Action Stations
- After admitting America is in trouble, consoling the public that it's not the end of the world, and pinning most of the blame on banks and bankers, the incoming president gets to the good stuff.
- Emboldened by an overwhelming landslide victory against incumbent Herbert Hoover, FDR takes the results to mean the people want action.
- And he wants to give them what they want.
- The most important task for FDR is getting America back to work.
- The low point (or high point, really) of the Great Depression was 1933. A staggering one of every four people was unemployed…so this really was priority number one (source).
- He asks that the government get serious and approach "the task as we would treat the emergency of a war" (36), in effect mobilizing all the country's resources to get America back on track.
- While his inaugural address is short on details, he speaks of easing overcrowded urban areas through redistribution and pledges to focus spending on better utilizing bountiful rural lands; by fixing farms, city life would also improve.
- Roosevelt also discusses the importance of planning. Better organized and coordinated relief efforts will make them more effective.