Because, in every step which your government is taking we are
thinking in terms of the average of you--in the old words, "the
greatest good to the greatest number"--we, as reasonable people,
cannot expect to bring definite benefits to every person or to
every occupation or business, or industry or agriculture. In the
same way, no reasonable person can expect that in this short space
of time, during which new machinery had to be not only put to work,
but first set up, that every locality in every one of the forty-
eight states of the country could share equally and simultaneously
in the trend to better times.
The whole picture, however--the average of the whole territory from
coast to coast--the average of the whole population of 120,000,000
people--shows to any person willing to look, facts and action of
which you and I can be proud.
In the early spring of this year there were actually and
proportionately more people out of work in this country than in any
other nation in the world. Fair estimates showed twelve or thirteen
millions unemployed last March. Among those there were, of course,
several millions who could be classed as normally unemployed--
people who worked occasionally when they felt like it, and others
who preferred not to work at all. It seems, therefore, fair to say
that there were about 10 millions of our citizens who earnestly,
and in many cases hungrily, were seeking work and could not get it.
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