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富兰克林．德拉诺．罗斯福
(FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT)
首次就职演说
First Inaugural Address
我们唯一该惧伯的是惧怕本身──会使我们变后退爲前进所需作出的努力瘫痪的那种不可名状，失去理智，毫无根据的恐惧。
富兰克林．德拉诺．罗斯福(1882－1945)四次当选爲总统，这是绝无仅有的。他领导国家闯过了大萧条和第二次世界大战这两个难关。罗斯福出身纽约一个高贵的家族，毕业
于哈佛学院，与远房堂妹埃莉诺．罗斯福结婚，接着入哥伦比亚大学法学院学习。虽然罗斯福1921年患脊髓灰质炎导致双腿瘫痪，他仍在1928年被选爲纽约州州长。1932年罗斯福击败在职总统，共和党人赫伯特．胡佛，当选爲美国总统。罗斯福是在美国历史上最混乱、最危急的时期担任总统的。尽管受到极左、极右两方面的攻击，他始终深孚衆望直至1945年4月12日死在总统岗位上。
当罗斯福1933年3月4日就任总统职务时，美国正遭受一场严重的经济萧条的折磨。数百万人失业，人们对未来缺乏信心。罗斯福面临两大任务：第一，振奋全国人民的精神──这一点他以自己生气勃勃，富有活力的个性做到了；第二，扶贫济困，振兴经济。爲达到达第二个目标，罗斯福运用联邦政府的权力积极干预经济活动，制订被称爲新政的一系列社会和经济计划。在实施新政的过程中他很快便将这篇演说里自己关于削减政府开支和平衡联邦预算的誓言搁置一旁。
值此我就任总统之际，我的美国同胞们肯定期望我以我国当前形势所要求的坦率和果断来发表演说。现在的确是到了坦白而勇敢地讲明真相，讲明全部事实情形的时候了。我们不必怯于老老实实地面对我国今天的情况。这个伟大的国家过去历经磨难，今后仍将经受考验，将恢复生机，繁荣兴旺。因此，首先允许我申明自己的坚定信念：我们唯一该惧怕的是惧怕本身──会使我们变后退爲前进所需作出的努力瘫痪的那种不可名状，失去理智，毫无根据的恐惧。在我国历史上每一个黑暗的时刻，坦诚而有魄力的领导都曾得到人民的理解和支持，这正是胜利的保证。我坚信，在当前这一关键时刻，你们会再一次给领导以支持。
我和你们都以这样一种精神来面对共同的困难。感谢上帝，这些困难只涉及物质方面。币值贬低到荒谬的程度；赋税增加；我们的偿付能力下降；各级政府收入锐减；贸易流通渠道交易手段僵化；産业界叹残枝败叶比比皆是；农场主愁自己的産品找不到市场；千万个家庭的多年积蓄化爲乌有。
更严重的是，大批失业公民面临严酷的生存问题，另有大批公民辛勤劳动却所得甚微。只有愚蠢的乐观主义者才会否认目前的阴暗现实。
但是我们的危难并不是源于实质上的失败。我们没有遭受蝗灾。我们的祖先信仰坚定，无所畏惧，因而所向披靡。比起他们遇到的艰难险阻，我们尚可谓万幸。大自然继续施恩布泽，而人的努力使其倍增。富足就站在我们的门口，然而现成的物资却激发不起对富足充分慷慨的利用。这首先是因爲人类商品交换的掌管者们顽固而又无能，他们已承认失败，自动退位。无耻的货币兑换商爲人类的思想感情所唾弃，在舆论的法庭上被宣判有罪。……
幸福并不是建筑在仅仅拥有金钱上；它建筑在取得成就的欢欣和创造性工作的激动上。切莫在疯狂地追逐瞬息即逝的利润中忘记工作带来的欢乐和精神鼓舞。我们在这些阴暗的日子里付出的代价将是完全值得的，如果这些时日教育我们认识到，我们不该听凭命运摆布，而应让命运爲我们自己和我们的同胞服务。……
我们的首要任务是给人们工作。只要我们明智而勇敢地对待它，这并不是无法解决的问题。这个任务通过政府直接征募人员可以得到部分完成，就像我们应付战时紧急状态那样，同时通过雇用这些人员来完成急需工程，以促进和改革我们对自然资源的利用。
与此同时，我们必须坦率地承认，我们的那些工业中心已人口过剩；应在全国范围调整人口布局，尽力把土地提供给最善于耕种的人，使土地得到更好的利用。爲了帮助这项任务的完成，要采取具体措施提高农产品价格，从而提高对我们城市産品的购买力。要从现实出发制止对小房産和农场取消抵押品赎回权所造成的日趋严重的悲惨损失。要坚持由联邦、各州和地方政府立即按大幅度削减费用的要求采取行动。要把目前常常是分散、浪费和不公平的救济工作统一起来。要把一切形式的交通运输和其它明确属于公用事业的设施置于国家的计划和监督之下。总之，很多方法有助于这项任务的完成，唯有空谈无济于事。我们必须行动，迅速采取行动。
最后，在恢复工作的进程中我们需要防止旧秩序弊端再现的两项保护措施；必须严格监督一切银行存款、信贷和投资；必须制止利用他人的金钱进行投机活动，必须提供充足而数量合理的货币。
这些便是我们的对策。我即将向新的国会特别会议提出实行这些方针的具体措施，我将要求各州立即提供援助。通过实施这一行动纲领，我们将致力于整顿国内经济，平衡收支。
在对外政策方面，我国将奉行睦邻政策──决心尊重自己，因爲尊重自己所以也尊重他人的权利──履行自己的义务，也履行与世界大家庭和世界各国所订协议中所规定的神圣义务。
如果我对我国人民的情绪体会得正确，那麽我们现在比过去任何时候更深切地认识到：我们之间互相依存，血肉相连；我们不能只图索取，不求贡献；我们必须像一支训练有素，忠贞不渝的军队那样向前迈进，这支军队愿意爲了共同的纪律作出牺牲，因爲没有这样的纪律就不可能取得进步，就不可能实现卓有成效的领导。我知道我们愿意并随时准备爲共同的纪律献出生命财産，因爲只有这样才能实施以更高利益爲目标的领导。我愿意担任这样的领导，保证出现战时才可能激起的责任感、统一性，使这些更高的目标成爲我们全体人民不容推卸的义务。
作出了这项保证后，我将毫不犹豫地领导我国人民组成的大军，以严明的纪律去战胜我们面临的共同困难。
我们既然有从祖先那里继承下来的政府形式，爲这一目的以这种方式采取行动便是可行的。我们的宪法简明而讲求实际，总是可能根据特殊的需要在重点和安排上有所改变而无损于它的基本形式。正因爲如此，我们的立宪体制不愧爲现代世界所産生的最稳定持久的政治结构。它经受了领土大扩张、对外战争、痛苦的内乱和国际关系的考验。
但愿正常的行政和立法分权足以应付我们所面临的空前的重任。然而史无前例的要求和迅即行动的需要也可能使我们不得不暂时偏离公共程序的正常均衡。
我准备根据宪法赋予我的职责提出一个灾难深重的国家在一个灾难深重的世界中所必须采取的措施。这些措施或国会依据其经验和智慧所制订的其它类似措施，我将在宪法赋予我的权限内尽快予以采纳。
但是，倘若国会竟不肯接受这两个方针中的一个，倘若国家的紧急状况仍然严重，我将决不回避显然义不容辞的责任。我将向国会要求对付危机的最后手段──向紧急状况开战的广泛行政权力，如同确实遭受外敌入侵时应该授予我的大权。
对于给予我的信任，我将以顺应时代的勇气和忠诚作爲回报。我决不辜负衆望。……
I am certain that my fellow
Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them
with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels.
This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and
boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today.
This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.
So, first of all, 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 our national life a leadership of
frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people
themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again
give the support to leadership in these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They
concern, thank God, only material 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
the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every
side; farmers find no markets for their 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 great number toil with little return. Only a foolish
optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no
plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our fore-fathers conquered
because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful
for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty
is at our door-steps, but a generous use of it languishes 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 their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money
changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts
and minds of men. . . .
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of
achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of
work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These
dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny
is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.
. . .
Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable
problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by
direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat
the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment,
accomplishing greatly 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 centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a
redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best
fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the
values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output
of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the
growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be
helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act
forth-with on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be
helped by the unifying of relief activities which to-day are often scattered,
uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and
supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other
utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which
it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must
act and act quickly.
Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards
against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict
supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to
speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an
adequate but sound currency.
There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in
special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the
immediate assistance of the several States. Through this program of action we
address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income
balance outgo....
In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the
good neighbor―the
neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the
rights of others―the
neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his
agreements in and with a world of neighbors.
If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never
realized before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take
but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, 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, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to
such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger
good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon
us all as a sacred 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 a disciplined attack upon our common problems.
Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government
which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and
practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in
emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our
constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political
mechanism the modem world has produced. It has 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 to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be
that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for
temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.
I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a
stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or
such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom,
I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.
But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses,
and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not
evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the
Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis―broad
Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that
would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.
For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that
befit the time. I can do no less, . . .
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