Party revere FDR's policies for creating financial safety nets for many Americans while Republicans excoriate FDR for injecting socialist style of governing into the American economy. The debate between the political parties in 1936 was not different than the debate is today.

The section of the speech that seems to generate the most controversy reads, "In vain, they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution." When taken in the context of the whole paragraph, historians think FDR refers specifically to wealthy industrialists and business people who cling to the idea of laissez-faire capitalism. Laissez-faire capitalism is the philosophy that the government has no place interfering in business and that unfettered, free-market capitalism should be the deciding force in all economic decisions. Herbert Hoover's economic policies, FDR's predecessor, was a proponent of laissez-faire capitalism.

In the first two sentences, FDR identifies his target as "economic royalists." The economic royalists were wealthy industrialists who believed their work ethic, education, religion, and wealth made them superior to financially struggling Americans. In the third sentence, FDR puts forth the idea that one role of the government is to create an equal playing field whereby others could achieve economic parity. The economic royalists were in opposition to FDR, as economic equality meant sharing power.

"In vain, they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution" is a pointed reference to how the wealthy cloaked their greed by claiming they were promoting American ideals of capitalism, free enterprise, and democracy. In the mind of the economic royalists, FDR promoted socialism like the policies and governments sweeping across Europe shortly after the world-wide depression. Wrapping oneself in the flag or claiming Constitutional privilege is a metaphor for asserting one is more patriotic and better equipped to lead than the other.

In the final sentences, FDR acknowledges and does not disagree with the economic royalists' allegiance to democracy, capitalism, and American ideals. FDR's critique is that in a constitutional republic, a distinction cannot be made between mob rule or rule by an elitist class ("the over-privileged alike"). The tactics of mobs differ from the over-privileged, but the outcome is the same. Promoting economic justice is as much of a Constitutional duty as is being a loyal, patriotic citizen. The entirety of the speech is a defense of the expansion of government by FDR. The address is a rebuke to the opposition who view their economic superiority as a claim to have more power and more significant say in government affairs.