Jon Meacham: From 1776 to Sumter, from Selma to Obama, we've been shaped by the fights for freedom
On New Year's Day 1941, in his study at the White House, Franklin D. Roosevelt was searching for the right words. He was at work on his State of the Union address, and he was thinking in epic terms. Much of the world was at war. Great Britain, under Winston Churchill, had held out against Hitler's Germany through the long months after the invasion of France in May 1940. America, however, remained largely isolationist. Roosevelt's re-election in November had been a reassuring suggestion that the United States understood the enormity of what was unfolding, but for now it was just that—a suggestion, nothing more.
A practical politician to his core, FDR knew where the public was, and he knew, too, that it was up to him to define the conflict for the country. The presidency, he had once said, was "pre-eminently a place of moral leadership," and such leadership had to be exercised by deed (hence his efforts to provide aid to Churchill's Britain) and by word.
Sitting with his aides Harry Hopkins and Samuel Rosenman on New Year's Day, FDR began dictating a passage for his State of the Union.
"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 worldwide 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."
Listening as Rosenman took down the president's words on a yellow pad, Hopkins, the emaciated social worker from Iowa who had become a trusted Roosevelt adviser, offered a caveat, taking exception with the phrase "everywhere in the world."
"That covers an awful lot of territory, Mr. President," Hopkins said. "I don't know how interested Americans are going to be in the people of Java."
"I'm afraid they'll have to be someday, Harry," Roosevelt replied. "The world is getting so small that even the people in Java are getting to be our neighbors now."
Before many others, Roosevelt saw that the world was now a neighborhood, and what happened in the councils of Europe or the caves of Afghanistan mattered—a lot....
Read entire article at Newsweek
A practical politician to his core, FDR knew where the public was, and he knew, too, that it was up to him to define the conflict for the country. The presidency, he had once said, was "pre-eminently a place of moral leadership," and such leadership had to be exercised by deed (hence his efforts to provide aid to Churchill's Britain) and by word.
Sitting with his aides Harry Hopkins and Samuel Rosenman on New Year's Day, FDR began dictating a passage for his State of the Union.
"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 worldwide 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."
Listening as Rosenman took down the president's words on a yellow pad, Hopkins, the emaciated social worker from Iowa who had become a trusted Roosevelt adviser, offered a caveat, taking exception with the phrase "everywhere in the world."
"That covers an awful lot of territory, Mr. President," Hopkins said. "I don't know how interested Americans are going to be in the people of Java."
"I'm afraid they'll have to be someday, Harry," Roosevelt replied. "The world is getting so small that even the people in Java are getting to be our neighbors now."
Before many others, Roosevelt saw that the world was now a neighborhood, and what happened in the councils of Europe or the caves of Afghanistan mattered—a lot....