Evening star., 1936-09-11
Text of Roosevelt Address
Better Conditions in Homes and Farms and
Factories Leading Toward 'Green
Pastures" He Tells Rally.
" the Associated Press.

ny the Associated Press.
CHARLOTTE, N. c., September 10.
is the text of President
Roosevelt's address at the Municipal
Stadium yesterday.
Green pastures-what a memory
those words call forth. In all our
schooling, in every part of the land,
no matter to what church we hap
pen to belong, the 23d Psalm is in
all probability better known to men,
women and children than any
other poem in the English
language.
And in this great lyric, what do
we best remember?
Two lines:
"He maketh me to lie down in
green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still
waters"
1t does not greatly. matter
whether that symbol of an ideal Of
human physical and spiritual hap
piness was written in its original
5000 or 5000 or 10000 years ago. 1t
might have been written as we'll in
the twentieth century of the Chris
tian era.
Happiness Described
In Simple Terms.
Have you ever stopped to think
that happiness is most often de-
scribed in terms Of the simple ways
Of nature rather than in the COM
plex ways of mans fabrications?
Perhaps it is because peace is nee
essary to ultimate happiness. Per-
haps, therefore, when we seek a
symbol of happiness. we do not go
to the rush of crowded city streets
or to the hum of machinery to find
the simile.
The ancient psalmist did not use
the parable of the merchants
camel train or the royal palace or
the crowded bazaar. He had, as we
have, the problems of competing
trade, of social crowding, and, I
venture to suggest, that long before
the Christian era the ancient civili-
cations of the East were confronted
with problems Of social economics
which, though small in point of
human numbers and small in point
Of worldly goods, were still, by COM
parison, as potent in their effect
and as difficult in their solution as
the extraordinarily similar problems
of social economics that face us in
this century.
Be it remembered then, that the
ancient kings and prophets revert
ed, just as we do today, to the good
earth and the still waters when
they idealized security of the body
and mind
A recent writer has suggested
that the present President of the
United States, because of birth and
training and natural proclivity, in
evitably reverts to terms of land and
water in his approach to any great
public problem. fear that must
plead guilty to this charge-though
I do so with the reservation that
this is in spite of the fact that
during the greater part of my life
I have been in far closer contact
with the more exciting and more
highly competitive give and take
Of the profession of the law. The
practice Of business and the exac-
tions of public service.
Says Millions Hope
For Green Pastures.
Green pastures-millions of our
fellow Americans, with whom I
have been associating in the past
fortnight, out on the great plains
of America, live with prayers and
hopes for the fulfllment of what
those words imply. Still waters
millions Of other Americans, with
whom ! also have associated, live
with prayers and hopes either that
the floods may be stilled-f1oods
that bring with them destruction
and disaster to fields and focks, to
homesteads and cities-or else look
for the Heaven-sent rains that
will fill their wells, their ponds
and their peaceful streams.
Many years ago I talked with
q learned man about this conti-
nent-what it was like when the
white man came I asked him,
Were the great plains, which ex-
tend hundreds of miles upon hun
dreds Of miles from the Rockies
near to the Mississippi, always bare
of trees, always the pasturage of
great waves of bison and millions
of antelope?" YES" he replied,
''for many hundreds of years be-
fore the white man came, but it is
my belief that trees could have
grown and still could grow on those
plains, but that they we're prevented
from doing so by the constant sue
cession of prairie fires, some Of
them set by lightning and some of
them by the red men,"
asked him whether the streams
Of the Southland were always
brown before our white ancestors
moved in. He replied, mo, in those