It's safe to say that we remember FDR super fondly. The guy lifted us out of the Great Depression, saw us most of the way through World War II, and generally is held up as one of our most awesome POTUSes.

But way back when…well, people felt basically the exact same way. Roosevelt is kind of like the Beatles—beloved then, beloved now.

With circumstances as dismal as they appeared in the spring of 1933, the public had great expectations for the incoming president. Things could hardly be worse than they were under Herbert Hoover…but up to this point, FDR had been silent on his specific plans for dealing with the depression. He even went as far as to shush reporters clamoring for more information on his policies.

But once his address was over, the support was near unanimous. A flood of thousands of letters and telegrams from citizens across the country showed just how quickly the spirits of Americans had been lifted. One such letter, from Atlanta resident Mrs. George Brewer, succinctly summed up the people's hopefulness by stating:

You have accomplished more already than any other man now living has, for you have gained the confidence of all good people. (Source)

Yeah. FDR had superfans.

A few voices of dissent persisted, however. While reactions to his speech were positive across the board, the carte blanche given to the incoming president was criticized by some who viewed it as un-American. In an article covering a Senate bill outlining executive powers, the Boston Herald wrote:

We shall not have dictatorships in the old world sense, but unless our legislators do what must be done, an American brand of dictatorship may be adopted as the only way out. (Source)

But despite this and a few other ominous messages, most people believed that aggressive action was exactly the cure for a dying economy.

And like we said, today's attitudes toward FDR's first inaugural address are pretty much the same. Even contemporary accounts mention it in the same breath as the Gettysburg Address, perhaps the finest presidential speech ever delivered. The line about fear resonates as much today as it did more than 80 years ago, and it has gained a permanent place in the American vocabulary.

Even if today we realize that we should also fear things like spiders and big dogs.