“Hoping that you may help to keep warm the interest in raising the handicapped to the rights and the activities of normal humanity, I am, with renewed thanks,
Faithfully yours,
Helen Keller”
From a letter to former President Herbert Hoover
Source: research.archives.gov
The Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear
In his State of the Union address to Congress on January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt presented his reasons for American involvement in the growing war in Europe. In helping Britain, President Roosevelt stated, the United States was fighting for the universal freedoms that all people possessed.
Roosevelt’s preparation of the speech went through seven drafts before final delivery. The famous Four Freedoms did not appear until the fourth draft. One night as Roosevelt met with his close advisers in his White House study, the President announced that he had an idea for a peroration (the closing section of a speech).
Samuel I. Rosenman wrote down FDR’s words. He later recounted:
“We waited as he leaned far back in his swivel chair with his gaze on the ceiling. It was a long pause—so long that it began to become uncomfortable. Then he leaned forward again in his chair and dictated the Four Freedoms. He dictated the words so slowly that on the yellow pad I had in my lap I was able to take them down myself in longhand as he spoke.”
Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms became the foundational principles for the Atlantic Charter declared by Winston Churchill and FDR in August 1941; the United Nations Declaration of January 1, 1942; President Roosevelt’s vision for an international organization that became the United Nations after his death; and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 through the work of Eleanor Roosevelt.
Here are the notes that were dictated by FDR, and the evolution of the Four Freedoms speech in subsequent drafts.
from the FDR Library
Source: fdrlibrary.marist.edu
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
She was the niece of Theodore, and the wife of Franklin D., but in her own right, Eleanor was a Roosevelt of singular leadership and vision.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born 127 years ago, on October 11, 1884. Her father was Elliott Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt’s younger brother. On March 17, 1905, she married her fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and between 1906 and 1916, they became the parents of six children.
With American entry in World War I, Eleanor became active in the American Red Cross and in volunteer work in Navy hospitals. In 1921, Franklin Roosevelt was stricken with polio causing Eleanor to become increasingly active in politics in part to help him maintain his interests but also to assert her own personality and goals.
Upon moving to the White House in 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt informed the nation that they should not expect their new first lady to be a symbol of elegance, but rather “plain, ordinary Mrs. Roosevelt.” Despite this disclaimer, she showed herself to be an extraordinary First Lady. In 1933, Eleanor became the first, First Lady to hold her own press conference. In an attempt to afford equal time to women—who were traditionally barred from presidential press conferences—she allowed only female reporters to attend.
Throughout FDR’s presidency, Eleanor traveled extensively around the nation, visiting relief projects, surveying working and living conditions - she was called “the President’s eyes, ears and legs.” She became an advocate of the rights and needs of the poor, of minorities, and of the disadvantaged.
After President Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945, Eleanor continued in her public life. President Truman appointed her to the United Nations General Assembly. She served as chair of the Human Rights Commission and worked tirelessly to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948.
In her later years, President John F. Kennedy appointed Eleanor Roosevelt to the National Advisory Committee of the Peace Corps, and as the first chairperson of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women. She died in 1962 in New York City and is buried next to FDR in Hyde Park, NY.
Happy birthday Eleanor Roosevelt!
-More Eleanor from the FDR Library
