Franklin Roosevelt on Speech on the Four Freedoms Assignment | Essay Help Services

(see this required reading, in this module), the U.S. was not yet in World War 2: it was 11 months away. Yet the speech was clearly an attempt to steer American citizens towards a declaration of war — or at least to consider the possibility. In this assignment, please answer the following questions using all that you’ve learned from our assigned reading for this module/week: What were the Four Freedoms? Discuss them at some length. Have we attained the Four Freedoms today? In what way? In what way has the nation fallen short? Be specific. Get down to concrete examples to argue your thesis or leading idea. Be sure to use the material we’ve just studied to back your verdict. Convince us that you’re thesis is right by going beyond mere assertion (“Bob is wrong.”) to actual evidence (“Bob is wrong because of A,B, and C.”). Deadline for Initial Post: before Friday is over (PST). (Hint: 12:01 a.m. on Saturday is a late Initial Post.) Deadline for Two Response Posts: by Sunday, before 11 p.m. PST

The Document
“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. The total of those populations and their resources . . . greatly
exceeds the sum total of the population and the resources of the whole of the Western
Hemisphere-many times over.
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. . . .
2020/5/8 [Required Reading] Primary Source – The Four Freedoms, FDR (1941): 2020 Spr – HIST 12 (2492) [1..18] – VANBENSCHOTEN – (O)
https://online.smc.edu/courses/28058/pages/required-reading-primary-source-the-four-freedoms-fdr-1941 2/3
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.
Just as our national policy in internal affairs has been based upon a decent respect for the rights
and the dignity of all our fellow men within our gates, so our national policy in foreign affairs has
been based on a decent respect for the rights and dignity of all nations, large and small. And the
justice of morality must and will win in the end.
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 security
of our own nation.
Third, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are
committed to the proposition that principles of morality and considerations for our own security will
never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We
know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people’s freedom. . . .
I also ask this Congress for authority and for funds sufficient to manufacture additional munitions
and war supplies of many kinds, to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war
with aggressor nations.
Our most useful and immediate role is to act as an arsenal for them as well as for ourselves. They
do not need man power. They do need billions of dollars’ worth of the weapons of defense. . . .
Let us say to the democracies, “We Americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom.
We are putting forth our energies, our resources, and our organizing powers to give you the
strength to regain and maintain a free world. We shall send you, in ever-increasing numbers,
ships, planes, tanks, guns. This is our purpose and our pledge.” . . .
There is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. 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.
2020/5/8 [Required Reading] Primary Source – The Four Freedoms, FDR (1941): 2020 Spr – HIST 12 (2492) [1..18] – VANBENSCHOTEN – (O)
https://online.smc.edu/courses/28058/pages/required-reading-primary-source-the-four-freedoms-fdr-1941 3/3
The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.
These are the simple and basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and
unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and
political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations. . . .
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 quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we
seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.”