Evening star., 1939-03-04
Text of Presidents Address
Ideo|oey Of Democracy Stressed in Talk
On 150th Anniversary Of Congress
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
The text of President Roosevelt s
address to the joint session of Con-
gress commemorating the l50th an
niversary of the First Congress fol-
lows.
Mr.. President, Mr.. Speaker, gen.
tlemen of the Supreme Court, men,
bers of the Senate and the House of
Representatives:
We near the end of a three-year
commemoration of the founding of
the Government of the United
States. 1t has been aptly suggested
that its successful organizing should
rank as the eighth wonder of the
world-for surely the evolution Of
permanent substance out of neb-
ulous chaos justifies us in the use
of superlatives.
Thus, we may increase our ora
tory and please our vanity by pic
turing the period of the War of
the Revolution as crowded with a
unanimous population of heroes
dramatized by the admitted exist
ence of handful of traitors to fill
the necessary role of villain. Never
theless, we are aware today that a
more serious reading of history
depicts far less pleasing scene.
1t should not detract from our
satisfaction in the result to &C
knowledge that very large num-
ber of inhabitants of the 13 revolt
ing Colonies were opposed to rebel
lion and to independence; that there
was constant friction between the
Continental Congress and the COM
mander in chief and his generals in
the field that ineff1ciency, regard
less of the cause of it, was the rule
rather than the exception in the
long-draWn-out war, and finally
that there is grave doubt as to
whether independence would have
been won at all If Great Britain
herself had not been confronted
with wars in Europe which diverted
her attention to the maintenance
of her own existence in the nearer
arena.
Fought Against Great Odds.
We can at least give thanks that
in the first chapter all was we'll
that ended well, and we can at least
give thanks to those outstanding
figures who strove against great odds
for the maintenance of the national
ideal which their vision and courage
had created.
The opening of the new chapter in
1888 discloses very definitely that
assurance of continued independ-
ence could be guaranteed by none.
Dissension and discord were so
widely distributed among the 13 new
States that it was impossible to set
up a union more strong or perma-
nent than that loose-end, shaky de-
batting society provided for under
the Articles of Confederation. That
we survived for six years is more a
tribute to the ability of the Con-
federation Congress gracefully to do
nothing. and to the exhaustion that
followed the end of the war, rather
than to any outstanding states
manship or even leadership. Again.
we can properly say of the period
of Confederation, that all was well
that ended we'll.
Those years have rightly been
called "the critical period of Ameri-
can history" But for crisis-in this
case crisis of peace-there would
have been no union. You, the men,
bers of the Senate and the House:
you. the Chief Justice and associate
justices, and I, the President of the
United States. would not be here on
this 4th of March, a century and a
half later.
1t is well to remember that from
1871 to 1889 the 13 original States
existed as a Nation by the single
thread of congressional government,
and without an executive or a judi
cial branch. This annual assembly
OF representatives, moreover, was
compelled to act not by a majority
but by States, and in the more i'm
portant functions by the require
ment that nine States must consent
to the action.
Powers Limited.
In actual authority the Congresses
of the Confederation were princi-
pally limited to the fields of external
relations and the national defense.
The fatal defect was of course the
lack of power to raise revenue for the
maintenance of the system, and our
ancestors may be called at the least
optimistic if they believed that 13
sovereign republics would promptly
pay over to the Confederation even
the small sums which were assessed
against them for the annual MAIN
tenance of the Congress and its
functions.
Furthermore, the effect of the
existing methods of transportation
and communication retarded the
development of truly national gov
ernment far more greatly than we
realize today-and that was true
throughout the first half century of
our union. You have heard the
phrase the ''horse and buggy age"
We use 1t not in derogation of the
men who had to spend weeks on the
rough highways before they could
establish a quorum of the Congress,
not in implication of inferiority on
the part of those who perforce
could not visit their neighbors in
other States and visualize at first
hand the problems of the whole of
an infant Nation.
We use it rather to explain the
tedious delays and the local an
tagonisms and jealousies which be-
set our early paths, and we use it
perhaps to remind our citizens of
today that the automobile, the rail-
road, the airplane, the electrical
impulse over the wire and through
the ether leave to no citizen an
excuse for sectionalism, for delay
in the execution of the public busi-
ness or for failure to maintain a
full understanding of the accelera.
ton Of the processes Of civilization.
Thus the crisis which faced the