Franklin D. Roosevelt: Four Freedoms Message to Congress

About the Author

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, and spent a privileged childhood in his Hyde Park home along the Hudson River. His adult cousin, Theodore, hero of the Spanish-American War and twenty-sixth president of the United States, exerted an enormous influence on Franklin. Both Theodore and Franklin attended Harvard, but, in contrast to his cousin, Franklin allied himself with the Democratic Party. Franklin married Eleanor, his fifth cousin and daughter of Theodore's younger brother, in New York on March 17, 1905; President Theodore Roosevelt was there to give the bride away.

Roosevelt studied law at Columbia University but aspired to a political career like his cousin. In 1910, he ran a successful campaign for a seat in the New York state senate, where he became a champion of political and labor reforms. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson offered Roosevelt a position in his cabinet as assistant secretary of the navy, the very same position that Theodore had once held. Roosevelt made an unsuccessful bid for the vice presidency in 1920 and returned to life as a private citizen. In 1921, he was struck with polio and spent several years trying to gain partial mobility of his limbs. Roosevelt reentered the political arena in 1928, successfully running for governor of New York, where he continued his advocacy of Progressive politics.

By 1932, with the country in the throes of the Great Depression, Roosevelt was a viable candidate to replace the beleaguered Herbert Hoover, the troubled Republican president who seemed incapable of solving the nation's woes. Although he never had a specific plan of action, Roosevelt gained the presidency on his broad promise of change, winning by an electoral margin of 472 to 59 votes. During the early days of his first term (often referred to as the “First Hundred Days”), Roosevelt instituted a flurry of programs to combat the depression, including the Public Works Administration, which established a massive infrastructure-improvement program that also provided Americans with new jobs. After his reelection in 1936, Roosevelt expanded these programs (known collectively as the New Deal) to include modern reforms we take for granted today, such as Social Security. Not everyone supported Roosevelt's New Deal programs, however; many businesses opposed government intrusion in the private sector, and Roosevelt's plan to appoint sympathetic judges on the Supreme Court nearly undid his presidency. In many ways, Roosevelt embraced a new definition of freedom, one that included protection from both government and private-sector intrusion on civil liberties. As the historian Robert S. McElvaine notes, “Where his detractors saw a lack of principle, his supporters saw an admirable flexibility” (pp. 306–307).

By 1940, hostilities had increased in Europe, and Roosevelt felt responsible for guiding the United States through this next challenge. He won an unprecedented third term and shortly after described the “unprecedented” threat to American security in his annual message to Congress (the Four Freedoms speech). Facing a public hesitant to commit to direct involvement in the European conflict and an even more divided Congress, Roosevelt managed to persuade the legislature to provide military assistance to belligerents in the conflict. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ended any pretence of U.S. neutrality, and Roosevelt became a war president, guiding the nation through radio addresses, called “fireside chats,” that simultaneously reassured Americans and called for sacrifice. America's entry had a significant impact on the Allied war effort, but not all the nation's efforts were heroic. Perhaps one of the most ignominious decisions of Roosevelt's presidency was Executive Order 9066, which paved the way for the internment of Japanese Americans.

In poor health in the midst of war, Roosevelt nevertheless ran successfully for a fourth term—the only president in history to do so. He delivered his fourth inaugural address in January of 1945 and died on April 12 of the same year—a few weeks before the Germans surrendered on May 8.