Tomorrow especially, everyone ought to think about the words of this very wise man.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
State of the Union 1938 - 3 January 1938
To raise the purchasing power of the farmer is, however, not enough. It will not stay raised if we do not also raise the purchasing power of that third of the Nation which receives its income from industrial employment. Millions of American workers receive pay so low that they have little buying power. Aside from the undoubted fact that they thereby suffer great human hardship, they are unable to buy adequate food and shelter, to maintain health, or to buy their share of manufactured goods.
We have not only seen minimum-wage and maximum-hour provisions prove their worth economically and socially under Government auspices in 1933, 1934, and 1935, but the people of this country, by an overwhelming vote, are in favor of having Congress-- this Congress-- put a floor below which industrial wages shall not fall, and a ceiling beyond which the hours of industrial labor shall not rise.
Here again let us analyze the opposition. A part of it is sincere in believing that an effort thus to raise the purchasing power of lowest paid industrial workers is not the business of the Federal Government. Others give "lip service" to a general objective, but do not like any specific measure that is proposed. In both cases it is worth our while to wonder whether some of these opponents are not at heart opposed to any program for raising the wages of the underpaid or reducing the hours of the overworked.