Document Analysis Essay
Document 25-4: Four Freedoms Speech (1941)
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McKell Trusty
History 1700
Lorlene Blake
March 5, 2011
Document Analysis Essay: Document 25-4
On January 6, 1941, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented his
annual State of the Union Address to Congress. Presented when the United States was on
the brink of entering into World War II, Roosevelt’s speech has become known as the
“Four Freedoms” speech for the President’s enunciation of the “four essential human
freedoms:” freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of want, and freedom from
fear. The Four Freedoms Speech was written by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and
presented as more of his vision for the future and was presented to congress in this manor
as well. He proposed four fundamental freedoms that people everywhere in the world
should be able to enjoy: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom
from want, and freedom from fear.
The time that FDR wrote this speech was during World War II. The world was at
war with each other. The United States had yet to enter this war, but it wasn’t a
question of whether they would join the war, but when they would. Armed defense
of democratic existence was being “gallantly waged in four continents”. (America’s
History) Also, the last few paragraphs became the most famous rationale for the
American participation in the Second World War.
The themes that I found in my analysis of the Four Freedoms Speech at the
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beginning of his speech was mainly centered on the fact that the world was at war,
and the threat that was being placed upon democracy. FDR mentions the topic of
war in many different ways. He says in the second paragraph of his speech, “ It is
true that prior to 1914 the United States often had been disturbed by events in other
continents. We had even been engaged in two wars with European Nations and in a
number of undeclared wards in the West Indies, in the Mediterranean and in the
Pacific for the maintenance of American rights and for the principles of peaceful
commerce.” (America’s History)
Towards the end of his speech, he changes the tone of his speech to how
democracy provides equal opportunity for all. In the last few paragraphs of his
speech, he mentions the four freedoms and said, “ In the future days, which we seek
to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human
freedoms.”(America’s History) These four essential freedoms were those of
freedom of speech and expression-everywhere in the world. The second was
freedom of every person to worship God in his own way- everywhere in the world.
The third, is freedom from want –which, translated into worldly terms, means
economic understanding, which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life
for its inhabitants- everywhere in the world. The fourth, is the freedom from fearwhich, translated into worldly 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.
FDR’s audience was that of the 77th Congress of the United States of America. It
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was presented as his State of the Union address in 1941. The speech is laden with
appeals to American patriotism, which Roosevelt knew would be needed to stave off
criticism of his plans, and to raise American munitions production to the levels necessary
not only to sustain our British cousins fighting Hitler, but also in the greater struggle
which he surely knew was coming. (Common Sense Americanism) The document
revels the fact that FDR knew that America was not far away from joining the war that
was in the world surrounding the United States, “In times like these it is immature-and
incidentally untrue- for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed, and
with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world…”(American’s History)
He was not only preparing and creating a sense of patriotism for the United States, but he
was also hoping to inspire and keep the patriotism of the British forces up as well.
FDR wrote this document to help encourage those of the United States and the British
forces to keep fighting for what they believed in. Mr. Roosevelt he felt that the four
essential freedoms were to be enjoyed by not only those who knew democracy, but for
that of the whole world. In the last few paragraphs of his speech, he explains the
reasoning for his four freedoms by saying, “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.”
FDR, in my opinion, was a very good president. He knew how to inspire the American
people and the American people trusted him. “The Four Freedoms” speech is a very well
written document. I feel the patriotism he was trying to create while giving his State of
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the Union address to Congress. I can see his reasoning for feeling the need to create
patriotism and how he presented it. He knew the United States would be involved in the
war and it was only a matter of when. Looking back on his four freedoms, I believe that
the British and Americans created a society where this essential freedom for humans is
possible. His four freedoms gave Americans hope and created what we know today as
democracy for the world as a whole and not just a single country.
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Works Cited
Common Sense Americanism. "FDR's Four Freedom Speech." Common Sense
Americanism. 2011. Web. 08 Mar. 2011. <http://www.csamerican.com>.
Henretta, James A., David Brody, and Lynn Dumenil. "The Four Freedoms Speech."
America's History. Sixth ed. Vol. Two. Boston, MA: Bedford/st Martins, 2007. 285-86