our essential enterprises.

Accordingly, I propose to confer within the coming month with small
groups of those truly representative of large employers of labor
and of large groups of organized labor, in order to seek their
cooperation in establishing what I may describe as a specific trial
period of industrial peace.

From those willing to join in establishing this hoped-for period of
peace, I shall seek assurances of the making and maintenance of
agreements, which can be mutually relied upon, under which wages,
hours and working conditions may be determined and any later
adjustments shall be made either by agreement or, in case of
disagreement, through the mediation or arbitration of state or
federal agencies. I shall not ask either employers or employees
permanently to lay aside the weapons common to industrial war. But
I shall ask both groups to give a fair trial to peaceful methods of
adjusting their conflicts of opinion and interest, and to
experiment for a reasonable time with measures suitable to civilize
our industrial civilization.

Closely allied to the N.R.A. is the program of Public Works
provided for in the same Act and designed to put more men back to
work, both directly on the public works themselves, and indirectly
in the industries supplying the materials for these public works.
To those who say that our expenditures for public works and other
means for recovery are a waste that we cannot afford, I answer that
no country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human
resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our
greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our