They hold out the clear hope that government within
communities, government within the separate States, and government
of the United States can do the things the times require, without
yielding its democracy. Our tasks in the last four years did not
force democracy to take a holiday.
Nearly all of us recognize that as intricacies of human
relationships increase, so power to govern them also must
increase--power to stop evil; power to do good. The essential
democracy of our Nation and the safety of our people depend not
upon the absence of power, but upon lodging it with those whom the
people can change or continue at stated intervals through an
honest and free system of elections. The Constitution of 1787 did
not make our democracy impotent.
In fact, in these last four years, we have made the exercise of
all power more democratic; for we have begun to bring private
autocratic powers into their proper subordination to the public's
government. The legend that they were invincible--above and beyond
the processes of a democracy--has been shattered. They have been
challenged and beaten.
Our progress out of the depression is obvious. But that is not all
that you and I mean by the new order of things. Our pledge was not
merely to do a patchwork job with secondhand materials.
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