Four Freedoms Persuasive Speech
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Seventy-seventh Congress:
I address you, the Members of the Seventy-seventh Congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history
of the Union. I use the word "unprecedented," because at no previous time has American security been as
seriously threatened from without as it is today.
Since the permanent formation of our Government under the Constitution, in 1789, most of the periods of
crisis in our history have related to our domestic affairs. Fortunately, only one of these—the four-year War
Between the States—ever threatened our national unity. Today, thank God, one hundred and thirty million
Americans, in forty-eight States, have forgotten points of the compass in our national unity.
It is true that prior to 1914 the United States often had been disturbed by events in other Continents. We
had even engaged in two wars with European nations and in a number of undeclared wars in the West
Indies, in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific for the maintenance of American rights and for the
principles of peaceful commerce.
Every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment being directly assailed in every part of
the world—assailed either by arms, or by secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who seek to
destroy unity and promote discord in nations that are still at peace.
During sixteen long months this assault has blotted out the whole pattern of democratic life in an appalling
number of independent nations, great and small. The assailants are still on the march, threatening other
nations, great and small.
Therefore, as your President, performing my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress information of the
state of the Union," I find it, unhappily, necessary to report that the future and the safety of our country and
of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders.
Armed defense of democratic existence is now being gallantly waged in four continents. If that defense
fails, all the population and all the resources of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia will be dominated by
the conquerors.
In times like these it is immature—and incidentally, untrue—for anybody to brag that an unprepared
America, single-handed, and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world.
No realistic American can expect from a dictator's peace international generosity, or return of true
independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion—or even good
business.
Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our neighbors.
As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.
The necessary strategic points would be occupied by secret agents and their dupes—and great numbers
of them are already here, and in Latin America.
As long as the aggressor nations maintain the offensive, they—not we—will choose the time and the place
and the method of their attack.
That is why the future of all the American Republics is today in serious danger.
The need of the moment is that our actions and our policy should be devoted primarily—almost
exclusively—to meeting this foreign peril. For all our domestic problems are now a part of the great
emergency.
Our national policy is this:
First, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed
to all-inclusive national defense.
Second, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are
committed to full support of all those resolute peoples, everywhere, who are resisting aggression and are
thereby keeping war away from our Hemisphere. By this support, we express our determination that the
democratic cause shall prevail; and we strengthen the defense and the security of our own nation.
The happiness of future generations of Americans may well depend upon how effective and how
immediate we can make our aid felt. The Nation's hands must not be tied when the Nation's life is in
danger.
We must all prepare to make the sacrifices that the emergency—almost as serious as war
itself—demands. Whatever stands in the way of speed and efficiency in defense preparations must give
way to the national need.
A free nation has the right to expect full cooperation from all groups. A free nation has the right to look to
the leaders of business, of labor, and of agriculture to take the lead in stimulating effort, not among other
groups but within their own groups.
As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armaments alone. Those who man our defenses,
and those behind them who build our defenses, must have the stamina and the courage which come from
unshakable belief in the manner of life which they are defending.
The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:
Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
Jobs for those who can work.
Security for those who need it.
The ending of special privilege for the few.
The preservation of civil liberties for all.
The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.
I have called for personal sacrifice. I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to
that call.
A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my Budget Message I shall
recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are
paying today. No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich out of this program; and the principle of tax
payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential
human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings
which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of
armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an
act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time
and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the
dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
To that new order we oppose the greater conception—the moral order. A good society is able to face
schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.
Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change—in a perpetual peaceful
revolution—a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions—without the
concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free
countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.
This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and
women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human
rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength
is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.
