Tuesday, February 21, 2017

FDR asks a lot of people to make a sacrifice in his speech "The Four Freedoms". Does he make this request adequately?

This question is in reference to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's State of the Union address of 1941, in which he delineated four freedoms that people everywhere in the world ought to have. To be able to give an answer, it's necessary to put the speech into historical context.
When FDR gave this speech, Hitler was already oppressing nations in Europe, and World War II had already begun, although the United States had not yet become involved. It was 11 months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. FDR realized that it was inevitable that the United States would eventually enter the conflict, and he was attempting to convince the lawmakers and the public to pull away from their long-held stance of neutrality.
FDR outlined four basic freedoms that were essential. First was the freedom of speech and expression. Second was the freedom for people to worship God in their own way. Third was freedom from want, which Roosevelt saw as "economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants." The fourth was freedom from fear, which involved "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."
At the time, the Four Freedoms speech was very popular, but many anti-war activists continued to criticize any efforts by the United States to become involved in the conflicts taking place elsewhere. Roosevelt was not able to resolve the impasse and get the United States into the war until after the direct attack on Pearl Harbor.
As for the last part of this question, whether Roosevelt adequately expressed the need for people to make sacrifices in the cause for freedom, this is a subjective decision. Read the speech over carefully and decide for yourself if FDR's eloquence was up to the task.
https://rooseveltinstitute.org/four-freedoms/

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/franklin-d-roosevelt-speaks-of-four-freedoms

https://www.roosevelt.nl/fdr-four-freedoms-speech-1941

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