"...Our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.-- FDR's first inaugural address, March 4, 1933. Plenty of FDR MP3s here.
"True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
"...Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men."
PS. Chicken plans are coming along excellently. Kate got a great chicken book out of the library, which is written for kids but I'm finding completely on the right level for me, with short, pithy advice like "you must never name a chicken you plan to eat", along with lots of detailed tips on how to check a chicken's skin color on the shank and eyes to see how long it hasn't been laying (a laying hen sends all her yellow pigment into the yolks of her eggs.) It's written by Gail Damerow, who also wrote the ice cream book and many others.
