"We Must Act"

"0 Lord, our Heavenly Father, the high and mighty ruler of the Universe, Who dost from Thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; most heartily we beseech Thee, with Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, Franklin, chosen to be the President of the United States. . . ."

His face cupped in his hands Franklin Delano Roosevelt began the biggest day of his life with that prayer ringing in his ears at Washington's St. John's Episcopal Church, across Lafayette Park from the White House. For the 20-minute service in the plain white chapel he had gathered about him his family, his Cabinet, a few close friends. At the altar in cassock & surplice stood his old schoolmaster, Groton's Dr. Endicott ("Peabo") Peabody who had married him to Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. From his heart, from the hearts of his little band of worshippers, from the heart of a stricken nation rose a wordless appeal for divine strength to right great ills. . . . The President-elect stood up in his pew, squared back his shoulders. As he walked out of St. John's, a brief streak of sunlight shot down upon him through grey wintry clouds.

Uphill. Before the White House portico Mr. Roosevelt kept his seat in the car, waited a few minutes for President Hoover to join him for the ride up Capitol Hill. A lift of silk hats, a quick handshake, a few formal words and their greeting was over. With the country's most precious cargo behind, Richard Jervis, silvery-haired chief of the White House Secret Service, slipped into the front seat of the car, kept its door cracked and one hand on his pocketed pistol.

Whizzing up Pennsylvania Avenue, the Hoover-Roosevelt car missed its cavalry escort, had to pause before the Post Office building to let the horsemen catch up. On the mile-&-a-quarter drive Mr. Roosevelt kept up a running fire of conversation with Mr. Hoover. The President, his face drawn and lowered, replied in monosyllables. Street crowds along the way pattered out mild applause which the incoming President left to the outgoing President to acknowledge as his final tribute.

"We'll Wait." As the car swung around to the long-unused north entrance to the Capitol Mr. Roosevelt noticed that the flags on the building were half-staffed. That was for the death of Montana's Senator Thomas James Walsh, his Attorney General-designate. Once inside the Capitol, they separated. Mr. Hoover going to the President's room to sign bills, Mr. Roosevelt to the Military Affairs Committee Room down the same hall to kill time. Louisiana's Long, spying the new President, started to sweep in upon him blatantly, changed his mind at the threshold, tiptoed away. Mr. Roosevelt was restless to get going. Ten minutes before noon he moved down the corridor toward the Senate, only to be stopped at the door, told that it was not yet time for his entrance. "All right, we'll go back and wait some more," he laughed.

Finally inside the Senate and seated beside Democratic Leader Robinson, Mr. Roosevelt flashed his friendly smile all about the chamber. He heard John Nance Garner's low "I do" as he took the oath as Vice President from Charles Curtis. Curtis: ''It is with deep emotion that I bid you good-by and go forth from here a private citizen." Garner: ''This is my first and possibly my last opportunity to address the Senate." During the singsong swearing-in of new Senators, Mr. Roosevelt and Senator Robinson put their heads together, whispered.

Black Acres. Meanwhile ten times ten thousand men, women & children had gathered before the inaugural platform on the East Front of the Capitol. They blackened 40 acres of park and pavement. They sat on benches. They filled bare trees. They perched on roof tops. But for all the flags and music and ceremony, they were not a happy, carefree crowd. Their bank accounts were frozen by what amounted to a national moratorium. Many of them wondered how they could raise the cash to get home. Their mass spirits were as sombre as the grey sky above. Yet they remained doggedly hopeful that this new President with his New Deal would somehow solve their worries and send them away in brighter mood.

Before them on the platform the high and mighty of the land were indiscriminately packed together at close quarters. Frail Secretary of the Treasury Woodin could not press through to his reserved seat, was cheerfully content with standing room in the background. Postmaster General Farley shouldered his way about winking slyly at friends. Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt Sr. managed to squeeze through to their places. Vice President Garner appeared with a borrowed muffler wrapped around his neck. President Hoover wormed his way down from the rotunda to a front-row seat. He kept his eyes glued on his knees. Mrs. Hoover, in brown, sat by him close and comforting. The crowd had rarely seen President Hoover look so grave.

