by Brenda Bowers

Created on: May 04, 2007

The portion of the North American continent that became the United States was settled by independent and doggedly self-reliant individuals. They left all civilization behind and brought their families to a wilderness. They would survive or die by their own abilities and labor. This same attitude carried the pioneers as they spread across and settle a country 3000 miles wide. People were expected to take responsibility for the needs of themselves and their families. They were also steeped in the Bible injunction to be charitable to the poor. It was considered each persons duty to help others in need, while working so as to never find themselves in this situation. In fact, it was considered shameful to be dependent upon another for your and families needs beyond a brief time of hardship or illness. And certainly the government was not expected to take care of the needs of individuals other than the function of having an army to protect the population from invasion.

Some have blamed the Great Depression of the 1930's for changing people's attitudes, but there had been depressions and hardships before that had not weakened the populace. It took the federal government under the guidance of one president to slowly and insidiously bend the publics minds to accept the rightness of and therefore finally demand their share of everyone else's wealth. The federal government would of course collect and redistribute this wealth and thus gain more power and control over the people as they became more and more dependent on the federal government. The great Depression just gave one President elected in 1932 the lever he needed to change strong self-reliant Americans into a population of weak dependent chattel.

On the evening of January 11, 1944, President Roosevelt was unable to give the annual presidential State of the Union speech before Congress so he instead gave it to the entire nation by way of his famous Fireside Chats. Cass Sunstein, a prominent liberal law professor at the University of Chicago called it "the most important speech of the century". It's importance is due to the fact that it is the first and most far reaching speech and endorsement of an American president for the legitimizing of the welfare state. The idea of the welfare state is that government MUST GUARANTEE the social and economic security for all citizens.

The fore fathers as writers of the Constitution of the United States of America promised all citizens the right to life, liberty and the pursuit

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