Commonwealth Club Address
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The ''Commonwealth Club Address'' (23 September 1932) was a speech made by
New York Governor The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has a ...
and Democratic presidential nominee
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
at the
Commonwealth Club of California The Commonwealth Club of California is a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization based in Northern California. Founded in 1903, it is the oldest and largest public affairs forum in the United States. Membership is open to everyone. Act ...
in San Francisco on his 1932 presidential campaign. Roosevelt said the era of growth and unrestricted entrepreneurship had ended, and the individualism must give way to collective action. He was not at all specific, but he hinted at liberal reforms of the sort that emerged in The First Hundred Days after his inauguration in March 1933. Scholars rate it among the 100 greatest speeches made by a President in the 20th century.


Roosevelt's argument

Roosevelt was long on history and short on specifics. He sketched a philosophical foundation for the
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
, and ultimately for a
Second Bill of Rights The Second Bill of Rights or Bill of Economic Rights was proposed by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, January 11, 1944. In his address, Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come ...
that he was committed to achieving over the course of his administration. Most historians consider it prophetic regarding the actual content of New Deal liberalism. The great era of rapid economic growth had ended, Roosevelt argued. In the days when growth was all-important, he agreed that it had been necessary to turn political and
economic power Economic power refers to the ability of countries, businesses or individuals to improve living standards. It increases their ability to make decisions on their own that benefit them. Scholars of international relations also refer to the economic p ...
over to entrepreneurs who were building the nation. But the era of economic growth was over he said; the entrepreneurs are now dangerous: : A mere builder of more industrial plants, a creator of more railroad systems, an organizer of more corporations, is as likely to be a danger as a help. The day of the great promoter or the financial Titan, to whom we granted anything if only he would build, or develop, is over. Roosevelt said that further growth was unnecessary: "Our task now is not discovery or exploitation of natural resources, or necessarily producing more goods." What America instead needed to do: :Is the soberer, less dramatic business of administering resources and plants already in hand, of seeking to reestablish foreign markets for our surplus production, of meeting the problem of underconsumption, of adjusting production to consumption, of distributing wealth and products more equitably, of adapting existing economic organizations to the service of the people. The day of enlightened administration has come. Parts of his speech had a gloomy tone: "A glance at the situation today only too clearly indicates that equality of opportunity as we have known it no longer exists." "We are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already." However he did hint at reforms that would bring about a better world: "Every man has a right to life; and this means that he has also a right to make a comfortable living." Biographer
Frank Freidel Frank Burt Freidel, Jr. (May 22, 1916 – January 25, 1993) was an American historian, the first major biographer of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and one of the first scholars to work on his papers stored in the Roosevelt Library ...
emphasizes that Roosevelt wanted government to "act as a regulator for the common good within the existing economic system." Roosevelt believed his philosophy was in accord with the traditions of Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson, as modified to deal with a much more complex and mature economic order.


Reception

The response to the speech by the 2000-member luncheon audience and by the national media was tepid. Some thought it too socialistic; others considered it too academic in tone, especially for its long passages on the lessons of American and European history. Roosevelt did not try to rework his material into simpler speeches. He moved on to other topics, and received a rousing reception to the more usual speech he gave that same evening. The speech was written by
Adolf A. Berle Adolf Augustus Berle Jr. (; January 29, 1895 – February 17, 1971) was an American lawyer, educator, writer, and diplomat. He was the author of ''The Modern Corporation and Private Property'', a groundbreaking work on corporate governance, a prof ...
and his wife Beatrice, who worked on Roosevelt's campaign office.Eden, 1993


Further reading

* Eden, Robert. "On the Origins of the Regime of Pragmatic Liberalism: John Dewey, Adolf A. Berle, and FDR's Commonwealth Club Address of 1932." ''Studies in American Political Development'' (1993) 7#1 pp: 74-150. * Freidel, Frank. ''Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Triumph'' (1956). pp 353–55 * Houck, D.W. "Commonwealth Club Address: Redefining Individualism, Adjudicating Greatness
7(3) Rhetoric & Public Affairs (2004) 7#3 pp 259+
* Leff, Michael. "Prudential Argument and the Use of History in Franklin D. Roosevelt's 'Commonwealth Club' Address." ''Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Argumentation'' ed. by Frans H. van Eemeren, et al. 1992.


Primary sources

* Franklin D. Roosevelt, Campaign Address on Progressive Government at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, California Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Projec


See also

*
Second Bill of Rights The Second Bill of Rights or Bill of Economic Rights was proposed by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, January 11, 1944. In his address, Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come ...


Notes

{{Franklin D. Roosevelt American political philosophy Speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt History of the United States New Deal Rhetoric 1932 in California