FDR was inaugurated amid the Great Depression
On this day · 4 March 1933
Taking office with banks shuttered and millions jobless, Roosevelt told a frightened nation that fear itself was the real enemy.
On March 4, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States, taking office at the depths of the Great Depression. Banks were closing, farms were failing, and roughly 13 million Americans were out of work, with industrial output barely half its 1929 level.
In his first inaugural address, Roosevelt sought to steady a fearful public with a single, enduring line.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
The speech was more than reassurance. Roosevelt cast the economic emergency as a war and asked Congress for broad executive power to fight it, signaling the aggressive federal action that would define his presidency.
He moved fast. Within days he declared a national bank holiday to halt the runs draining the financial system, then drove fifteen major bills through Congress in his famous first 100 days, launching the sweeping relief and reform program that became the New Deal.
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