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What do you think President Roosevelt meant when he said: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"?

Roosevelt meant that fear, lack of confidence in the nation's financial systems, was in part responsible for the collapse of the economy that led to the Great Depression. Roosevelt's inauguration occurred in the midst of one of the worst bank panics of the Great Depression. Millions of Americans withdrew their funds from banks, causing many of them to fail, precisely because they feared the banks were unstable and unsafe places to deposit money. In those...

Roosevelt meant that fear, lack of confidence in the nation's financial systems, was in part responsible for the collapse of the economy that led to the Great Depression. Roosevelt's inauguration occurred in the midst of one of the worst bank panics of the Great Depression. Millions of Americans withdrew their funds from banks, causing many of them to fail, precisely because they feared the banks were unstable and unsafe places to deposit money. In those days, a person lost all of their money if a bank failed and was unable to meet deposits. Banks in turn feared to extend credit to people who they thought might not be able to pay back their loans. Businesses would not hire new workers if they feared the economy would continue to spiral downward. So the entire economic system was in danger of grinding completely to a halt, and Roosevelt, with this address, argued that the nation's problems could be reduced to "fear." He thus sought, in the early days of his presidency, to reduce this climate of fear. He announced a bank holiday to keep people from withdrawing more funds, which would have led to more bank failures. He delivered the first of his "fireside chats" in which he explained his reasons for implementing the "holiday," thus assuaging the fears of many Americans. With the "Hundred Days" that marked the beginning of the New Deal, he established deposit insurance that protected the investments of Americans and extended loans to businesses to promote more hiring. In this way and many others, he sought to combat the atmosphere of fear and pessimism that he believed lay behind the economic malaise of the Great Depression. 

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