Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April 12, 80 years ago. It was only at the end of Library Week (April 6-12) that I happened upon this quote from FDR, in 1939: “I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing them.”

Given the purpose of the week, and our current political environment, this insight into the role of libraries in maintaining our democracy is worth our attention. Even more so, given this quote from a story I just read in the April 11 issue of Maine State Labor News: “On Wednesday, 13 employees at the Maine State Library received layoff notices due to the Trump administration’s cuts to library funding. The employees, who are members of the Maine Service Employees Association (MSEA-SEIU 1989) will be laid off on April 24 when grant funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is illegally and arbitrarily halted.”

Depriving libraries of resources is just one way to undermine democracy. In my lifetime (I was age 4 when FDR died), I have witnessed a decadeslong assault on the union movement because of its role in bringing democracy to the workplace. Roosevelt saw that, too, as he noted: “It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions.”

Libraries and unions are two bulwarks of our democracy. Let’s honor and protect them.

Cletis Boyer
Belfast