THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
May 2, 1997
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT THE DEDICATION CEREMONY OF
THE FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL
West Potomac Park
Washington, D.C.
10:50 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Senator Inouye,
Senator Hatfield; Your Highness; my longtime friend, David Roosevelt, and
the members of the Roosevelt family; Mr. Vice President; to all
those who have worked to make this day a reality. Let me begin by
saying to Senator Inouye and Senator Hatfield, the United States
proudly accepts the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. (Applause.)
Fittingly, this is the first occasion of its kind in
more than 50 years. The last time the American people gathered near
here was in 1943 when President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the
memorial to Thomas Jefferson.
Today we honor the greatest President of this great
American century. As has been said, FDR actually wanted no memorial.
For years, none seemed necessary -- for two reasons: First, the
America he built was a memorial all around us. From the Golden Gate
Bridge to the Grand Coulee Dam; from Social Security to honest
financial markets; from an America that has remained the world's
indispensable nation to our shared conviction that all Americans must
make our journey together, Roosevelt was all around us.
Second, though many of us never lived under his
leadership, many who did are still around, and we have all heard
about him from our parents or grandparents -- some of us, as we pass
WPA or CCC projects along country roads; some of us as we looked at
the old radios that our parents and grandparents kept and heard
stories about the Fireside Chats and how the people felt. Today he
is still very real to millions upon millions of Americans, inspiring
us, urging us on. But the world turns and memories fade. And now,
more than a half-century after he left us, it is right that we go a
little beyond his stated wishes and dedicate this memorial as a
tribute to Franklin Roosevelt, to Eleanor, and to the remarkable
triumphs of their generation. (Applause.)
President Roosevelt said, "We have faith that future
generations will know that here, in the middle of the 20th century,
there came a time when men of goodwill found a way to unite and
produce and fight to destroy the forces of ignorance and intolerance
and slavery and war." This memorial will be the embodiment of FDR's
faith, for it will ensure that all future generations will know. It
will ensure that they will all see the "happy warrior" keeping
America's rendezvous with destiny.
As we stand at the dawn of a bright new century, this
memorial will encourage us, reminding us that whenever America acts
with certainty of purpose and FDR's famous flexibility of mind, we
have always been more than equal to whatever challenges we face.
Winston Churchill said that President Roosevelt's life
was "one of the commanding events in human history." He came from
privilege, but he understood the aspirations of farmers and factory
workers and forgotten Americans. He electrified the farms and
hollows, but even more important, he electrified the nation,
instilling confidence with every tilt of his head and boom of his
laugh. His was an open, American spirit with a fine sense for the
possible and a keen appreciation of the art of leadership. He was a
master politician and a magnificent Commander-in-Chief.
And his partner was also magnificent. Eleanor Roosevelt
was his eyes and his ears, going places he could not go to see things
he would never see to come back and tell him how things actually
were. And her reports were formed as words in his speeches that
touched little people all across America who could not imagine that the
President of the United States knew how they lived and cared
about them. She was his conscience and our nation's conscience.
(Applause.)
Franklin Roosevelt's mission was to change America to
preserve its ancient virtues in the face of new and unprecedented
challenges. That is, after all, America's mission in all times of
change and difficulty. The depth and sweep of it was unprecedented
when FDR asked a shaken nation to put its confidence in him. But he
had no doubt of the outcome.
Listen to what he said in September of 1932, shortly
before he was elected for the first time. He proclaimed his faith:
"Faith in America, faith in our tradition of personal responsibility,
faith in our institutions, faith in ourselves demanded we recognize
the new terms of an old social contract. New conditions
imposed new requirements upon government and upon
those who conduct government." That was his faith. He lived it, and
we are here as a result.
With that faith, he forged a strong and unapologetic
government, determined to tame the savage cycles of boom and bust,
able to meet the national challenges too big for families and
individuals to meet on their own. And when he restored dignity to
old age, when he helped millions to keep their farms or own their
homes, when he provided the simple opportunity to go to work in the
morning to millions, he was proving that the American Dream was not a
distant glimmer, but something every American could grasp. And then
that faith of his infused all of his countrymen.
With that faith he inspired millions of ordinary
Americans to take responsibility for one another -- doing their part,
in his words, through the National Recovery Administration,
reclaiming nature through the Civilian Conservation Corps, gathering
scrap, giving up nylons, and eventually storming the beaches at
Normandy and Okinawa and Anzio.
