Evening star., 1936-10-02
~ the Associated Press.

lowing Is the text OF Presloent fSooSe
velt's speech last night at Forbe
FIELD:
A baseball park is q good place
to talk about box scores. Tonight
I am going to talk to you about
the box score Of the government
Of the United States. ] am going
to tell you the story Of our fight
to beat down the depression and
win recovery. From where I stand.
1t looks as though the game is
pretty well in the bag.
I am convinced that when gov
ernment finance or any other
finance Is honest-and when all
the cards are on the table-there
are no higher mathematics about
it. 1t is just plain. scoreboard
arithmetic. \
When the present manage
inent Of your team took charge.
the national scoreboard looked
pretty bad. In fact, 1t looked SO
much like a shut-out that you
p voted a change Of management in
order to give the country q chance
to win the game. And today we are
winning it.
Income Declined from
81 Billions to 50 Billions.
When the new management
came to Washington, we began to
! make our plans-plans to meet
, the immediate crisis-and plans
that would carry the people OF
; the country back to decent pros!
perity.
We saw the millions out Of work,
the business concerns running in
the red, the banks closing. Our
national income had declined
over so per cent-and, what was
worse, it showed no prospect of
recuperating by itself. By ma
tional income I mean the total
of all income of all the 125,000,-
000 people in this country-the
total of all the pay envelopes, all
the farm sales, all the profits Of
all the businesses, of all the in
dividuals and corporations in
America.
During the four lean years be-
fore this administration took
office, that national income had
declined from 81 billions q year to
SO billions a year-in short, you
and I-an of us together-were
making 43 Billion dollars less in
1882 than we made in 1929.
Now, the rise and fall Of ma
tional income-since 1t tells the
story Of how much you and and
everybody else are making-is an
index Of the rise and fall Of ma
tional prosperity. It Is also an in
dex Of the prosperity Of the Gov
ernment. The money to run the
Government comes from taxes: and
the tax revenue in.turn depends for
its size on the size of the national
income. When incomes and values
and transactions are on the down.
grade, then tax receipts go on the
down-grade, too.
If the national income continues
to decline. then the Government
cannot run without going into the
red. The only way to keep a Gov
ernment out Of the red Is to keep
the people out of the red. We had
to balance the budget Of the Amer.
lean people before we could balance
the budget OF the National Gov.
eminent.
That makes common sense,
doesn't It?
The box score when the Demo-
cratic Administration came to bat
IN 1888 showed . net deficit In our
national accounts Of about $3,000,.
100000, accumulated in the three.
previous years.
National income was In q down.
ward spiral. Federal Government
revenues were in Q downward spi.
raj. To pile on vast new taxes would
get us nowhere, because values were
going down.
Decision Was Made
To Do Something About It.
On top of having to meet the
ordinary expenses of Government,
I recognized the obligation Of the
Federal Government to feed and
take care Of the growing army Of
homeless and destitute unemployed.
Something had to be done. A ma
tional choice had to be made. We
could do one Of two things. Some
people-who sat across my desk in
those days-urged me to let Nature
take its course, and continue a pol
icy Of doing nothing. rejected
that advice. Nature was in an
angry mood.
To have accepted this advice
would have meant q continued wip-
Ing out of people Of small means
the continued loss Of their homes
and farms and small businesses
into the hands Of people who still
had enough capital left to pick up
those homes and farms and busi-
nesses at bankruptcy prices.
1t would have meant, In Q very
short time, the loss Of all the re-
sources Of . multitude Of individ-
uals and families and small corpo-
rations. You would have seen a
concentration Of property owner
ship in the hands Of ] or 2 per cent
OF the population, q concentration
unequalled in any great nation
since the days of the later Roman
Empire.
And SO the program Of this ad-
ministration has protected the
small business, the small corpora.
tion. the small shop from the wave
Of deflation which threatened them.
We realized then, as we do now,
that the vast army Of small bust.
ness men, factory owners and shop
owners form the backbone-to- .
getfer with our farmers and work.
ers-of the industrial life Of Amer.
lea. In our long-range plan we
recognized that The prosperity Of
America depended upon, and would
continue to depend upon, the pros
perity Of them all.
Refused to leave
Human Needs to Communities.
rejected that advice for an ad-
ditional reason. ! had promised.
and my administration was deter