FDR Re: Labor Day

[lame54]

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/address-president-delivered-radio-white-house-september-6-1936

September 6th, 2010 8:42 AM
ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT DELIVERED BY RADIO FROM THE WHITE HOUSE: September 6, 1936

...Tomorrow is Labor Day. Labor Day in this country has never been a class holiday. It has always been a national holiday. It has never had more significance as a national holiday than it has now. In other countries the relationship of employer and employee has more or less been accepted as a class relationship not readily to be broken through. In this country we insist, as an essential of the American way of life, that the employer-employee relationship should be one between free men and equals. We refuse to regard those who work with hand or brain as different from or inferior to those who live from their property. We insist that labor is entitled to as much respect as property. But our workers with hand and brain deserve more than respect for their labor. They deserve practical protection in the opportunity to use their labor at a return adequate to support them at a decent and constantly rising standard of living, and to accumulate a margin of security against the inevitable vicissitudes of life.
The average man must have that twofold opportunity if we are to avoid the growth of a class conscious society in this country...

...The Fourth of July commemorates our political freedom -- a freedom which without economic freedom is meaningless indeed. Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the average man which will give his political freedom reality.