Code in one day than they in England had been able to do under the
common law in eighty-five years of effort. I use this incident, my
friends, not to boast of what has already been done but to point
the way to you for even greater cooperative efforts this summer and
autumn.

We are not going through another winter like the last. I doubt if
ever any people so bravely and cheerfully endured a season half so
bitter. We cannot ask America to continue to face such needless
hardships. It is time for courageous action, and the Recovery Bill
gives us the means to conquer unemployment with exactly the same
weapon that we have used to strike down child labor.

The proposition is simply this:

If all employers will act together to shorten hours and raise wages
we can put people back to work. No employer will suffer, because
the relative level of competitive cost will advance by the same
amount for all. But if any considerable group should lag or shirk,
this great opportunity will pass us by and we will go into another
desperate winter. This must not happen.

We have sent out to all employers an agreement which is the result
of weeks of consultation. This agreement checks against the
voluntary codes of nearly all the large industries which have
already been submitted. This blanket agreement carries the
unanimous approval of the three boards which I have appointed to
advise in this, boards representing the great leaders in labor, in
industry and in social service. The agreement has already brought a
flood of approval from every state, and from so wide a cross-