Shall we expose our population once more by the repeal of laws which protect them against the loss of their honest investments and against the manipulations of dishonest speculators?  Shall we abandon the splendid efforts of the Federal Government to raise the health standards of the Nation and to give youth a decent opportunity through such means as the Civilian Conservation Corps?

Members of the Congress, let these challenges be met.  If this is what these gentlemen want, let them say so to the Congress of the United States.  Let them no longer hide their dissent in a cowardly cloak of generality.  Let them define the issue.  We have been specific in our affirmative action.  Let them be specific in their negative attack.

But the challenge faced by this Congress is more menacing than merely a return to the past—­bad as that would be.  Our resplendent economic autocracy does not want to return to that individualism of which they prate, even though the advantages under that system went to the ruthless and the strong.  They realize that in thirty-four months we have built up new instruments of public power.  In the hands of a people’s Government this power is wholesome and proper.  But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people.  Give them their way and they will take the course of every autocracy of the past—­power for themselves, enslavement for the public.

Their weapon is the weapon of fear.  I have said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  That is as true today as it was in 1933.  But such fear as they instill today is not a natural fear, a normal fear; it is a synthetic, manufactured, poisonous fear that is being spread subtly, expensively and cleverly by the same people who cried in those other days, “Save us, save us, lest we perish.”

I am confident that the Congress of the United States well understands the facts and is ready to wage unceasing warfare against those who seek a continuation of that spirit of fear.  The carrying out of the laws of the land as enacted by the Congress requires protection until final adjudication by the highest tribunal of the land.  The Congress has the right and can find the means to protect its own prerogatives.

We are justified in our present confidence.  Restoration of national income, which shows continuing gains for the third successive year, supports the normal and logical policies under which agriculture and industry are returning to full activity.  Under these policies we approach a balance of the national budget.  National income increases; tax receipts, based on that income, increase without the levying of new taxes.  That is why I am able to say to this, the Second Session of the 74th Congress, that it is my belief based on existing laws that no new taxes, over and above the present taxes, are either advisable or necessary.

National income increases; employment increases.  Therefore, we can look forward to a reduction in the number of those citizens who are in need.  Therefore, also, we can anticipate a reduction in our appropriations for relief.