this great nation will
endure as it has endured
will revive, prosper

This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

From the 1st inaugural address of Franklin Roosevelt, March 4, 1933.

Please allow me to hit some of those points again.

This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.

Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

As an aside, my wife and I marvel when faced with people in elected office who can speak in complete sentences.

And such sentences.

I do long for that day of newspapers and reporting and not the 140 character sound bite.

But I digress.

It was Franklin Roosevelt who had a hand in designing and building what became known as the Oval Office.

The West Wing had been built by his 5th cousin, Theodore Roosevelt and the President’s office was centrally located and windowless near what is now known as the Roosevelt Room.

President Theodore Roosevelt liked to have his work space distractions limited.

In other words he was so A.D.D. that anything like a window made it impossible to concentrate on any one thing for long. (Maybe A.D.D. is too strong a word and I should say that he was so intellectually stimulated, author of 40 books, spoke 5 languages and a near photographic memory that he was easily bored but I digress again).

It was President Taft who moved the Presidents office to a room on the outside wall and added bay windows that looked out on the south lawn.

This office was still center aligned and used by all the President’s from Taft to Hoover.

Late in the Hoover years, a fire broke out in the West Wing and reconstruction was in progress when FDR moved in and he had the office moved to the corner of the West Wing and fashioned into an oval.

The room took its power from the person in the office.

It became known as the most powerful room in the western or free (non-Soviet-aligned) world.

In the 1995 movie, “The American President”, President Andrew Shephard, played by Michael Douglas has the line, The White House is the single greatest home court advantage in the modern world.

It wasn’t until today, 82 years after FDR built it, the any one felt that folks needed a sign to let them know where they where when they had reason to be in that office.

That says something about insufficient or inadequate stature felt by the current occupant.

Small wonder that confidence languishes …

for it thrives only on honesty …

on honor …

on the sacredness of obligations …

on faithful protection …

on unselfish performance …

without them it cannot live.

Reading over this speech I ask, why can’t THOSE folks read this and feel some conviction?

But then I am reminded of a quote of President Warren Harding when he said, “Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it out in my mind. But I don’t know where the book is, and maybe I couldn’t read it if I found it.”

They just don’t get it.

Deep down, though, I think THEY DO GET IT and they know it and they know that they know it and I know that they know that they know it.

And what do I know.

They have sold out.

I also know that this great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.

We need restoration.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone.

This Nation asks for action, and action now.

careless people, they
let other people clean up
the mess they have made

Adapted from the passage:

I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused.

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . .

From the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925).

In the realm of life imitating art, the line; I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused., sends shivers down my spine.

As it goes on, the more I believe it has to be a hot house phenomena.

Like the Roading 20’s, the USA rose up and passed Prohibition.

I look for and feel a growing wave of resentment that will wash away the carelessness of this current era.

But for now, it’s all careless and confused.

They will smash up things and creatures and then retreat back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that keeps them together.

And let us clean up the mess they have made.

*Thanks to good friend Bryan whose post reminded me of the passage.

permits outrageous
eventualities to
materialize

The Constitution establishes the electoral college system to govern the President’s selection, and provides further means ol choice when that system bogs down in inconclusive result. But it grants the federal government only limited authority over its most important election, that of the President: critically significant powers repose in the states. By express or implicit constitutional authority, federal statutes specify the date of election day, determine when the electors are to meet and cast their ballots, and establish the procedure for counting those ballots in Congress. But at the same lime, the Constitution authorizes the states to decide how the electors are to be chosen and their electoral vote cast. State laws also regulate the conduct of elections, including the presidential contest, and political activity carried on within their borders. This authority and autonomy invite wide variation from state to state in the method, honesty, and freedom of federal elections.

In sanctioning this division of powers, the Constitution leaves elementary and crucial questions of procedure unanswered and permits the most outrageous eventualities to materialize. If, let us say, two conflicting sets of electoral votes are returned by a given state, who shall decide which set is to prevail? The Constitution provides no solution.

Consider another likely untoward instance. A candidate who receives on election day a majority of the popular vote cast may not, under the Constitution, necessarily become President—it he fails to secure also a majority of the electoral vote. The utter contradiction of this state of affairs with the most elementary principles of democracy is self-evident: the majority popular will can be denied.

From The Election That Got Away by Louis W. Koenig (American Heritage, October 1960 – Volume 11 Issue 6).

I give the American Heritage Magazine a lot of credit for my interest in United States History.

Before I was born, my Dad started subscribing to American Heritage whose editions were published in thin hard cover books a little be bigger than a the size of an 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper.

And they were just left in stacks, a few here, a few there, some on the shelf, all over the house so when I was born, they were part of my landscape.

The magazine usually had something interesting on the cover to catch your eye, Washington on a horse or the Wright Brothers or something and their articles were written in a style for the general public.

Nothing at all like the Journal of American History which I didn’t find out about until I got to college.

But there they were and I can’t remember a time I didn’t pick on up and at least thumb through the pages or read an article or part of an article that caught my eye.

Some of these stories had illustrations and some of the illustrations and magazine covers were pretty goofy.

They appealed to me and, and in a way, as a kid, I thought of American Heritage as the Mad Magazine of US History.

Today’s haiku is adapted from a story that ran in October of 1960 and the author smugly warns that the debacle of the election 1877, where the states levered electoral votes to swing the election away from the candidate who won the popular vote.

The author, a Louis W. Koenig, who has a long list of published works but not a wikipedia entry (you have to work out what that means) warned … it could happen again.

This was in October of 1960.

That fall would see the Nixon/Kennedy election with Kennedy being declared the winner after some late night calls to the Mayor Daly in Chicago … or maybe there weren’t any calls but a recount was considered (as Mike Royko wrote The Chicago Elections committee would throw the ballots at the ceiling and any ballot that stuck was declared a Republican vote) but nothing came of it.

Then came that Dallas afternoon and a new Presdident.

Than came Watergate and a new President.

Then came Bush/Gore.

And then came the folks who don’t even bother with the Constitution.

My point being this, the Constitution leaves elementary and crucial questions of procedure unanswered and permits the most outrageous eventualities to materialize.

And we are still here, 65 years after Mr. Koenig wrote those words.

There has to be a hope that in 2090, the Constitution will still leave elementary and crucial questions of procedure unanswered and permit the most outrageous eventualities to materialize.

And somehow those outrageous eventualities of the past, were overcome.