'Four Freedoms' Speech
Image of Roosevelt delivering 'Four Freedoms' speech.
On January 6, 1941 President Roosevelt delivered his famous 'Four Freedoms' speech. In it he articulated his vision for a more perfect world.
“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 universal 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.”
-Excerpt from the Four Freedoms Speech delivered on January 6, 1941.
To read the transcipt from or listen to the entire 'Four Freedoms' speech, please visit:
www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrthefourfreedoms.htm.
The Four Freedoms will forever be enshrined and where a later generation may pay homage to this great man who responded so courageously to the needs of the people of the United States and the world.
