As we review the achievements of this session of the 73rd Congress, it is made increasingly clear, that its task was essentially that of completing and fortifying the work, that had begun in March, 1933. That was no easy task, but the Congress was equal to it.
It has been well said, that while there were a few exceptions, this Congress displayed a greater freedom from mere partisanship, than any other peacetime Congress, in our history, since the administration of President Washington.
Substantial gains, well known to all of you, have justified our cause. I could site statistics to show you, as answerable measures of our national progress. Figures to show you average gain in the weekly pay envelope of workers in the great majority of our industry. Figures to show hundreds of thousands, of people re-employed in private industries, and other hundreds of thousands, given new employment, through the expansion of direct and indirect government assistance, of various kinds.
In the working out of a great national program, that seeks the primary good of the greater number, it is true that the toes of some people are being stepped on, and are going to be stepped on, but these toes belong to the comparative few, who seek to retain, or to gain, position, or riches, or both, by some short cut, that is harmful to the greater good.
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A few timid people, who fear progress, will try to give you new and strange names for what we are doing; sometimes they will call it fascism, and sometimes communism, and sometimes regimentation, and sometimes socialism, but in so doing, they are trying to make very complex, and theoretical, something that is really very simple, and very practical. I believe in practical explanations, and in practical policies, I believe what we are doing today is a necessary fulfillment, of what Americans have always been doing, a fulfillment of old and tested American ideals.
