Franklin D. Roosevelt

Remarks at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

August 26, 1933

Dr. MacCracken, my old friends and all neighbors of old Dutchess:

I am glad that Dr. MacCracken referred to introducing Dutchess County to the United States.

I think it is a very fine idea, but as a matter of fact, way back in the old days, when I ran at another time on the national ticket in 1920 and began to know the United States, one of the amazing things to me was that there was hardly a State west of Ohio, clear on out to the Pacific, where I did not meet somebody in the crowd, or at the luncheon or at the banquet, who would come up to me and say: "My family came from Dutchess County in the old days."

Dutchess County has spread all over the United States; and the influence of the fine old stock that we have raised here is being felt in our American citizenship in every part of the country.

I want to go back for a minute to the old days before I got to know the United States. It is, I think, just twenty-three years ago that I chanced to be in Poughkeepsie on a Saturday morning in August-a very hot Saturday morning.

In front of the court house I ran across a group of friends of mine. As I remember, they were Judge Morschauser, George Spratt, John Mack and Judge Arnold. I had only intended to stay in town for a few minutes to do some errands, but they kidnapped me—one of the first cases of deliberate kidnapping on record—and took me out to the policemen's picnic in Fairview.

On that joyous occasion of clams and sauerkraut and real beer I made my first speech, and I have been apologizing for it ever since.

And also on that same occasion I started to make the acquaintance of that part of Dutchess County that lies outside of the town of Hyde Park.

And I continued to make that acquaintance all through the campaign that year, although in August I hadn't the foggiest idea that I was going to run for the State Senate; and it was only because another band of kidnappers kidnapped me that I got into public life at all.

For I had to talk, and I was given the opportunity of making the acquaintance of a county.

And today, as I drive along a beautiful concrete highway, or one of the new county roads, I see in my mind's eye that same road as it existed in the autumn of 1910 as I proceeded over it at the dangerous pace of about twenty-two miles an hour in Mr. Hawkey's old red Maxwell, without any front windshield, without any top—an old Maxwell that when we met a horse or a team—and that was about every half mile or so—we had to stop, not only the car, but the engine as well.

All through all those succeeding years the friendships that we began at that time have deepened, and, as you know, in spite of absences in Washington and in Albany, I come back to the county on every possible occasion with a true feeling that it is home and that I am once more among my neighbors.

I get the local papers down in Washington, and judging by them I can say that during these recent months I have taken deep satisfaction in the fine spirit of understanding with which the people of my home county have gone along with the great national effort to set our national house in order.

In former days in this State and in other places we have seen something of the same performance in the fields of local government.

Here and there, in spots that are altogether too rare, there is a town or a city or a county or even a State that has, through the interest of its own citizenship, become conscious of the fact that under the old order the social, economic or political life of the community was drifting down hill either through lack of action or through adherence to old rules promulgated to fit conditions of a bygone age.

In such cases, aroused citizens have chosen new public servants or have changed the form of conducting their local affairs to the advantage of the community, without destroying the principles of self-government that are inherent in our American civilization.

You and I know that history in this State and elsewhere gives us many local examples of that. In a sense, this arousing of people's interest is what has occurred throughout the country in this year 1933; and it has made itself felt in the national capital.

I think it is the first time in our history that the Nation as a whole, regardless of party, has approved such drastic changes in the methods and forms of the functions of government without destroying the basic principles.

Perhaps I can best illustrate the change that I am talking about by putting it this way—that we have been extending to our national life the old principle of the local community, the principle that no individual, man, woman or child, has a right to do things that hurt his neighbors.

And this being neighbors' day, I think we can properly emphasize that word.

Many centuries ago, as you know, it was the principle of the old English common law—nearly 1,000 years ago, and its development has been constant and consistent—to be fair to one's neighbors and not do things that hurt them.

In the old days, when there were only agricultural communities, it was unfair, for example, to our neighbors to allow our cattle to roam on our neighbors' land. We were told we had to fence in our cattle.

And then when we got into great cities it became unfair to maintain, let us say, a pigsty on Main and Market Streets.

As this principle was extended, it became unfair to our neighbors if we—any individual or association of individuals—sought to make unfair profits from monopolies in things that everybody had to use, such as gas and electric lights and railroad tickets and freight rates and things of that kind.

Still later on, it became uniformly accepted throughout the country, almost, that it was not fair to our neighbors to let anybody hire their children when they were little bits of things, when they ought to be at school, and especially that it was unfair to hire them at pitiful wages and with long hours of work.

Many years ago we went even further in saying that the Government-State Government or national Government—would have the right to impose increasing taxes on increasing profits because of a simple principle that very large profits were made at the expense of neighbors and, therefore, should at least to some extent be used through taxes for the benefit of the neighbors.

Now the extension of the idea of not hurting our neighbors is recognized today as no infringement on the guarantee of personal liberty—personal liberty to the individual.

For example, it is no more a restriction to tell a man that he must pay adequate wages than it is to tell that man that he must not hire child labor, or that he must not maintain a nuisance against his neighbors.

I think it is within this understanding of the deeper purposes of things today that the National Recovery Act we have heard so much about is proceeding, and that that Act is being accepted by the people of the country with the understanding of what it is all about.

