    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [May 2, 1997]
    [Pages 531-533]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Dedication of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
    May 2, 1997

        Thank you very much, Senator Inouye; Senator Hatfield; Your
    Highness; my longtime friend David Roosevelt and the members of the
    Roosevelt family; Mr. Vice President; to all those who have worked to
    make this day a reality. Let me begin by saying to Senator Inouye and
    Senator Hatfield, the United States proudly accepts the Franklin Delano
    Roosevelt Memorial.
        Fittingly, this is the first occasion of its kind in more than 50
    years. The last time the American people gathered near here was in 1943
    when President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the memorial to Thomas
    Jefferson. Today we honor the greatest President of this great American
    Century.
        As has been said, FDR actually wanted no memorial. For years, none
    seemed necessary, for two reasons. First, the America he built was a
    memorial all around us. From the Golden Gate Bridge to the Grand Coulee
    Dam, from Social Security to honest financial markets, from an America
    that has remained the world's indispensable nation to our shared
    conviction that all Americans must make our journey together, Roosevelt
    was all around us. Second, though many of us never lived under his
    leadership, many who did are still around, and we have all heard about
    him from our parents or grandparents--some of us, as we pass by WPA or
    CCC projects along country roads, some of us as we looked at the old
    radios that our parents and grandparents kept and heard stories about
    the fireside chats and how the people felt.
        Today he is still very real to millions upon millions of Americans,
    inspiring us, urging us on. But the world turns, and memories fade. And
    now, more than a half-century after he left us, it is right that we go a
    little beyond his stated wishes and dedicate this memorial as a tribute
    to Franklin Roosevelt, to Eleanor, and to the remarkable triumphs of
    their generation.
        President Roosevelt said--[applause]--thank you. President Roosevelt
    said, ``We have faith that future generations will know that here, in
    the middle of the 20th century, there came a time when men of good will
    found a way to unite and produce and fight to destroy the forces of
    ignorance and intolerance and slavery and war.'' This memorial will be
    the embodiment of FDR's faith, for it will ensure that all future
    generations will know. It will ensure that they will all see the ``happy
    warrior'' keeping America's rendezvous with destiny.
        As we stand at the dawn of a bright new century, this memorial will
    encourage us, reminding us that whenever America acts with certainty of
    purpose and FDR's famous flexibility of mind, we have always been more
    than equal to whatever challenges we face.
        Winston Churchill said that President Roosevelt's life was one of
    the commanding events in human history. He came from privilege, but he
    understood the aspirations of farmers and factory workers and forgotten
    Americans. He electrified the farms and hollows, but even more
    important, he electrified the Nation, instilling confidence with every
    tilt of his head and boom of his laugh. His was an open, American spirit
    with a fine sense for the possible and a keen appreciation of the art of
    leadership. He was a master politician and a magnificent Commander in
    Chief.
        And his partner was also magnificent. Eleanor Roosevelt was his eyes
    and his ears, going places he could not go, to see things he would never
    see, to come back and tell him how things actually were. And her reports
    were formed as words

