DESERET NEWS, WASHINGTON, March 4, 1933 -- Franklin D. Roosevelt assumed the arduous duties of the presidency tody with a ringing appeal to the nation to rally to meet the national emergency and a promise of quick action by the new administration in both executive and legislative branches.
And if legislative action is not reasonably prompt, he warned, "I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis -- a broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency as great as the power that would be given me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe."The significance of this statement did not escape the attention of the inaugural platform, nor of the scores of thousands who braved the chill March wind to cheer and acclaim the new president.
Earlier in the day, the News reported, Roosevelt had stopped at historic St. John's Episcopal Church "in the shadows of the White House" to pray, invoking divine blessings upon his administration. A week before the inaugural, FDR was the target of a would-be assassin, who killed the mayor of Chicago, a member of the president-elect's party. Over the weeks following his inauguration, Roosevelt outlined his New Deal, an ambitious social program to lift America out of the Great Depression.