Ellen’s Blog

“We had a bad banking situation.  Some of our bankers had shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the peoples’ funds.  They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans.  This was, of course, not true in the vast majority of our banks, but it was true in enough of them to shock the people of the United States for a time into a sense of insecurity and to put them into a frame of mind where they did not differentiate, but seemed to assume that the acts of a comparative few had tainted them all.  And so it became the government’s job to straighten out his situation and to do it as quickly as possible. 

And that job is being performed.  After all, there is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people themselves.  Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan.  You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumor or guesses.  Let us unite in banishing fear.  We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system; an it is up to  you to support and make it work. 

It is your problem, my friends, your problem no less than it is mine.  Together we cannot fail.” 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, March 12, 1933

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