It was on this day in 1937 that Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his second inaugural speech. His last one had been given on March 4, 1933. This had been so that ample time was allotted for the President to arrive with travel uncertain in earlier days. But with the advent of travel modes by air, rail, bus and car, holding the inaugural made mo sense; thus with the 20th Amendment had also come the change of the date. However, what I find more compelling about this is not the change in date, but the recognition that progress had been made during tough times in the Depression. Still, Roosevelt knew that there was yet a long road to go. Roosevelt said in part, I see an United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown [...] But here is the challenge to our democracy: in this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens [...] who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life [...] The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:35:21 +0000
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