The depression – our values of goods fell by fifty percent. Our housing just fell eighteen percent, give you some – something to go by.
(writing numbers on chalkboard)
Wholesale prices, the largest drop in one year in our history – thirty-six point eight percent. Unemployment – started at eleven point eight. GNP – GNP fell twenty-four percent – give you some perspective, in ’08 we, uh, went up, eight – was it eight percent, no I’m sorry, uh, point four. In ’09 we dropped two point four.
Have it? This is the great depression of – 1920. Now, how come we never heard about the depression of 1920? In some ways, it was deeper and more profound than 1930. How come this one’s just a depression and the Great Depression was equal or maybe not as bad in some ways? Great happened because of all of the progressive ideas to cure it – how was this cured? This is after Woodrow Wilson. After the war, after the progressives got into office with Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt had his progressive party – hah ho ho, I’ve got big plans – and Woodrow Wilson said, well he’s a crazy man, I’m not going to be quite as progressive as that. So, uh, Woodrow Wilson gets in and he gives us the Fed. How’s that working out for us, huh?
(groans)
So he gives us the Fed. Then he gives us the – let’s remember this America – progressive income tax. He gives us the income tax. Then he also says, you know what, boy people are just so stupid, they don’t know what’s good for them. Oh, they’re going to be so unhealthy, and we all want health care – Teddy Roosevelt was the first one to say, we should have universal health care. Oh they’re going to be unhealthy, we can’t get that universal health care thing done, but you know what we can do? We should limit some of their choices. Prohibition. So he took away the alcohol. Progressive plan to take care of everyone.
Then he promised he wasn’t going to get us into war, because they’re a party of peace – peace and progress – and we went right to World War I. Then they gave us the Treaty of Versailles, which I believe led to Hitler, but I could be mistaken on that. Then, the last thing was they say well we’re going to take care of everything, don’t worry about it, because right now what we’re going to do is we’re going to have a global organization oversee everything. The League of Nations. Well this is when America went nuts, and said, ah, ah, no, no thank you. No thank you.
So what did Woodrow Wilson say? I’m not kidding you. Well they don’t understand it. I’ve got to give more speeches. He got onto a train, and made whistle stops to give speeches, and people rejected it. Okay? Sound familiar at all? The American people rejected it, and they were so freaked out about the whole progressive movement that progressives decided to change their name – we’re liberals – ta ha, I hate those progressive things. We’re liberals, that’s what we are.
Ever notice, where did the progressives go; where did they come from? All of a sudden, I’m not a liberal, I’m a progressive. It was the opposite a hundred years ago. I’m not a progressive, I’m a liberal. I mean they keep – they keep changing their names. Every time they – every time they wake America up to their policies, they have to change their names. What are they going to be next, the Royal Order of the Orange? It doesn’t matter. They’re running out of names.
(applause)
So we get out of World War I, and this is the shape America is in (pointing to 1920-depression numbers), so Warren Harding gets in, he starts for a little bit – he has a – he has a heart attack, but I think that may be through divine providence, maybe a little bit, because Calvin Coolidge comes in.
(applause)
Calvin Coolidge. I’m reading about him, I don’t know, six months ago, and I’m like, I seem to remember – wasn’t that one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite presidents? For a reason. Calvin Coolidge, he gets in – what do they do, between him and Harding? They, uh – they lower taxes. Taxes go from just, small, seventy-seven percent, uh, to twenty-five percent.
(applause)
Here’s the important part. Spending – spending dropped by fifty percent.
(applause)
That’s the key. If everybody’s – if everybody’s freaking out about how is China going to loan us any more money, here’s the secret: they have to believe that we’re serious. We can’t be Tiger Woods and then go out and say boy, did you like that speech, that was a good speech and, hey, Toots, you look hot, huh?
(laughter)
The rest of the world must know that America is serious. And the only thing that will convince them of that is not another speech, but action.
(applause)
So what happened? So what happened? Well, unemployment (points to 11.8 figure, then writes 1.8 next to it) – it is the lowest unemployment rate in peacetime in the history of America. It also caused the Roaring Twenties. And I can guarantee you they’re writing, probably right up there, right now, they’re writing, hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah, he’s saying the Roaring Twenties were good. Yes! The Roaring Twenties – it was the largest expansion of the middle class ever. It – people started having telephones, and that evil electricity, and cars, and radios.
So what happened? What happened? Hoover came in. Hoover came in, a progressive, by the way. Hoover came in and said, really, what has to happen is, uh, we just – we’re going to leave the taxes here, but this is crazy (pointing to spending figure). We’ve got to spend more money. Everything shimmied apart. And people made stupid moves as well. But the reason why it didn’t turn around as quickly as it did in the 1920s is because the progressives said, I will save it. I will not waste this emergency. I will create agencies, and create agencies of help for the poor American that just can’t pull themselves out.
The guy who helped design the New Deal tried, and tried, and tried – one of the very good friends of Franklin Roosevelt. Morgenthau – he said, this is I believe 1938 – in front of Congress –
(reading) We’ve tried spending money – we’re spending more money than we’ve ever spent before, and it does not work.
