Statement About Unity of Action on the Economic Recovery Program.

THE PRESIDENT said:

"Our job in the Government is unity of action to do our part in an unceasing campaign to reestablish public confidence. That is fundamental to recovery. The imperative and immediate step is to balance the budget, and I am sure the Government will stay at this job until it is accomplished.

"When our people recover from frozen confidence then our credit machinery will begin to function once more on a normal basis, and there will be no need to exercise the emergency powers already vested in any of our governmental agencies or the further extensions we are proposing for the Reconstruction Corporation. If by unity of action these extensions of powers are kept within the limits I have proposed, they do not affect the budget. They do not constitute a drain on the taxpayer. They constitute temporary mobilization of timid capital for positive and definite purpose of speeding the recovery of business, agriculture, and employment.

"I have, however, no taste for any such emergency powers in the Government. But we are fighting the economic consequences of over-liquidation and unjustified fear as to the future of the United States. The battle to set our economic machine in motion in this emergency takes new forms and requires new tactics from time to time. We used such emergency powers to win the war; we can use them to fight the depression, the misery and suffering from which are equally great."