He who does not know history is doomed to repeat its mistakes.

[Leumas]

Franklind D. Roosevelt Simple Truths message to Congress (1938)

• In history, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet someone planned it.
• Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power. The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living. Both lessons hit home. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.
• It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.
• The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor — these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age — other people's money — these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in. Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities. Throughout the nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.
• For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor — other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness. Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.
• These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.
• I wish I could keep war from all Nations; but that is beyond my power. I can at least make certain that no act of the United States helps to produce or to promote war. I can at least make clear that the conscience of America revolts against war and that any Nation which provokes war forfeits the sympathy of the people of the United States.
• Many causes produce war. There are ancient hatreds, turbulent frontiers, the "legacy of old forgotten, far-off things, and battles long ago." There are new-born fanaticisms. Convictions on the part of certain peoples that they have become the unique depositories of ultimate truth and right.
• A dark old world was devastated by wars between conflicting religions. A dark modern world faces wars between conflicting economic and political fanaticisms in which are intertwined race hatreds.

Thomas Jefferson

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks], will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

"I place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

"I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

 

[seayakin]

Not that I disagree with a lot of these statements but

In history, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet someone planned it.

sounds like a conspiracy theory. However, to me this is most telling given large multinationals

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

I see appeal to authority commited twice here.

 

[Puppycow]

Not that I disagree with a lot of these statements but

In history, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet someone planned it.

sounds like a conspiracy theory.

I had a similar thought myself. Not necessarily that it's a conspiracy theory, although conspiracy theorists would probably agree with that statement. And if you start with that as a premise, you would would have to turn to a conspiracy theory to explain something like the sinking of the Titanic, wouldn't you?

But yeah, a lot of important stuff happens by accident. Both good and bad. A lot of inventions get invented by someone trying to invent something completely different. Sometimes the inventors themselves don't realize the importance of their discovery. Columbus discovered America by accident.

 

[Ladewig]

But yeah, a lot of important stuff happens by accident.

Agreed.

Also, the Franklin quote is a false dichotomy. There are things that are caused neither by accident nor by planning. Misfeasance and negligence are large factors in many noteworthy historical events.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

"History is bunk." Henry Ford I

 

[Nova Land]

Franklin D. Roosevelt Simple Truths message to Congress (1938)...

Could you please provide the actual source where you read the passages? You attribute them to FDR, and it's possible you actually did get them from FDR. But routinely we have people on this forum who claim they are quoting from one person and actually are simply passing on things they have been told that person said. And sometimes these things turn out not to be from the person they claimed to be quoting at all.

Have you actually read the full speech you say you are quoting from? I suspect what you have posted is simply copied from some web site where someone else has posted these and attributed them to FDR.

It would be useful, before we attempt discussing these passages, to know that the person passing them on (a) has actually read or listened to the what they claim to be quoting, (b) understands the points being made in the speech, and (c) has excerpted passages which fairly and accurately convey what was being said.

If you are familiar with the speech you claim to be quoting, then could you explain what specifically FDR was talking about in the first passage? Taken out of context, "Nothing happens by accident" is nonsense; it would seem to mean FDR believed that Stonewall Jackson's was deliberately shot by his own troops, that William Henry Harrison's death was actually a successful assassination (or successful suicide), and that the naming of a city in Maine as Bangor rather than Sunbury was deliberate rather than a careless error. I strongly doubt that's what FDR was saying.

So what was he saying? If those words actually come from a speech by FDR, and you have actually read the speech, you should be able to explain the context.

I notice you did not provide the full date of the speech, only the year. That's too bad. If we had the date of the speech, it would be easier to look it up and check what it actually says. Do you know the date of the speech? If so, please provide it.

Thomas Jefferson ...

Again, it would be good to provide your actual source for these passages. There's a cottage industry of people who quote out of context, misquote, or even manufacture quotes out of whole cloth which are then attributed to famous people and passed along unquestioningly by gullible readers. Before we discuss these passages you've copied and pasted for us, it would be good if you'd identify the sources where you got these.

If you got these from books or articles written by Thomas Jefferson, or books which collects his writings, please identify the books and page numbers on which each of these bits can be found. If you got them online, please identify the site you got them from and give us a link. That will make it easier for us to look up these passages for ourselves, see if they are accurate, see what the person saying them was talking about, and discuss them intelligently.

 

[Brainster]

Good point, Nova Land. Here is the speech that the FDR passages supposedly come from. The bit about nothing happening by accident does not appear there. No mention about privileged princes, the hours that men and women worked, political equality, economic royalists, keeping war from all nations, the many causes of war, or the dark old world.

In sum, the only part of the OP that does seem to be from that speech is the second bullet point about fascism.

 

[Nova Land]

Here is the speech that the FDR passages supposedly come from. The bit about nothing happening by accident does not appear there. No mention about privileged princes, the hours that men and women worked, political equality, economic royalists, keeping war from all nations, the many causes of war, or the dark old world...

Thanks!

I suspected that might be the case. (The suspiciously vague identification, Simple Truths message to Congress (1938), indicated the poster had never read the speech they claimed to be quoting from.)

Which makes the title of the thread very appropriate, and well worth reflecting on:

He who does not know history is doomed to repeat its mistakes.

