In regard to the relationship of government to certain processes of business, to which I have referred, it seems clear to me that existing laws undoubtedly require reconstruction.  I expect, therefore, to address the Congress in a special message on this subject, and I hope to have the help of business in the efforts of government to help business.

I have spoken of labor as another essential in the three great groups of the population in raising the Nation’s income.  Definite strides in collective bargaining have been made and the right of labor to organize has been nationally accepted.  Nevertheless in the evolution of the process difficult situations have arisen in localities and among groups.  Unfortunate divisions relating to jurisdiction among the workers themselves have retarded production within given industries and have, therefore, affected related industries.  The construction of homes and other buildings has been hindered in some localities not only by unnecessarily high prices for materials but also by certain hourly wage scales.

For economic and social reasons our principal interest for the near future lies along two lines:  first, the immediate desirability of increasing the wages of the lowest paid groups in all industry; and, second, in thinking in terms of regularizing the work of the individual worker more greatly through the year—­in other words, in thinking more in terms of the worker’s total pay for a period of a whole year rather than in terms of his remuneration by the hour or by the day.

In the case of labor as in the case of capital, misrepresentation of the policy of the government of the United States is deception which will not long deceive.  In both cases we seek cooperation.  In every case power and responsibility must go hand in hand.

I have spoken of economic causes which throw the Nation’s income out of balance; I have spoken of practices and abuses which demand correction through the cooperation of capital and labor with the government.  But no government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.  There must be proof that sectional and class interests are prepared more greatly than they are today to be national in outlook.

A government can punish specific acts of spoliation; but no government can conscript cooperation.  We have improved some matters by way of remedial legislation.  But where in some particulars that legislation has failed we cannot be sure whether it fails because some of its details are unwise or because it is being sabotaged.  At any rate, we hold our objectives and our principles to be sound.  We will never go back on them.

Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of its citizenship.  If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make fitting response.