confuse them and to profit by their confusion. Americans as a whole
are feeling a lot better--a lot more cheerful than for many, many
years.

The most difficult place in the world to get a clear open
perspective of the country as a whole is Washington. I am reminded
sometimes of what President Wilson once said: "So many people come
to Washington who know things that are not so, and so few people
who know anything about what the people of the United States are
thinking about." That is why I occasionally leave this scene of
action for a few days to go fishing or back home to Hyde Park, so
that I can have a chance to think quietly about the country as a
whole. "To get away from the trees", as they say, "and to look at
the whole forest." This duty of seeing the country in a long-range
perspective is one which, in a very special manner, attaches to
this office to which you have chosen me. Did you ever stop to think
that there are, after all, only two positions in the nation that
are filled by the vote of all of the voters--the President and the
Vice-President? That makes it particularly necessary for the Vice-
President and for me to conceive of our duty toward the entire
country. I speak, therefore, tonight, to and of the American people
as a whole.

My most immediate concern is in carrying out the purposes of the
great work program just enacted by the Congress. Its first
objective is to put men and women now on the relief rolls to work
and, incidentally, to assist materially in our already unmistakable
march toward recovery. I shall not confuse my discussion by a
multitude of figures. So many figures are quoted to prove so many
things. Sometimes it depends upon what paper you read and what