Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.
There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.
Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.
The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States--a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.
In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor--the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others-- the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.
If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.
With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.
Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.
It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.
I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.
But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis--broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.
For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.
We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stem performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.
We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.
In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.