With that faith, he committed our nation to lead the
world, first as the arsenal of democracy, and then at the head of the
great crusade to free the world from tyranny. Before the war began,
beyond, the four freedoms set the foundation for the future and made
it clear to the whole world that America's goal was not domination, but a
dominion of freedom in a world at peace.
With that faith as the war neared an end he would never
see, he traced the very architecture of our future, from the G.I.
Bill to the United Nations. Faith in the extraordinary potential of
ordinary people sparked not only our victory over war, depression and
doubt, but it began the opening of doors and the raising of sights
for the dispossessed in America that has continued down to the
present day. It was that faith in his own extraordinary potential
that enabled him to guide his country from a wheelchair. And from
that wheelchair and a few halting steps, leaning on his son's arms or
those of trusted aides, he lifted a great people back to their feet
and set America to march again toward its destiny.
He said over and over again in different ways that we
had only to fear fear itself. We did not have to be afraid of pain
or adversity or failure, for all those could be overcome. He knew
that, of course, because that is exactly what he did. And with his
faith and the power of his example, we did conquer them all --
depression, war and doubt.
Now, we see that faith again alive in America. We are
grateful beyond measure for our own unprecedented prosperity. But we
must remember the source of that faith. And again, let me say to
Senator Inouye and others, by showing President Roosevelt as he was
we show the world that we have faith that in America you are measured
for what you are and what you have achieved, not for what you have
lost. And we encourage all who face their difficulties and overcome
them not to give into fear, but to believe in their possibilities.
(Applause.)
And now again we need the faith of Franklin Roosevelt,
in an entirely different time, but still no ordinary time, for in
this time new livelihoods demand new skills. We have to fight
against the enormous, destructive influences that still grip the
lives of too many of our young people. We must struggle to make our
rich racial, ethnic, and religious diversity a source of strength and
unity when such differences are the undoing of millions and millions
around the world. And we must fight against that nagging old
doubt.
It is a strange irony of our time that here, at the
moment of our greatest prosperity and progress in so many years -- in
1932, one in four Americans was out of work; this morning we learned
that fewer than one in 20 Americans are out of work, for the first
time in more than two decades. (Applause.) And at this time, when
the pinnacle that Roosevelt hoped America would achieve in our
influence and power has come to pass, we still, strangely, fight
battles with doubts -- doubts that he would treat with great
impatience and disdain; doubts that lead some urge us to pull back
from the world at the very first time since Roosevelt's time when we
actually can realize his vision of world peace and world prosperity
and the dominance of the ideals for which he gave his life.
Let us honor his vision not only with this memorial
today, but by acting in the way he would tell us to act if he were
standing here, giving this speech, on his braces, looking at us and
smiling at us and telling us we know what we have to do. We are
Americans. We must have faith. We must not be afraid. And we must
lead. (Applause.)
The great legacy of Roosevelt is a vision and a challenge --
not a set of specific programs, but a set of commitments
-- the duty we owe to ourselves, to one another, to our beloved
nation, and increasingly, to our fellow travelers on this small
planet.
Now we are surrounded by the monuments to the leaders
who built our democracy -- Washington, who launched our great
experiment and created our republic; Jefferson, who enshrined forever
our creed that it is self-evident that we are all created equal, with
unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;
Lincoln, who gave his life to preserve Mr. Washington's republic and
to make real Mr. Jefferson's words. And now, Franklin Roosevelt, who
saved freedom from tyranny, who restored our republic, who defined
Mr. Jefferson's creed to include freedom from want and fear. Today,
before the pantheon of our democracy, let us resolve to honor them
all by shepherding their legacy into a new century, into a new
millennium.
Our mission is to prepare America for the time to come,
to write a new chapter of our history, inspired always by the
greatest source of hope in our history. Thomas Jefferson wrote the
words, but Franklin Roosevelt lived them out every day. Today I ask
you to remember what he was writing at Warm Springs when he died,
that last speech: "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow
will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward and active faith."
My fellow Americans, every time you think of Franklin
Roosevelt put aside your doubts, become more American, become more
like him, be infused with his strong and active faith.
God bless you. God bless America. And may God always
bless the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (Applause.)
END
11:06 A.M. EDT
FDR Memorial Dedication
|