Oath. Ta-ta-Ta-ta-aa sounded a bugle. Through the great bronze doors that tell the story of Columbus, appeared the President-elect leaning on the arm of his son James. From the door to the platform had been built a special ramp, carpeted in maroon. Down this he shuffled slowly while the crowd cheered and the Marine Band played "Hail to the Chief." When he reached the front of the platform, he turned right and faced Chief Justice Hughes. An aide held out a Dutch Bible that had been in the Roosevelt family for three centuries. It was open at the 13th Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians ("Faith, Hope & Charity"). Mr. Roosevelt rested his hand on the Bible. Chief Justice Hughes recited the oath. In a loud, clear voice, like a bridegroom at the altar Mr. Roosevelt did the extraordinary thing of repeating it after him :

"I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God!"

Instantly President Roosevelt, without hat or overcoat in the chill wind, swung around to the crowd before him, launched vigorously into his inaugural address. His easy smile was gone. His large chin was thrust out defiantly as if at some invisible, insidious foe. A challenge rang in his clear strong voice. For 20 vibrant minutes he held his audience, seen and unseen, under a strong spell. Only occasionally was he interrupted by cheers & applause.

"My Friends!" he began. "This is a day of national consecration. . . . The only thing we have to fear is fear itself-- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

''Our common difficulties concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunk to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce: the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. A host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

"Primarily, this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted. True, they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money.

"Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.

"The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.

"There must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance.

"This nation asks for action, and action now. Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war. We must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centres.

"The task can be helped by insistence that the Federal, state and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can never be helped by merely talking about it. We must act, and act quickly.

''There must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.

"These are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment.

"Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy.

"In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor.

"If we are to go forward we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline. I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army.

"It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But in the event that the Congress shall fail I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis--broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

"In this dedication of a nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us! May He guide me in the days to come!"

Exit Hoover. Citizen Hoover, on whose forehead dark little knots of disagreement came and went during the address, was afterwards among the first to shove forward, shake President Roosevelt's hand. Slithering sidewise out of the platform pack with Mrs. Hoover, he was driven to Union Station, entrained for New York amid a hearty little demonstration of admirers.

Downhill. The lines melted quickly from President Roosevelt's face as he was helped down another ramp and into an open car. The steady cheering of the crowd he answered by strenuously shaking his hands over his head in prize-ring fashion. As the machine rolled back down Pennsylvania Avenue, the President flourished his topper right & left until his wife advised him to keep it on.

18,000 Marchers. After a White House snack (Senator Walsh's death caused cancellation of the luncheon for 500) President Roosevelt, with family & friends, took his place in the glass-fronted stand on Pennsylvania Avenue to review the inaugural parade, 18.000 strong. Ill in Arizona, General Pershing had to turn its command over to Chief of Staff MacArthur. For three hours, propped up on a high stool, the President watched column after stiff column swing by. The only Republican in sight was a make-believe Lincoln who bowed before the reviewing stand. No ovation along the line compared in volume and spontaneity with the one given to a solid, florid man who, wearing the insignia of a Sachem around his neck, strode along in the forefront of the Tammany delegation. He waved his silk hat at the man in the stand and President Roosevelt wigwagged back to Alfred Emanuel Smith.

"A Good Show/' At dusk the files were still tramping by when the President broke off and returned to the White House to find a tea for thousands in progress on the main floor. Even some Republicans attended--Hoover Secretaries Hurley and Doak, "to pay respects," they explained. Avoiding the throng, President Roosevelt went up to the second-floor study where his whole Cabinet, confirmed a few hours before by the Senate, was assembled to be sworn in. Supreme Court Justice Cardozo, a New Yorker, administered oaths while the President sat at a desk and listened to the chorus of "I do's." Then he gave each Secretary a freshly-signed commission and a handshake. Miss Perkins, as head of the Labor Department, was ready to be addressed as "Madame Secretary." "Just a family party--and a good show," chuckled Mr. Roosevelt as he went down to the Red Room to keep an old promise and greet 13 crippled youngsters from Warm Springs.

To Bed. That night 72 Roosevelts & kin dined at the White House. Republican Alice Roosevelt Longworth broke bread with her Democratic fifth cousin. Afterwards the First Lady took five carloads of relatives to the Inaugural Ball. John, her youngest son, escorted Barbara Gushing, sister of his brother James's wife. Around the floor of the Washington Auditorium they shuffled with 6,000 other dancers while 2.000 oldsters watched from boxes. The proceeds went to charity.

The President stayed quietly in his upstairs study, talking over the events of his biggest day with his old crony-Secretary Louis Howe. At 10:30 p.m. he stood up. yawned, went peacefully to bed.

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