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CITY OF NEW YORK OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

TEXT OF MAYOR F. H. LA GUARDIA'S SUNDAY BROADCAST TO THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK FROM HIS OFFICE AT CITY HALL, APRIL 15, 1945, BROADCAST OVER WNYC AT 1:00 P.M. FOLLOWS:


Patience and Fortitude.


DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT

There are many things that I wanted to talk over with you today. You remember that last Sunday we had the Budget and before that Easter, so these subjects sort of accumulate. But I just can not do it. You know how it is, when you have something on your mind and in your heart, you seem to want to talk about it. There has been but one thought in the minds of every American, in the minds of all liberty-loving people throughout the world. My home is not the same, there is an atmosphere of sadness about it. The office is not the same. Our streets are not the same. Seldom has the world been saddened as it has been since Thursday afternoon. We all feel it, and yet we have a great deal to be thankful for - that Franklin Delano Roosevelt lived.


STRUGGLE FOR HUMANITY

Had there been no World War, had this generation produced no evil men who brought about this war, our president would have been just as great. He would have had just as glorious a page in history, for this war is not the only war that he fought. It was more vivid. It was perhaps better understood than the other great war that he fought and won. Yes, he fought a war against poverty, against hardship and suffering, against illness, against injustice. He fought a grand war from the very first day that he took office at the White House - yes, it was on the very first day, because he was ready for it. He resented injustice. He suffered in the thought that people were impoverished and could not live properly. He had given years and years to thought and study of the economic problems of our country.


FIRST MEETING

Many of us knew him well, and naturally at times like these our thoughts go back to former associations. I first met the president in Torino, Italy, during the first World War. He was on his way to Rome. He was then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. I was back from the front that day. I believe I was looking after production or something. I was informed that the Assistant Secretary of the Navy was coming through and I met him at the station and we had a very pleasant talk - a talk that we recalled some twenty-three years later.


CRIME COMMISSION

I again had dealings with him in 1923 or 1924. He was then the president of a National Crime Commission. I do not remember whether he succeeded Mr. Newton Baker or whether Mr. Baker succeeded him. There was a crime wave throughout the country and prosecutions were slow. Legislation was recommended, by this Commission to meet the more modem methods of the criminals and I had introduced in the House what was then known as the Stolen Property Law. Mr. Roosevelt was very much interested in it, and I had several talks with him about it. From time to time, he would come to Washington and stop at a very mediocre hotel, I mean it was not one of the expensive hotels - the Hotel Continental, and Louis Howe would write me that Mr. Roosevelt would be in Washington and would see me, and I would generally see him early in the morning. I would go up to his bedroom and we would talk it over. Strange, too, that the opposition to the Bill was based on reasons which the president had to meet many, many times after he became president. Oh, it was the old cry of State's rights. You see our State criminal laws had no provisions for extending the jurisdiction of the State beyond its boundaries. Criminals were quick to grasp this in using modem means of communication and transportation. In order to meet that problem jurisdiction was intended to be given to trace stolen goods and apprehend the criminals. That Bill had tough sledding. It was passed by the House and then died in the Senate. The principles of the Bill subsequently became law.

You all remember Mr. Louis Howe, his devoted Secretary. He would write on all matters of interest that came up in Congress, particularly new legislation. I remember receiving letters from Mr. Howe, stating that Mr. Roosevelt was interested in various subjects. I remember when I first introduced a very crude Unemployment Insurance Bill and we had correspondence concerning it. I also remember when I introduced a Bank Deposit Insurance Bill about which we had corresponded.


MEETING WITH PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT


I first met Mr. Roosevelt as President in the fall of 1933. I had been elected Mayor but had not yet taken office and the President invited me to the White House. The country was in a terrible condition then - unemployment, destitution, hunger, illness, confusion, disorder. Not only were people out of employment, but hundreds of thousands of thrifty American families who had saved for a rainy day found that at the time of need, the banks had failed, and closed and that their savings were lost.


FIGHT ON POVERTY

At that first meeting the President discussed with me economic conditions. He told me his plans and he told me what he would expect the Mayors of the cities to do. He had it all so well thought out. He said that he would abolish poverty and discontent. That was his great objective. And later on, the same objective with greater bounds - yes, the world - whereby he would abolish poverty in the world because he knew that it was not necessary.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

After I took office I was very closely associated with the President in all matters pertaining to city life, the life in our City and in American cities throughout the country. A plan was carried out. As we look back, as I said, before, had there been no World War, Roosevelt was great. He pioneered in our country the first Unemployment Insurance Law. Oh, how that was fought! The bitterness of that opposition! He claimed no originality for it, but he hurdled all obstacles, all legalistic technicalities and wrote it on the statute books so permanently that it will never be removed.


