March 4, 1933! I shall never forget the inaugural address, which seemed to re-echo the very words employed by Christ himself as he actually drove the moneychangers from the temple. The thrill that was mine was yours. Through dim clouds of the depression, this man Roosevelt was, as it were, a new savior of his people! Oh, just a little longer shall there be needless poverty! Just another year shall there be naked backs! Just another moment shall there be dark thoughts of revolution! Never again will the chains of economic poverty bite into the hearts of simple folks, as they did in the past days of the Old Deal! Such were our hopes in the springtime of 1933. It is not pleasant for me who coined the phrase "Roosevelt or ruin" -- a phrase fashioned upon promises -- to voice such passionate words. But I am constrained to admit that "Roosevelt and ruin" is the order of the day, because the moneychangers have not been driven from the temple.
My friends, I come before you tonight not to ask you to return to the Hoovers, to the Old Deal exploiters, who honestly defended the dishonest system of gold standardism and rugged individualism. Their sun has set never to rise again. America has turned its back definitely upon the platitudinous platforms of "rugged individualism." These Punch and Judy Republicans, whose actions and words were dominated by the ventriloquists of Wall Street, are so blind that they do not recognize, even in this perilous hour, that their gold basis and their private coinage of money have bred more radicals than did Karl Marx or Lenin. To their system or ox-cart financialism we must never return!
On the other hand, the Democratic platform is discredited before it is published. Was there not a 1932 platform? By Mr. Roosevelt and his colleagues, was it not regarded as a solemn pledge to the people? Certainly! [But] it was plowed under like the cotton, slaughtered like the pigs....Therefore, the veracity of the future pledges must be judged by the echoing of the golden voice of a lost leader.
Said he, when the flag of hope was proudly unfurled on March 4, 1933: "Plenty is at our doorsteps, but the generous use of it languished 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 to their failure and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money-changers stand indicated in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men."
These words, my friends, are not mine. These are the caustic, devastating words uttered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt on March 4, 1933, condemning Franklin Delano Roosevelt in November of 1936.
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