social order. Some people try to tell me that we must make up our
minds that for the future we shall permanently have millions of
unemployed just as other countries have had them for over a decade.
What may be necessary for those countries is not my responsibility
to determine. But as for this country, I stand or fall by my
refusal to accept as a necessary condition of our future a
permanent army of unemployed. On the contrary, we must make it a
national principle that we will not tolerate a large army of
unemployed and that we will arrange our national economy to end our
present unemployment as soon as we can and then to take wise
measures against its return. I do not want to think that it is the
destiny of any American to remain permanently on relief rolls.

Those, fortunately few in number, who are frightened by boldness
and cowed by the necessity for making decisions, complain that all
we have done is unnecessary and subject to great risks. Now that
these people are coming out of their storm cellars, they forget
that there ever was a storm. They point to England. They would have
you believe that England has made progress out of her depression by
a do-nothing policy, by letting nature take her course. England has
her peculiarities and we have ours but I do not believe any
intelligent observer can accuse England of undue orthodoxy in the
present emergency.

Did England let nature take her course? No. Did England hold to the
gold standard when her reserves were threatened? No. Has England
gone back to the gold standard today? No. Did England hesitate to
call in ten billion dollars of her war bonds bearing 5 percent
interest, to issue new bonds therefore bearing only 3-1/2 percent
interest, thereby saving the British treasury one hundred and fifty