Franklin D. Roosevelt: Four Freedoms Message to Congress

Impact

Roosevelt's Four Freedoms Message had an immediate political impact and a much longer-term effect on the way Americans viewed both their nation's role in World War II and the concept of democratic freedom. In spite of isolationist opposition, Congress passed an amended the Lend-Lease Bill in March of 1941 by substantial majorities on both the House and Senate. In winning over the legislature—and the American public—to his plan, Roosevelt moved the nation a significant step away from isolationism and toward the very real possibility of being drawn into the conflict. Lend-Lease opened a virtual can of worms in terms of U.S. policy: Could the nation, in fact, produce enough materials to both defend itself in case of attack and meet Britain's demands? How could America safeguard its investment and ensure the safety of British ships transporting American munitions, given that U.S. neutrality laws forbade American ships from escorting the British navy in hostile waters? As German U-boats increased their attacks on British ships, America walked an ever-thinning tightrope of neutrality. Politically, Roosevelt's Four Freedoms Message was a major step in allying the United States with Great Britain.

Once America had declared war against Japan and officially entered the conflict, Roosevelt's address took on a new life apart from its immediate political one. Whereas he enunciated the Four Freedoms while America still claimed neutrality, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the speech's ending became a rallying point for a nation at war. In 1942 the Office of War Information published a pamphlet titled “The United Nations Fight for the Four Freedoms,” which defined each of Roosevelt's freedoms in detail as a means of differentiating America and its Allies from their enemies. The pamphlet opens with a quotation from Roosevelt, that the Allied powers' “belief in the four freedoms of common humanity … is the crucial difference between ourselves and the enemies we face today.” The Office of War Information also called for a group of artists, termed Artists for Victory, to sponsor a competition of visual depictions of the Four Freedoms. One of the most enduring manifestations of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms Message is a series of four paintings by Norman Rockwell, which he completed for the Saturday Evening Post in 1943. The images were enormously successful; the Office of War Information distributed four million copies worldwide, and Rockwell received some sixty thousand letters from both fans and critics of his work.

Forged in the fires of a nation bent on avoiding war, the Four Freedoms Message was transformed into the justification for a nation entering into a war. Tying First Amendment rights into his New Deal economic programs, Roosevelt initially linked aid to Britain with the goals of his previous terms in office. As all pretenses of neutrality faded and Americans faced the reality of war, Roosevelt's freedoms took on new life. As the historian David Hackett Fischer notes, “The meaning of liberty and freedom changed profoundly during the Second World War” (p. 558). The Four Freedoms Message continued to resonate with Americans even after the war. At the 1945 San Francisco United Nations conference, four white columns were erected on the main podium, symbolizing Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. In 1948 the United Nations included the Four Freedoms in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights.