US Presidency
1944

In this war, we have been compelled to learn how interdependent upon each other are all groups and sections of the whole population of America. Increased food costs, for example, will bring new demands for wage increases from all war workers, which will in turn raise all prices of all things including those things which the farmers themselves have to buy. Increased wages or prices will each in turn produce the same results. They all have a particularly disastrous result on all fixed income groups. And I hope you will remember that all of us in this government, including myself, represent the fixed income group just as much as we represent business owners, or workers or farmers. This group of fixed income people include: teachers, and clergy, and policemen, and firemen, and widows and minors who are on fixed incomes, wives and dependents of our soldiers and sailors, and old age pensioners. They and their families add up to more than a quarter of our 130 million people. They have few or no high pressure representatives at the Capitol.