After the election of 1936 I was told, and the Congress was told, by an increasing number of politically—and worldly—wise people that I should coast along, enjoy an easy Presidency for four years, and not take the Democratic platform too seriously. They told me that people were getting weary of reform through political effort and would no longer oppose that small minority which, in spite of its own disastrous leadership in 1929, is always eager to resume its control over the government of the United States.
Never in our lifetime has such a concerted campaign of defeatism been thrown at the heads of the President and the Senators and Congressmen as in the case of this Seventy-Fifth Congress. Never before have we had so many Copperheads—and you will remember that it was the Copperheads who, in the days of the War between the States, tried their best to make President Lincoln and his Congress give up the fight, let the nation remain split in two and return to peace—peace at any price.
This Congress has ended on the side of the people. My faith in the American people—and their faith in themselves—have been justified. I congratulate the Congress and the leadership thereof and I congratulate the American people on their own staying power.
One word about our economic situation. It makes no difference to me whether you call it a recession or a depression. In 1932 the total national income of all the people in the country had reached the low point of thirty-eight billion dollars in that year. With each succeeding year it rose. Last year, 1937, it had risen to seventy billion dollars—despite definitely worse business and agricultural prices in the last four months of last year. This year, 1938, while it is too early to do more than give an estimate, we hope that the national income will not fall below sixty billion dollars. We remember also that banking and business and farming are not falling apart like the one-hoss shay, as they did in the terrible winter of 1932-1933.
Last year mistakes were made by the leaders of private enterprise, by the leaders of labor and by the leaders of government—all three.
Last year the leaders of private enterprise pleaded for a sudden curtailment of public spending, and said they would take up the slack. But they made the mistake of increasing their inventories too fast and setting many of their prices too high for their goods to sell.
Some labor leaders goaded by decades of oppression of labor made the mistake of going too far. They were not wise in using methods which frightened many well-wishing people. They asked employers not only to bargain with them but to put up with jurisdictional disputes at the same time.
Government too made mistakes—mistakes of optimism in assuming that industry and labor would themselves make no mistakes—and government made a mistake of timing in not passing a farm bill or a wage and hour bill last year.
As a result of the lessons of all these mistakes we hope that in the future private enterprise—capital and labor alike—will operate more intelligently together, and operate in greater cooperation with their own government than they have in the past. Such cooperation on the part of both of them will be very welcome to me. Certainly at this stage there should be a united stand on the part of both of them to resist wage cuts which would further reduce purchasing power.
Today a great steel company announced a reduction in prices with a view to stimulating business recovery, and I was gratified to know that this reduction involved no wage cut. Every encouragement ought to be given to industry which accepts the large volume and high wage policy.