(applause)
We don’t need to export democracy. We do not need to be a people that say, we’re going to go over there and we’re going to free all of these people, and then we are going to plant democracy. We don’t need to do that. The best way to transplant democracy is through example. Through example.
(applause)
When I was struggling in my life, and I was at the bottom of the barrel, and I realized I had no answers, and I was hungry, and I was poor, and I was tired – I didn’t look at other people. You come knocking at my door, back off jack, shut up about your answers. What I did is I looked at successful, happy people. I looked at people and then I really examined their lives. What makes them happy? What makes them successful? What makes them tick? I wanted it. I searched it out. I learned from them.
Everything’s changed since the progressives came. Everything changed. George Washington – that big gigantic painting that’s now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art – that’s not the original. That was the second. The first one – it was destroyed in World War II in a museum in Germany. Why was it in Germany? Because an American German painted it for his fellow countrymen. Because they were looking at – where are we going to go, what are we going to do? Remember Nietzsche, Marx – coming from Germany. People were struggling for answers. He painted an enormous painting of our founders, not for us – for them: look at this example.
The Statue of Liberty – come on, when was the last time France did anything without some strings?
(laughter)
They did it for them? No. The French didn’t give it to us because it was – oh, look at us, we want to say hello to our friends and give them this enormous statue. What is that? The French did it – and see if you can get your arms around this concept – the French did it to mock, but not us. Europe.
If you know anything – look it up when you get home. The Colossus of Rhodes. A giant statue that stood astride by the harbor holding a lamp, like this (posing). The Colossus of Rhodes was the idea behind the designer of Lady Liberty, but totally different. The Colossus of Rhodes is like this (posing) and then – watch this, watch the – watch the cameras. Like this (posing) – and they all put up – this – you guys are so predictable.
(laughter)
We got him looking stupid. Quick, take it!
The Colossus of Rhodes – you know how they’re standing. And they have arrows – he had arrows, okay? The Statue of Liberty is holding the law and the torch. The Statue of Liberty, while the Colossus of Rhodes was perched back like this, the Statue of Liberty was moving forward – if you look at her feet, she’s moving forward, and she’s moving like this (posing), the light is penetrating and she’s moving, and shackles – chains – are around one of her legs – broken chains. The law will set you free. Now –
(applause)
Here’s what we always get wrong. And when we come to this understanding, when we truly change in our minds this one error in history, I think we will blaze to life again. The poem on the Statue of Liberty – it’s always read like this:
(reading) Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, the tempest tossed, to me. And I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Well if you read it like that and you really think it through, what are we? A hospital?
(laughter)
What are we? Are we – is the Statue of Liberty saying to Europe, guys, Europe, you’re never going to make it with all that refuse. Send it over to me, we’ll take care of it over here. We’ll – we’ll just – we’re just trying to set you – guys you’re never going to succeed with all that riff-raff, come on, send it over here, you guys can get busy and do some work. That’s not what it means. It was never intended to read that way. Remember, the Statue of Liberty was mocking the old system. The Statue of Liberty was used to ignite inside the French, liberty. Look at America. Look what they’re doing. It was meant to be read like this:
(reading) Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land – here, at our sea-washed sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is imprisoned lightning, and her name: Mother of Exiles. From her beacon hand glows worldwide welcome. Her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. Keep your ancient lands, your storied pomp cries she, with silent lips. Give me, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse from your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, the tempest tossed, to me. I hold – I hold my lamp beside the golden door.
(applause)
That – that is the message. Even the people that you reject can make it here. They will give it all to be successful – here. You can make it – here.
(applause)
I have been saying, the worst is coming. I have been saying it for awhile. But you will find the answers in history. It’s the same story over and over again. We just need to learn our own history – learn from our own mistakes, admit that we have a problem. Grow a spine and stand for the right things. Our future is not cast in stone. It does not have to be this way. It does not have to be that the greatest American generation is behind us. It does not have to be that our children will have a lower standard of living. It will be that way if we choose to believe that. I choose not to believe that.
(applause)
If we do honest soul searching, we are on the ground, and if this ain’t your bottom, America, I warn you – some people, you know, people always ask me when there’s some celebrity that’s, you know, I don’t know, vomiting on themselves in some, you know, rehab center – what could we have done to save them? The answer is nothing. Some people’s bottom is just a little higher than others. Some people are going to die before they hit bottom. You cannot save them.
This is a pretty good bottom. Yeah, I know this is as bad as I want it to get. But if we don’t stand up now and recognize it, it’s going to get much, much, much worse. All we have to do is recognize the problems that we have, admit to our mistakes, do the hard work. It may be a hard day – we have been all night, retching, holding on to that bowl – because we went out for a party. And it may be a hard day and hard struggle, and we may work until late in the night, and our kids may be crying, and we may be losing our house – we are going to go through some tough times. And we are going to be tired as we set things straight. It is a hard road, I know, I have walked it myself. It is a hard road, but we will make it, and at night we will be beat tired – we will be so tired, but when we put our head down on our pillow to go to sleep again that night we can be happy because we know tomorrow it will again be morning in America.
(applause)
Thank you.
(applause)