Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Second Bill of Rights” Message to Congress

Explanation and Analysis of the Documents

By January 1944 the tide of World War II was starting to turn in favor of the United States and the Allies. After years of terrible losses, they had finally prevailed over the German submarine threat to shipping in the North Atlantic and had taken over North Africa on the way to Sicily. The Soviets had blunted the German invasion at the massive Battle of Stalingrad, while in the Pacific the Japanese had been pushed onto the defensive, mostly by American forces. Although he was suffering from a bout of influenza that prevented him from delivering his annual message to Congress in person, Roosevelt was reasonably buoyant. His address reprised the themes of security about which he had spoken so fervently in the past. He continued to maintain that lasting peace required not only an end to Axis aggression but also economic, social, and moral security.

The address opens with a concise statement of the war's purposes and moves quickly to a vision for stability and prosperity in the postwar world. While the language is tough-minded, it also evinces some naïveté about the nature of the Soviet regime. He refers to the United States and the Allies as “like-minded people” before characterizing the Axis powers as gangsters seeking to enslave humanity. While historians today might agree with the assessment of the German, Italian, and Japanese regimes as “gangster” states, the same label would likely be applied to Stalin's Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with its gulags, genocidal collectivization and resettlement programs, and murderous show trials. Nor did Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China share many democratic values with Britain or the United States. Rather than saying that the Allies were “like-minded,” Roosevelt would have been more accurate to say that they shared a common interest in seeing the Axis powers defeated. Yet, as Roosevelt insists, the Allies also shared a desire to develop their nations' intellectual, economic, and social capital in peace.

Thus, Roosevelt returns to the themes of his annual message to Congress of 1941. His vision for a postwar world required both an end to hostilities and the restoration of stable economies providing justice and opportunity. He asserts, “Freedom from fear is eternally linked with freedom from want.” He goes on to explain his view that international development is not what would now be called a zero-sum game. In contrast to the mercantilists who had preceded him, Roosevelt firmly believed that the rising tide would raise all boats—that widespread economic development would lead to better standards of living for people in the United States and around the world. He cautions, however, that greedy people seeking preferments threatened this paradigm. Roosevelt speaks of his intent to remain vigilant against self-centered war profiteers, including those who sought unfair government contracts, those who charged exorbitant prices, and those who collectively withheld their much-needed labor for better pay. He strongly urges restraint against greed and explains that the nation would be wealthier for it. Moreover, with the nation deeply engaged in a global war, greed or even distracted attention might mean more dead American soldiers.

Having iterated the importance of supporting the war effort with selflessness and determination, Roosevelt proceeds to dedicate most of the address to his vision for a postwar America. As it had been since he first assumed office in 1933, much of Roosevelt's attention was focused on the restoration of a fair, stable, and prosperous economy. He speaks of principally seeking to achieve fairness by eliminating war profiteering. He calls for—and indeed elicited from Congress—high individual and corporate taxes to recover “unreasonable” profits. He proposes renegotiating war contracts to ensure that they did not excessively reward the companies that had manufactured, provisioned, and serviced the enormous war machine. In these efforts, Roosevelt appears to have been motivated more by a concern for relative fairness than by the idea of financing the war as efficiently and inexpensively as possible. His notions of fairness also brought him to call for greater price-stabilization programs to ensure that people could eat and that farmers could make decent livings. Besides supporting the idea that everyone participate in and benefit from the wartime economy, Roosevelt here proposes a national service program to provide employment for all able-bodied men and women. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines were being asked to risk everything, he notes, so other Americans should be expected to make similar sacrifices for the common good. While this proposal did not bear fruit, statesmen continue to revisit it with each passing generation.

In the most important—and widely overlooked—passages of this address, Roosevelt supports a “second Bill of Rights” for all Americans as a basis for postwar security and prosperity. If the original Bill of Rights reflected Enlightenment views about civil and political rights, Roosevelt intended the successor to assure opportunity and a decent life for all “regardless of station, race, or creed.” To this end, Roosevelt suggests formal recognition of a new package of rights that had sadly gone unmet for many poor and disadvantaged Americans throughout the nation's history. These included, most notably, rights to education, a decent job, a home, and health care, as well as adequate protection against the economic fears engendered by old age, sickness, accidents, and unemployment. Taken together, this cluster of rights resembles the modern social contracts that some postwar Western European nations have guaranteed their citizens. In 1944 Roosevelt's proposal failed to gain sufficient momentum in the United States; like his plan for national service, the idea of a second Bill of Rights quickly died. On the other hand, many of the individual rights outlined by Roosevelt remain aspirations that have been pursued in fits and starts by national and local governments with some successes.

Roosevelt's enlightened vision for American security contributed significantly to the defeat of the Axis powers and the collective articulation of a more fair and prosperous country. In the end, however, some of his more sweeping proposals for economic security failed. In the absence of a national service obligation and a comprehensive agenda for ensuring economic rights, Roosevelt's vision remains unfulfilled today.