BEGINNING his second term, Roosevelt made it plain that the New Deal would go on. He would continue to work for reforms. He said in his second inaugural address: “In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens — a substantial part of its whole population — who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life. “I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meagre that the pall of family disaster hangs over them. “I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labelled indecent by so-called polite society of half a century ago. “I See millions denied education, recreation and the opportunity to better their lot and that 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 for 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 this 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. . . .” DEFEAT IN THE SENATE To put through new reforms, Roosevelt felt that something had to be done about the Supreme Court. It had already blocked the NRA and …
Read More »Roosevelt Battles the Court 1937-1939
