The Four Freedoms, as articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (6 January 1941)

Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=62736

Date: 2025-07-03

Last Updated: 2025-07-04

Categories: Addenda, 🌐 Day of Democracy (September 15th), 🌐 United Nations Day (October 24th), 🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th)

Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., 77th Congress, anti-fascist, Four Freedoms

Excerpt: The four freedoms as articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his address before the 77th Congress of the United States. . . .

Content:

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	…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 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 – 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. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb….

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The four freedoms as articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his address before the 77th Congress of the United States. The speech is recorded in the Congressional Record, vol. 87, Part 1 (January 6, 1941) — Bound Edition, 77th Congress – 1st Session, pp. 44-47. The Four Freedoms were included in the unpublished 1966 edition of the CCAR Union Anthology, pages 229-230.

Source(s)

Congressional Record – Four Freedoms speech (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 6 January 1941), p. 44

Congressional Record – Four Freedoms speech (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 6 January 1941), p. 45

Congressional Record – Four Freedoms speech (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 6 January 1941), p. 46

Congressional Record – Four Freedoms speech (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 6 January 1941), p. 47

Union Anthology (CCAR 1966, unpublished) – p. 229

Union Anthology (CCAR 1966, unpublished) – p. 230

 

Contributor: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Co-authors:

• 
  Name: Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  Bio: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A member of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. As a dominant leader of his party, he built the New Deal Coalition, which defined modern liberalism in the United States throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II, which ended shortly after he died in office.
  Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt
  Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/franklin-delano-roosevelt

Featured Image:

Title: four_freedoms_szyk_otu_img
Caption: The Four Freedoms (Arthur Szyk)