How does the FDR plan to revise spirits and restore faith in the American system for ALL? FDR's First Inaugural Address (1933)I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address themwith a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the timeto speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions inour country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first ofall, 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 ournational life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the peoplethemselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership inthese critical days.In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, onlymaterial 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 thecurrents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets fortheir 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 greatnumber toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark reality of the movement.Yet our distress comes from no failure or substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared withthe perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to bethankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, buta generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because rulers of the exchangeof mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admittedtheir failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court ofpublic 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 failureof credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induceour people to follow their leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restoredconfidence. They have known only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and whenthere is no vision the people perish.The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restorethat temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply socialvalues 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 creativeeffort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescentprofits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to beministered 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 theabandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by thestandards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and inbusiness which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Smallwonder 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 andcourageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the taskas we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishinggreatly 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 centersand, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for thosebest fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural productsand with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically thetragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped byinsistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost bedrastically 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 oftransportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There aremany ways in which it can be helped but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act andact quickly.Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evilsof the old order: there must be a strict supervision of all banking an credits and investments, so that therewill be an end to speculation with other people's money; and there must be provision for an adequate butsound currency....If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before ourinterdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to goforward, 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, readyand willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership whichaims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purpose will bind upon us all as asacred 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 adisciplined attack upon our common problems.Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited fromour ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinaryneeds by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutionalsystem has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. Ithas 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 tomeet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayedaction may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure........ We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. Intheir need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked fordiscipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In thespirit of the gift I take it....

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The US was hit by one of the worst financial crises in 1929. The Great Depression put the nation in…