The Four Freedoms, Roosevelt & Rockwell

Franklin D. Roosevelt made a very powerful speech expressing the reasons for the country's support of the Allied nations in World War II. In his speech, Roosevelt promoted the concept of the four basic freedoms to which all people are entitled: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear - he made comments regarding our nation and what we stand for. As we are once again in the middle of a war I wanted to remind all of us what we, the United States, said we once stood for so we can once again get back on track and realize why we are doing what we are doing in this current war.

Norman Rockwell created 4 pieces of artwork after hearing this speech —then at the height of his profession—to interpret the optimistic goals set forth by the president. Rockwell wished to create something to support the country's war effort; through the creation of The Four Freedoms, he found his way.
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Last four paragraphs from, FOUR FREEDOMS SPEECH, delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on January 6, 1941

"If the congress maintains these principles the voters, putting patriotism ahead pocketbooks, will give you their applause. 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."
Each According to the Dictates of His Own Conscience."

"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 wold. 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. "


"To that new order we oppose the greater conception --the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society."

"This nation has placed its destiny in the hands, heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. "

To that high concept there can be no end save victory.