Democracy can thrive only when it enlists the devotion of those whom Lincoln called the common people. Democracy can hold that devotion only when it adequately respects their dignity by so ordering society as to assure to the masses of men and women reasonable security and hope for themselves and for their children.

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

To bring about government by oligarchy, masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our Federal government. . . The individual sovereignty of our states must first be destroyed.

The public schools shall be free from sectarian influences and, above all, free from any attitude of hostility to the adherents of any particular creed.

I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust.

The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of a sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America.

I fearthat both dictators [Hitler and Mussolini] think their present methods are succeeding because of the gains they have made in Albania, Hungary and Yugoslavia.