The homeless must be housed FIRST.
The sick must be taken care of FIRST.
The children in poverty must be helped FIRST.
The unemployed and the under-employed and the underpaid must be helped FIRST.
The left behind, the forgotten, the abused, and the suffering must be taken care of FIRST.
We must speak for those who have no voice. We must be that voice.
We can no longer accept the argument that we will first serve those who have the most privilege and power, and then later after we take care of them - their needs are an emergency, we are told - we will get to those who are suffering the most. We have been promised that too many times. Those sent to the back of the line die at the end of the line. Those at the front of the line get more and more, and it never trickles down.
We do not see faith, hope and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a Nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.
Faith — in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships.
Hope — renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.
Charity — in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.
We seek not merely to make Government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity.
We are poor indeed if this Nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.
In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Let us resolve ourselves to recognize that we have built a palace of privilege, at terrible human cost, and have the courage to commit ourselves today - FIRST - to build that temple of faith and hope and charity.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Our ATMs, our credit lines, our mortgage, our gadgets, our credit rating, our investments, our vacations - these are childish things so long as there are those among us suffering and struggling, neglected and forgotten, abused and ridiculed, so long as the price for these things is measured in unthinkable human misery, cruelty, selfishness and greed.
We cannot see everything clearly now, but we can see what is right, what is important and what endures and abides, and we can honor that and act on that. Faith, hope, and above all - charity.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
FDR
Yet now we are being asked to tax the least fortunate among us, and innocent people - our children and our grandchildren for decades to come - so that we can help those who are the most fortunate.
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.
FDR
Yet we are cruel, and we do call it "tough."
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
FDR
Which voices will we heed?
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 little.
FDR
We are being told once again, that by adding more to the abundance of those that have much, this will somehow help those who have little. Has there ever been a greater lie? Can we live that lie any longer without becoming so jaded and corrupted ourselves that all the joy in life is destroyed?
We are being told that we must give to those who have much, or those with little will be even worse off yet. But does not all of the evidence scream at us that this is also a lie?
In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people.
FDR
We all go up together, or we will surely all go down.
It is a sobering thing, my friends, to be a servant of this great cause. We try in our daily work to remember that the cause belongs not to us, but to the people. The standard is not in the hands of you and me alone. It is carried by America. We seek daily to profit from experience, to learn to do better as our task proceeds.
Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales.
Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
In this world of ours in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy.
I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.
I accept the commission you have tendered me. I join with you. I am enlisted for the duration of the war.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
There is a mysterious cycle in human events, and about every 40 years another generation is called to pick up the torch and fight for freedom and justice, and heed the dictates of self-sacrifice, duty and honor. 40 years ago we fought for civil rights and to end an immoral war. 80 years ago we fought for the New Deal. 120 years ago we fought for the Labor movement against the tyranny of the robber barons. 160 years ago we fought for Abolition and to end human bondage.
Let's be honest with ourselves now, finally. We have sold our heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living, and we are being asked to do that again, perhaps forever this time.
Have we been sobered yet by events? Can we put away childish things; childish fears, childish wishes, childish illusions? Are we to be counted among the warm-hearted, or the cold-blooded?
What will it take to stir the ancient hope?
Will we join now? Will we enlist now for the duration?
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