Those words freedom and opportunity do not mean a license to climb upwards by pushing other people down. Any paternalistic system that tries to provide for security for everyone from above only calls for an impossible task and a regimentation utterly uncongenial to the spirit of our people.
ATTRIBUTION:
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), U.S. president. FDR Speaks authorized edition of speeches, 1933-1945 (recordings of Franklin Roosevelt’s public addresses), side 2, Young Democrats clubs (August 24, 1935), ed. Henry Steele Commager, Introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt, Washington Records, Inc. (1960).
These remarks were made to encourage young people in the path of cooperation as opposed to the popular concept of rugged individualism embraced by many of their parents, a philosophy which FDR believed had helped bring the nation to ruin and depression.
