FDR Speech at Madison Square Garden 1936

I felt like doing something EXTRA-exciting, so I was watching a history lecture on C-SPAN.


The lecture was by Professor Stephen Ortiz of Binghamton University. The topic was New Deal programs & the Roosevelt administration.

C-SPAN

The New Deal

 There was an excerpt played of this speech at Madison Sq. Garden by Roosevelt a little more than 75 years ago.

President Obama's political instinct is to continually attempt compromise with the Republican party & corporate America.

FDR, however, openly declared war on these right wing factions, who he asserted were preying on the American worker:

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. 

 

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. 

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred. 

 

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master."