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    in his speeches that touched little people all across America who could
    not imagine that the President of the United States knew how they lived
    and cared about them. She was his conscience and our Nation's
    conscience.
        Franklin Roosevelt's mission was to change America to preserve its
    ancient virtues in the face of new and unprecedented challenges. That
    is, after all, America's mission in all times of change and difficulty.
    The depth and sweep of it was unprecedented, when FDR asked a shaken
    nation to put its confidence in him. But he had no doubt of the outcome.
        Listen to what he said in September 1932, shortly before he was
    elected for the first time. He proclaimed his faith: ``Faith in America,
    faith in our tradition of personal responsibility, faith in our
    institutions, faith in ourselves demanded we recognize the new terms of
    an old social contract. New conditions imposed new requirements upon
    government and upon those who conduct government.'' That was his faith.
    He lived it, and we are here as a result.
        With that faith, he forged a strong and unapologetic Government,
    determined to tame the savage cycles of boom and bust, able to meet the
    national challenges too big for families and individuals to meet on
    their own. And when he restored dignity to old age, when he helped
    millions to keep their farms or own their homes, when he provided the
    simple opportunity to go to work in the morning to millions, he was
    proving that the American dream was not a distant glimmer but something
    every American could grasp. And then that faith of his infused all of
    his countrymen.
        With that faith, he inspired millions of ordinary Americans to take
    responsibility for one another, doing their part, in his words, through
    the National Recovery Administration, reclaiming nature through the
    Civilian Conservation Corps, gathering scrap, giving up nylons, and
    eventually storming the beaches at Normandy and Okinawa and Anzio.
        With that faith, he committed our Nation to lead the world, first as
    the arsenal of democracy and then at the head of the great crusade to
    free the world from tyranny. Before the war began, the four freedoms set
    the foundation for the future and made it clear to the whole world that
    America's goal was not domination, but a dominion of freedom in a world
    at peace.
        With that faith, as the war neared an end he would never see, he
    traced the very architecture of our future, from the GI bill to the
    United Nations. Faith in the extraordinary potential of ordinary people
    sparked not only our victory over war, depression, and doubt, but it
    began the opening of doors and the raising of sights for the
    dispossessed in America that has continued down to the present day.
        It was that faith in his own extraordinary potential that enabled
    him to guide his country from a wheelchair. And from that wheelchair and
    a few halting steps, leaning on his son's arms or those of trusted
    aides, he lifted a great people back to their feet and set America to
    march again toward its destiny.
        He said over and over again in different ways that we had only to
    fear fear itself. We did not have to be afraid of pain or adversity or
    failure, for all those could be overcome. He knew that, of course,
    because that is exactly what he did. And with his faith and the power of
    this example, we did conquer them all, depression, war, and doubt.
        Now we see that faith again alive in America. We are grateful beyond
    measure for our own unprecedented prosperity. But we must remember the
    source of that faith. And again, let me say to Senator Inouye and
    others, by showing President Roosevelt as he was, we show the world that
    we have faith that in America you are measured for what you are and what
    you have achieved, not for what you have lost. And we encourage all who
    face their difficulties and overcome them not to give in to fear but to
    believe in their possibilities.
        And now, again, we need the faith of Franklin Roosevelt in an
    entirely different time, but still no ordinary time, for in this time,
    new livelihoods demand new skills. We have to fight against the enormous
    destructive influences that still grip the lives of too many of our
    young people. We must struggle to make our rich racial, ethnic, and
    religious diversity a source of strength and unity when such differences
    are the undoing of millions and millions around the world. And we must
    fight against that nagging old doubt.
        It is a strange irony of our time that here, at the moment of our
    greatest prosperity and progress in so many years--in 1932, one in 4
    Americans was out of work; this morning we learned that fewer than one
    in 20 Americans are out of work for the first time in more than 2
    decades. And at this time, where the pinnacle that Roosevelt hoped
    America would achieve in

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    our influence and power has come to pass, we still, strangely, fight
    battles with doubts, doubts that he would treat with great impatience
    and disdain, doubts that lead some to urge us to pull back from the
    world at the very first time since Roosevelt's time when we actually can
    realize his vision of world peace and world prosperity and the dominance
    of the ideals for which he gave his life.
        Let us honor his vision not only with this memorial today but by
    acting in the way he would tell us to act if he were standing here
    giving this speech, on his braces, looking at us and smiling at us and
    telling us we know what we have to do. We are Americans. We must have
    faith, we must not be afraid, and we must lead.
        The great legacy of Roosevelt is a vision and a challenge--not a set
    of specific programs but a set of commitments--the duty we owe to
    ourselves, to one another, to our beloved Nation, and increasingly, to
    our fellow travelers on this small planet.
        Now we are surrounded by the monuments to the leaders who built our
    democracy: Washington, who launched our great experiment and created our
    Republic; Jefferson, who enshrined forever our creed that it is self-
    evident that we are all created equal, with unalienable rights to life,
    liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; Lincoln, who gave his life to
    preserve Mr. Washington's Republic and to make real Mr. Jefferson's
    words; and now, Franklin Roosevelt, who saved freedom from tyranny, who
    restored our Republic, who defined Mr. Jefferson's creed to include
    freedom from want and fear. Today, before the pantheon of our democracy,
    let us resolve to honor them all by shepherding their legacy into a new
    century, into a new millennium.
        Our mission is to prepare America for the time to come, to write a
    new chapter of our history, inspired always by the greatest source of
    hope in our history. Thomas Jefferson wrote the words, but Franklin
    Roosevelt lived them out every day. Today I ask you to remember what he
    was writing at Warm Springs when he died, that last speech: ``The only
    limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us
    move forward with strong and active faith.''
        My fellow Americans, every time you think of Franklin Roosevelt, put
    aside your doubts, become more American, become more like him, be
    infused with his strong and active faith.
        God bless you, God bless America, and may God always bless the
    memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:50 a.m. at the memorial. In his remarks,
    he referred to David B. Roosevelt, cochair, FDR Memorial Capital
    Campaign; and Princess Margriet of The Netherlands, President
    Roosevelt's goddaughter.