 

[Spindrift]

Didn't we have this thread already?

 

[Chaos]

I had a similar thought myself. Not necessarily that it's a conspiracy theory, although conspiracy theorists would probably agree with that statement. And if you start with that as a premise, you would would have to turn to a conspiracy theory to explain something like the sinking of the Titanic, wouldn't you?

It could also mean something a lot more inoccous, like that there simply are no "random events", like in Monopoly where you can win $100 in a beauty contest you never took part in. There is always cause and effect. The effect might not always be what the one setting the cause in motion had in mind, but no effect could have happened without its cause - just like the Titanic could never have sunk if she hadn´t been built, and if the captain hadn´t been in such a damn hurry to set a time record for the crossing.

But yeah, a lot of important stuff happens by accident. Both good and bad. A lot of inventions get invented by someone trying to invent something completely different. Sometimes the inventors themselves don't realize the importance of their discovery. Columbus discovered America by accident.

But, as above, Columbus had something in mind when he went on his voyage. His plan went wrong quite spectacularly, but there was a plan in first place.

 

[Nova Land]

It could also mean something a lot more innocuous, like that there simply are no "random events"...

If Franklin Roosevelt had said "In history, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet someone planned it," then it might be worth discussing what he meant by it.

But so far we have been given no good reason to believe FDR did say that, and good reason (hat tip to Brainster) to believe he did not say it.

A more useful question to start with would be Who said that? If we knew who said it, we'd be in a much better position to figure out what they meant by it.

My guess is that it was coined by a conspiracy theorist to justify belief in their pet conspiracy, and at some point other conspiracy theorists began mistakenly attributing it to FDR -- aided and abetted by those who pass it on without verifying it and by those who speculate on what FDR might have meant by it without first checking to see if he said it.

 

[ddt]

Good point, Nova Land. Here is the speech that the FDR passages supposedly come from. The bit about nothing happening by accident does not appear there. No mention about privileged princes, the hours that men and women worked, political equality, economic royalists, keeping war from all nations, the many causes of war, or the dark old world.

In sum, the only part of the OP that does seem to be from that speech is the second bullet point about fascism.

They don't have to be all from one and the same speech.

Wikiquote says the first ("nothing happens by accident") is misattributed.
It also says the last ("A dark old world was devastated...") is from a 1936 speech at Chautauqua. That website seems legit AFAICS.

I haven't checked other quotes, I'll leave that to the OP.

 

[ddt]

If Franklin Roosevelt had said "In history, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet someone planned it," then it might be worth discussing what he meant by it.

But so far we have been given no good reason to believe FDR did say that, and good reason (hat tip to Brainster) to believe he did not say it.

A more useful question to start with would be Who said that? If we knew who said it, we'd be in a much better position to figure out what they meant by it.

My guess is that it was coined by a conspiracy theorist to justify belief in their pet conspiracy, and at some point other conspiracy theorists began mistakenly attributing it to FDR -- aided and abetted by those who pass it on without verifying it and by those who speculate on what FDR might have meant by it without first checking to see if he said it.

The wikiquote page says:

There are no records of Roosevelt having made such a statement, and this is most likely a misquotation of the widely reported comment he made in a speech at the Citadel (23 October 1935):

Yes. we are on the way back — not by mere chance, not by a turn of the cycle. We are coming back more soundly than ever before because we planned it that way, and don't let anybody tell you differently.

So the suggests more that someone was sloppy in sexying up the quote. Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.

 

[jj]

Agreed.

Also, the Franklin quote is a false dichotomy. There are things that are caused neither by accident nor by planning. Misfeasance and negligence are large factors in many noteworthy historical events.

Malfeasance and negligence do not exclude planning, merely they imply bad planning.

 

[Ladewig]

The wikiquote page says:

So the suggests more that someone was sloppy in sexying up the quote. Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.

I have often used that aphorism myself. And while it is likely that they started with the actual quote and simply twisted it into something more supportive of their position, they must have been ecstatic to put those particular words in FDR's mouth because then they can say: if Washington needed to send a message to a military base on the other side of the world in 1941, then it is impossible for it not to arrive in time - "they" must have planned to have the message delayed.

 

[Brainster]

They don't have to be all from one and the same speech.

Well, the OP certainly indicates that all of the FDR quotes come from the Simple Truths Speech. That said, I did discover that the "privileged princes" line (3rd bullet point) comes from FDR's second inauguration.

 

[ddt]

Well, the OP certainly indicates that all of the FDR quotes come from the Simple Truths Speech.

Yep, you're right. So some of the others are rightly attributed to FDR but wrongly to that speech. Is there a simple way to state that in English?

That said, I did discover that the "privileged princes" line (3rd bullet point) comes from FDR's second inauguration.

Okay, I'll tackle the fourth, "The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor". That's from his 1936 speech at the Democratic National Convention.

 

[Tricky]

Didn't we have this thread already?

Yes, but we are doomed to repeat it.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

But yeah, a lot of important stuff happens by accident. Both good and bad.

I'm reading Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Natures, and that's similar to a point he makes: nothing is inevitable. Flukey things happen. Maybe conditions are just right for a big event (a war or some such), but the trigger doesn't happen. Other times conditions are right for it, and a triggering event does happen.