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The 'Four Freedoms' are goals famously articulated by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the State of the Union Address he delivered to the 77th United States Congress on January 6, 1941. In an address also known as the 'Four Freedoms speech', Roosevelt enumerated four points as fundamental freedoms humans "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy:
# Freedom of speech and expression
# Freedom of every person to worship in his own way
# Freedom from hunger
# Freedom from fear
His inclusion of the latter two freedoms went beyond the traditional American Constitutional values protected by the First Amendment, and endorsed a right to economic security and an internationalist view of foreign policy that have come to be central tenets of modern American liberalism.

Contents

The Declarations

United Nations

The four freedoms and disarmament

Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms Paintings

Four Freedoms Monument

Awards

Use in popular culture

See also

External links

The Declarations

The speech delivered by President Roosevelt incorporated the following section:

United Nations

The concept of the Four Freedoms became part of the personal mission undertaken by First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt regarding her inspiration behind the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

The four freedoms and disarmament

Roosevelt called for "a world-wide reduction of armaments" as a goal for "the future days, which we seek to make secure" but one that was "attainable in our own time and generation." More immediately, though, he called for a massive build-up of U.S. arms production: "Every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment being' directly assailed in every part of the world… The need of the moment is that our actions and our policy should be devoted primarily—almost exclusively—to meeting this foreign peril. … [T]he immediate need is a swift and driving increase in our armament production. … I also ask this Congress for authority and for funds sufficient to manufacture additional munitions and war supplies of many kinds, to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war with aggressor nations. … Let us say to the democracies: '…We shall send you, in ever-increasing numbers, ships, planes, tanks, guns. …'"
-Franklin D. Roosevelt

Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms Paintings

President Roosevelt's Four Freedoms speech inspired a set of four paintings by Norman Rockwell. The four paintings were published in ''The Saturday Evening Post'' on February 20, February 27, March 6 and March 13 in 1943. The paintings were accompanied in the magazine by matching essays on the Four Freedoms.
The United States Department of the Treasury toured Rockwell's Four Freedoms paintings around the country after their publication in 1943. The Four Freedoms Tour raised over $130,000,000 in war bond sales.
Rockwell's Four Freedoms paintings were also reproduced as postage stamps by the United States Post Office.

Four Freedoms Monument

President Roosevelt commissioned Sculptor Walter A. Russell to create a monument to be dedicated to the first hero of the war - the Four Freedoms Monument. The President felt that, through the medium of the arts a far greater number of people could be brought to understand the concept of the four freedoms. The monument was first dedicated at Madison Square Garden in New York, then was later moved to his hometown of Madison, Florida.

Awards

The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute [1] honors outstanding individuals who have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to these ideals. The Four Freedoms Award medals are awarded at ceremonies at Hyde Park, New York and Middelburg, Netherlands during alternate years. Among the laureates have been:

★ Harry S. Truman

★ John F. Kennedy

★ Jimmy Carter

★ Averell Harriman

★ Coretta Scott King

★ Elie Wiesel

★ Tip O'Neill

★ William Brennan

★ Mike Mansfield

★ H.R.H. Princess Juliana of the Netherlands

★ Václav Havel

★ Mikhail Gorbachev

★ The Dalai Lama

★ H.M. Juan Carlos of Spain

★ Shimon Peres

★ Bill Clinton

Use in popular culture

★ In the game series Splinter Cell there are numerous references to the Four Freedoms, with the commanding officer of protagonist Sam Fisher, stating at one point, "this is four freedoms territory", indicating that the situation (in the game plot) has not gotten so grave that one or more of the Four Freedoms are threatened. In the opening sequence of the first game, the Four Freedoms are displayed in text version as a splash screen at the opening of the game, with a fifth freedom added: The freedom to protect the other four - with any means necessary. It is this "fifth freedom" that the game's protagonist operates under.

See also

★ Liberalism in the United States

★ Four Freedoms (European Union)

★ Fifth Freedom

★ The Free Software Definition, often called "the four freedoms" within the free software community

External links

★ Full text and audio of the Four Freedoms speech. An excerpt of the Four Freedoms section is also available.

★ Full text of the Four Freedoms speech.

★ Four Freedoms Democratic Club

★ Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms Paintings

★ Carnegie Council Study Guide to the Four Freedoms