FDR's First Inaugural Address: Banking Fixes and International Diplomacy (Sentences 45-65) Summary

Cash Doesn't Rule Anything Around Me

  • Despite speaking in generalities about getting the United States back to work, FDR has a concrete plan of attack when it comes to banking.
  • He vows to introduce safeguards and regulation to the industry, and to forbid speculation, blaming it as a primary driver of the stock market crash.
  • The speech then pivots toward international diplomacy for a spell, just long enough to say international relations are being put on the back burner.
  • This isn't being done just out of selfishness. The 20th century had brought with it true globalization for the first time, and people everywhere were taking note of the interconnectedness of the world around them.
  • In order to focus development internally, FDR is creating a new foreign angle for the United States dubbed the Good Neighbor policy.
  • It's your typical "sorry, we were just invading all over Latin and South America—but do you guys want to be friends now?" policy, which led to the end of long-standing occupations in Nicaragua and Haiti.