WORDS FROM FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT To be stricken with infantile paralysis in adult life was a tragedy in the life of the man from New York. Among limitations was the need to be carried from place to place wearing braces weighing some ten pounds. Even well managed photographs and carefully scheduled speeches were unable to overcome the visual effects of his malady. Yet within Roosevelt’s mind were to be discovered extraordinary talents and management skills that would save a nation from economic stress and war. I choose to reflect on a few of his economic observations in view of the times we are experiencing as a nation. We must not worry over the concept of fear. The nomenclature of fear by its very nature feeds off the psyche and humanizes personal threat. Hypotheticals are no more than wasted worries over outcomes that most times will not materialize. Let’s place needless fretting in the waste basket of false despair. In Roosevelt’s comments to Congress in the mid-thirties he took time to confront the matter of welfare. He told all Americans that continual dependence upon relief programs creates spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. He determined that any program that doles out relief in this way is administering a narcotic a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. Roosevelt’s only answer to this level of want was to provide work for all people able to work. He is quoted as having said that “We must preserve not only the bodies of the unemployed from destitution but also personal self-respect, self-reliance, courage and determination. Roosevelt believed that the nation’s task of reconstruction did not require the creation of new and strange values but instead adherence to those ideals previously known and cherished. He felt there were people in other lands who had once fought for freedom, but who appeared now too weary to continue the fight, who perhaps had sold their soul for the illusion of living. Roosevelt believed that America’s success could stir and increase their ancient hope. In Roosevelt’s own words, “they begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want, destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that: it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.” May his words live once more. Dr. Alan G. Phillips, Sr.