Chairman, friends of the Democratic Party,
I appreciate your willingness after these ten arduous months to remain here, for I know well the sleepless hours which you and I have had. I regret that we are late in our coming to this decision, but I have no control over the winds of change, and am only thankful for our comradeship and union in this Party.
My friends, may this platform be the symbol of our intention to be honest and avoid all hypocrisy or sham, to avoid all silly shutting of them eyes to the truth in this campaign.
Let us now and here highly resolve the resume the country's interrupted march along the path of real progress, of real justice, of real equality for all our citizens, great and small. Our indominable leaders in that interrupted march wail in agony at the chains they have found themselves wearing, held hostage by hostility and partisan gridlock.
As we enter this new battle, let us keep always present with us some of the ideals of the Party: The fact that the Democratic Party by tradition and by the continuing logic of history, past and present, is the bearer of liberalism and of progress and at the same time of safety to our institutions. And if this appeal fails, remember well, my friends, that a resentment against the failure of Republican leadership--and note well that in this campaign I shall not use the word "Republican Party," but I shall use, day in and day out, the words, "Republican leadership"--the failure of Republican leaders to solve our troubles may degenerate into unreasoning radicalism.
There are two ways of viewing the Government's duty in matters affecting economic and social life. The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small business man. That theory belongs to the party of Toryism, and I had hoped that most of the Tories left this country in 1776.
But it is not and never will be the theory of the Democratic Party. This is no time for fear, for reaction or for timidity. Here and now I invite those nominal Republicans who find that their conscience cannot be squared with the groping and the failure of their party leaders to join hands with us; here and now, in equal measure, I warn those nominal Democrats who squint at the future with their faces turned toward the past, and who feel no responsibility to the demands of the new time, that they are out of step with their Party.
Never before in modern history have the essential differences between the two major American parties stood out in such striking contrast as they do today. Republican leaders not only have failed in material things, they have failed in national vision, because in disaster they have held out no hope, they have pointed out no path for the people below to climb back to places of security and of safety in our American life.
Throughout the Nation, men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government of the last years look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth.
On the farms, in the large metropolitan areas, in the smaller cities and in the villages, millions of our citizens cherish the hope that their old standards of living and of thought have not gone forever. Those millions cannot and shall not hope in vain.
I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a better deal for the American people. Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and of courage. This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.
This (slightly modified for time: 10 months since Trump took office, not the 6 days if the convention, ‘better deal’ instead of ‘new deal’) is FDR’s speech to the 1932 Democratic Convention .
It’s perfectly serviceable as a manifesto for 2018.