AID TO DEPENDENT CHILDREN

He knew what it meant for a family to lose the wage earner and for the widow to find herself with her children unable to care for themselves. He felt the pangs of the mother when the children were taken from her to be placed in an institution, solely on account of poverty. He saw his own State lead in care for dependent children. But that was not enough. He wanted it throughout the country, and for the first time in the history of our country, the Federal Government passed a Dependent Children's Law and made appropriations in aid of states so that mothers could take care of their children.


MINIMUM WAGE AND HOUR LAW

He was a real friend of the working man and woman. He loathed exploitation. We had had reports and surveys and statistics of low, starvation wages in the richest country of the world. He could not stand that. No more surveys and reports for him. I remember that period so well and the joy that he took in forcing through Congress the Minimum Wage and Hour Law. How it lifted millions of exploited men and women into better living conditions.


BANK DEPOSIT INSURANCE

No, he was not the enemy of the banks any more than others who are criticized, who would not give the banks their own way. He argued that "they had. their own way so long, there has been no interference; banks have closed by the thousands." And the First National Bank Deposit Insurance Law was passed through his leadership.


SECURITIES EXCHANGE COMMISSION ACT

He believed in private enterprise but he was not fooled. He knew that in our country it was considered quite proper and quite smart to float issues of bonds and stocks knowing ahead of time that they would be eventually valueless and the investors would lose. Because he knew the system of flotation of issues and the getting out from under after they were dumped on the public he insisted on this Security Exchange Law. It was not new, but he did it. I remember when the Committee on the Judiciary, of which I was a member of the House before Roosevelt took office, had a hearing on a very modest Bill to seek to protect the investor - the Sabbath Bill and my own Bill. I shall never forget the arrogance of the gentlemen who represented the Stock Exchange before that Committee. Oh, they were sure, they laughed at us. When we questioned a certain gentleman, he turned his back and replied, "You men would not understand these matters of finance". They were sure in those days. President Roosevelt came along and forced the passage of a law which he signed, which had been pending before Congress for at least thirty years.


TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY

No one understood better than the president the fullness and the richness of the natural resources of our Country. I do not know all the names that he was called at the time, but he enlarged and expanded Muscle Shoals and established the Tennessee Valley Authority, and brought better and happier conditions to the thousands of homes in that area; he turned the Columbia River, a mighty flow of power that was going to waste, into a great power project, and also at Bonneyville and at Grand Coulee; he mapped out the Rural Electrification System to relieve the drudgery of the farm by giving light, cheer and power to remote districts. Yes, he was truly great. His monuments stand in every home all through our country.


A SENSE OF HUMOR

He had a rare sense of humor and was always very kindly, perhaps at times too kindly. I recall how in 1937, I think it was, I made some remarks about Hitler. I said that Hitler was a brown-shirted fanatic, plunging the whole world into another war. I said that he was not competent to rule any country, and then suggested a Chamber of Horrors for him. The German Ambassador protested. It so happened that I had an appointment to see the president, I think it was on some relief matters. But my statement intervened between the date of the appointment and that day, so naturally the press, when I went to the White House, all believed that I was going there to be reprimanded. Everyone thought that the appointment was in connection with my remarks and the protest of the German Ambassador. When I walked into the room, the President looked at me, kind of smiled, and held out his right hand in mock imitation of the Nazi salute and said, "Heil, Fiorello". I stood at attention, held out my right hand, and said, "Heil, Franklin". He leaned back and laughed. That was all that was said about the Hitler incident. And, incidentally, it was the only time that I ever addressed the President as "Franklin", I always addressed him as "Chief" or "Mr. President".


LOW COST HOUSING

As we look around our own City, or go to the library and see the volumes and volumes of reports and books written on low-cost housing, we stop and realize, and give thanks to the vision and courage of president Roosevelt, for he made it possible in this country. There was no originality claimed; other countries had low-cost public housing. But there was always some one who could find a constitutional reason why the federal government could not aid in those things - for fifty years, from the time that Jacob Reis wrote his book "How the Other Half Live" to the day that President Roosevelt made it possible.


INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

No one better than he understood world conditions in this country. He had no illusions about European politics. He so correctly interpreted world politics. When the War broke out in Europe, he did all that was humanly possible from the moment of Munich until the invasion of Poland. Even after that, when it was seen that Italy would plunge into the War, he went to the extreme limits and beyond that as the Head of a Nation to save Italy that disgrace, that degradation, that damage. I know that he made personal appeals. He even sought friends who had friends in Italy to do what they could. That last Sunday before the Declaration, thousands of messages went from this land to Italy. He went through a most difficult period and I have intimate knowledge of those days, from the time of the invasion of Poland to the day of Pearl Harbor. He really believed that the War might be brought to an end by giving aid to the forces who were fighting Nazism and Fascism. He wanted to do it. He made history in the meantime. He took great chances. The idea of the destroyers to Great Britain was his. That required great courage. No President in the history of our Country took such chances in the hope of avoiding war. There might be ground for discussion on that act, as there has been for over a century since Thomas Jefferson culminated the Louisiana Purchase. It was necessary then, it was necessary in our time.


LOVE FOR PEOPLE

President Roosevelt loved life. He loved folks, he loved children. No home suffered any more in reading a casualty list than did the President.


DARK DAYS OF 1941 - '42

We went through very dark days in 1941 and after 1941. 1942 was a hard year. Few people today realize the danger we were in. History will tell how close the invasion of Great Britain was at that time and what our plans were in that event. The President had appointed me five years ago as the Chairman of the American Section of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense with Canada. We lived through that very difficult period. He was hopeful though that something would come out of it all.


NEWSPAPER

Now the World is sorrowed. He had gone through hard journeys to make this something possible, perhaps you have seen pictures of the president with Mr. Churchill and Mr. Stalin during their conference at Yalta. Some people said that the president did not look well. No, he does not look as hardy as Mr. Churchill or Mr. Stalin. But look at that picture again. Don't you see what I see? There is hope, there is a soul back of that picture. He was not thinking of boundaries; he was not thinking of empires; he was thinking of the peace-loving people of the world and of establishing something that would endure this time. Yes, he loved folks, perhaps you have seen a picture of the President, swimming in the pool at Warm Springs with a little child's arms around him, her first dip. She, too, had been stricken and perhaps, in all likelihood, a few minutes before the child had been afraid of going into the water. Look at the confidence in the face of that child. She knows he will carry her through.


LOSS HAS A MEANING

You know, this just can not happen without a reason. Let no one take faith from us. There must be something Supreme that caused these things to happen. Let no one take the belief in life-everlasting from us. On another occasion a great leader gave his life that the World might have permanent peace. He gave his life at the end of the fight - a fight that had been lost - and he died a broken-hearted man. The American people seem to have a divine warning now, for here is another leader who gave his life. He first gave us his physical strength in order to make the American people strong to fight a righteous war against the forces of evil, and he gave his life to give us the courage to be determined and united as a Country, bringing our moral force to the rest of the world in establishing some machinery to avoid the wholesale slaughter of modern war. It must come home to all - those who liked him in life and those who only after death fully appreciate the force and the good of this great man. It grips every one of us.


MOURNING MUST GIVE WAY TO WORK AND ACTION

We have to snap out of it. He would not want us to do this. We must not continue to mourn with our minds and our hands. Oh, yes, we will have grief in our hearts as long as we live, but we must use our minds now for clear thinking. We must use our hands for hard working. There is work to be done - work that he entrusted to you and to me. Roosevelt is not dead. He is keeping a rendezvous with destiny. He is leading the way to inspire, to urge on, the completion of the work that he started - a further responsibility for all Americans to show a united front in order to prove and demonstrate our belief in him, our faith in him; to carry out the purpose of his destiny for a common world for the common people and the Common Man as he understood it - not a mass of exploited and impoverished people, but great masses of people throughout the world, enjoying the dignity and self-respect of free citizens with the opportunity of living happily and in peace with their families: to translate his firm conviction that God Almighty had given to this World sufficient food, clothes and shelter, so that all may have all that they need. Are we going to fail him? Are we just going to droop down and call it hokus? Why, no indeed. He did not live, he did not die for that.


DUTY TO CARRY ON

There is a duty on all of us to give of all our strength and effort in support of those who will carry on in his faith, letting the whole world know that the American people are back of the program - the world peace program of Franklin Roosevelt. That is our responsibility, to work for the better world that he planned: to make war impossible in the future; to make life better and happier for all the peoples of the world. Yes, there is hope, there is hope in the breasts of thousands of millions of people throughout the world. Tonight in all the countries of the world, in every language spoken throughout the world, as young mothers will tuck their little children into bed and after hearing them lisp, "Now I lay me down to sleep" and end with "God bless mama and papa", they should say, "God bless Roosevelt".


Patience and Fortitude.