Of course, it is true that your Government in Washington hopes that the building up of wages that are too low, that are starvation wages, and the shortening of hours of work, hours that are too long, in every part of the Union, will result in a greater distribution of income and wages and will thereby increase the number of people in this country that can be employed.

It is true that we in Washington are seeking definitely to increase the purchasing power of the average American citizen and, therefore, of the Nation as a whole.

It is also true, I think, that we are definitely succeeding in this purpose and that the down-hill drift of America has definitely turned, and has become the upward surge of America.

Now, my friends, that is a matter of dollars and cents. But it is also true that the people, through government, are insisting as a permanent part of American life—not just for one year or two years—that individuals and associations of individuals shall cease doing many things that have been hurting their neighbors in bygone days.

We are engaged today, as you know—not just the Government in Washington, but groups of citizens everywhere—in reviewing all kinds of human relationships, and in making these reviews we are asking an old question in a new form. We are saying, "Is this practice, is this custom, something which is being done at the expense of the many?"

And the many are the neighbors. In a national sense the many, the neighbors, are the people of the United States as a whole.

Nationally, we must think of them as a .whole and not just by sections or by States.

We cannot give special consideration to the people of the North if, in so doing, it will not result in good to the people of the South or the West.

We cannot give special privileges to those who farm one particular crop if the giving makes things more difficult for those who farm some other crop.

We cannot single out one industry at the expense of others.

The national Government must, of course, think in national terms, but your responsibility, your interest in national Government ought not to stop there. The greater part of government, as it affects your daily lives and mine, is your local government.

The opportunity in this field of local government for improvement, for a betterment that will be felt in your lives, is just as great as it is in Washington.

When I was Governor of the State for four years I used to do a good deal of talking about local government, and just as long as I live, whether I am in Washington or Dutchess County, I am afraid I shall not be able to get over the habit.

I used to tell people that we have in this State more than 13,000 local units of government. You were all interested; but I did not notice that you did anything about it.

I used to tell people when I was Governor about the fact that there were over 950 highway departments in the State of New York. You were interested, but I did not notice that you did much about it.

I talked to you about the six or eight different layers of government that you lived under, Federal, State, county and town, electric-light district, sewer district and fire-department district, etc.—even sidewalk district and I don't know how many other kinds of districts—and about how you were paying taxes in all of them.

But we have not done much yet along that line. We have not done much to reorganize in our local government what you and I know to be an outworn system built up in the days of the oxcart and unchanged in the days of the automobile.

Some day—because I have always been an optimist, I believe it will occur during our lifetime—some day the people of the State of New York and the county of Dutchess will do something about it.

But I tell you that nothing will be done about it unless you make your representatives—your representatives on town boards and county boards and in the State Legislature—do something about it. And if they will not do it, substitute other representatives for them.

When I say that, I am not talking Democratic politics, I am talking straight Dutchess County Americanism.

May I add that both of the old parties in the county and in the State have been very largely to blame for not giving you people any action? I think you can make them take action— both parties.

That all ties in with the old theme of good neighbors. If we have in our Government things that do not work out well for the neighbors, things that redound to the advantage of just a few people who run the Government and redound to the harm of the voters who do not run the Government except by going to the polls on election day, the only improvement that we can make must be an improvement that will help the neighbors. It all ties in together, and I believe that the people of this country have been taking more interest in the problems of their own Government, because it is theirs, than ever before in history.

More men and more women are taking an individual, a personal, interest in all the problems—the social relations and economic and political problems—than ever before in the history of the Nation, and I hope that that interest will be extended to the problems of the local government as well.

It seems to me very fitting that I should emphasize to you, my neighbors, neighbors of my own home county, this thought-that what is good for my neighbors is good for me, too.

It is very delightful to be able to establish the Summer White House in one's own home, without having to go to a strange house.

It is very delightful to have that home within easy striking distance of Washington. It is very delightful to be able to come there any time that the Administration and the Congress allow me to, and find my mother holding the fort.

It is not only very delightful and a great relaxation to come to a party like this, but it does, frankly, help to restore one's sense of perspective. And when people get near-sighted by being too close to the Government job day in and day out, their efficiency and value as public servants begin to falter.

Just before I came in here the President of the Dutchess County Society gave me a very beautiful N.R.A. emblem to put on my coat.

The only difficulty about my wearing it is that it is not quite honest, because I am afraid that I cannot allow the good people that work for me in the White House to abide by any N.R.A. code.

Our working day is just as long as it has to be. Sometimes it starts pretty early in the morning and very often it goes right straight through until the small hours of the next morning. That is one exception to the N.R.A. that I have to approve.

Outside of that there is a unity in this country which I have not seen and you have not seen since April, 1917, by which the American people are getting together behind the spirit of the N.R.A. and deciding in every community, in every State, that they are going to live by these principles, and that through its operation and through the operation of other great agencies of the Government which we have started, we are going to bring this country back to better times.

So, my friends, with my family I am grateful to have this opportunity of seeing you-all my neighbors. Bless you all.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Remarks at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/208883

Filed Under

Categories

Location

New York

Simple Search of Our Archives