A study of our national resources, more comprehensive than any previously made, shows the vast amount of necessary and practicable work which needs to be done for the development and preservation of our natural wealth for the enjoyment and advantage of our people in generations to come.  The sound use of land and water is far more comprehensive than the mere planting of trees, building of dams, distributing of electricity or retirement of sub-marginal land.  It recognizes that stranded populations, either in the country or the city, cannot have security under the conditions that now surround them.

To this end we are ready to begin to meet this problem—­the intelligent care of population throughout our Nation, in accordance with an intelligent distribution of the means of livelihood for that population.  A definite program for putting people to work, of which I shall speak in a moment, is a component part of this greater program of security of livelihood through the better use of our national resources.

Closely related to the broad problem of livelihood is that of security against the major hazards of life.  Here also, a comprehensive survey of what has been attempted or accomplished in many Nations and in many States proves to me that the time has come for action by the national Government.  I shall send to you, in a few days, definite recommendations based on these studies.  These recommendations will cover the broad subjects of unemployment insurance and old age insurance, of benefits for children, form others, for the handicapped, for maternity care and for other aspects of dependency and illness where a beginning can now be made.

The third factor—­better homes for our people—­has also been the subject of experimentation and study.  Here, too, the first practical steps can be made through the proposals which I shall suggest in relation to giving work to the unemployed.

Whatever we plan and whatever we do should be in the light of these three clear objectives of security.  We cannot afford to lose valuable time in haphazard public policies which cannot find a place in the broad outlines of these major purposes.  In that spirit I come to an immediate issue made for us by hard and inescapable circumstance—­the task of putting people to work.  In the spring of 1933 the issue of destitution seemed to stand apart; today, in the light of our experience and our new national policy, we find we can put people to work in ways which conform to, initiate and carry forward the broad principles of that policy.

The first objectives of emergency legislation of 1933 were to relieve destitution, to make it possible for industry to operate in a more rational and orderly fashion, and to put behind industrial recovery the impulse of large expenditures in Government undertakings.  The purpose of the National Industrial Recovery Act to provide work for more people succeeded in a substantial manner within the first few months of its life, and the Act has continued to maintain employment gains and greatly improved working conditions in industry.