National economic planning on the model of the 1917 war mobilization

These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized but the indispensable units of economic power for plans like those of 1917 that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

I am not speaking of an economic life completely planned and regimented. I am speaking of the necessity, however, in those imperative interferences with the economic life of the Nation that there be a real community of interest ... I plead not for a class control but for a true concert of interests.

In this sense I favor economic planning, not for this period alone but for our needs for a long time to come.

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

Of these other phases, that which seems most important to me in the long run is the problem of controlling by adequate planning the creation and distribution of those products which our vast economic machine is capable of yielding.

It is the soberer, less dramatic business of administering resources and plants already in hand, of seeking to reestablish foreign markets for our surplus production, of meeting the problem of underconsumption, of adjusting production to consumption, of distributing wealth and products more equitably, of adapting existing economic organizations to the service of the people.

Hence, I have described the entire compass of my policy as a "concert of interests" -- North and South, East and West, agriculture, industry, mining, commerce and finance.

This type of campaigning, which might be called a "pork-barrel" campaign, is not my notion of what the country needs in a time like this.

The NIRA was national economic planning in intent but failed within a year and was struck down.

Drawing its inspiration from the federal government's efforts at economic planning during World War I and the voluntary trade associations of the 1920s, the NIRA provided for national economic planning as opposed to individualistic and competitive, laissez-faire capitalism.

By the end of 1933 the NRA had failed as a planning instrument.

By the end of 1933, it was clear that the NRA was anything but a success.

Party leaders such as Raskob judged Roosevelt an extremist after the Forgotten Man speech and sought to block him.

Roosevelt's speech caused party leaders, such as Democratic National Committee Chairman John J. Raskob , to judge Roosevelt as an extremist, causing them to oppose his candidacy.

The 'forgotten man' broadcast was a demagogic appeal setting class against class.

His threat was interpreted as di rectly intended for Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York, who in a re cent radio address, charged that the l "little fellow," the common citizen, has been forgotten.