This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing…

First and Second Inaugural Addresses

    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 that support to leadership in these critical days. day by day.

    I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

    I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

    I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

    I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

    It is not in despair that I paint you that picture, I paint it for you in hope – because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful, law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. 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 too little.

(Franklin Delano Roosevelt)