Preface

Upon dedicating the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum, the nation’s first Presidential Library, on June 30^th, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the visionary who guided the creation of the Social Security Administration had this to say:

            The dedication of a library is in itself an act of faith.

            To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men living in the future, a nation must believe in three things.

                        It must believe in the past.

                      It must believe in the future.

                        It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgement the creation of the future.

We at the Social Security Administration, in the great tradition of Franklin Roosevelt, hope that through our narrative history, we will contribute to the value of Presidential libraries, and in this particular case, that of President William Jefferson Clinton, 42^nd President of the United States.  In this way, we are affirming our belief in the past and in the future, and in the American people’s ability to learn from the past to create a better future.