US Presidency
1932

I recollect a Republican Governor of New York who, believing that wrong was being done to the citizens of his own and other States on life insurance, found a man named Charles Evans Hughes who cleaned that mess up once and for all. The Governor has not stated to the American people my oft-repeated warnings that American loans made in foreign countries should be upon sound security and confined to reproductive purposes. I have defined these loans as being the loans made for creative enterprise on which their own earnings would repay interest and capital. In one of his addresses the Governor pretends at least not to understand what a reproductive loan is, and yet, as I will show you in a moment, he does know something about it. I will say at once that when we have surplus capital, properly secured loans for reproductive purposes abroad are an advantage to the American people. They furnish work to American labor in the manufacture of plants and equipments; they furnish continuing demand for American labor in supplies and replacements.