We Can Still Realize FDR’s Vision

Roosevelt understood that freedom that extends from economic security.

Nothing to fear: Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew that economic security was fundamental to democracy.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered the greatest, most radical, and most profoundly democratic State of the Union Address in American history on January 11, 1944. Rooting his message in the revolutionary promise of the Declaration of Independence, with its commitment to fundamental equality and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, FDR articulated the aspirations of generations—including our own—by projecting nothing less than the vision of a social-democratic United States.

While much great rhetoric and a good measure of history has been made in the time since what was once known as the President’s Annual Message to Congress evolved into the high-profile State of the Union extravaganzas of the current moment, no president has delivered a more compelling and lasting vision of transformational change than the one outlined by FDR in what was boldly described as a call for a “second Bill of Rights.”

Roosevelt did not go to Capitol Hill on that January day. Having contracted the flu, he sent the text of his address to Congress. And yet, to ensure that Americans would hear the message, he delivered it that evening via radio in a live “fireside chat” from the White House.

FDR began with an extended review of the war effort, with an emphasis on what still needed to be done to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Then, however, he looked ahead to the postwar moment. Well aware that most Americans remained anxious about the possible return of the Depression, he declared: “It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people…is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.”

Evoking the spirit of the founders, he observed, “This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights…. They were our rights to life and liberty.” He continued: “As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.” As a consequence, “We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. ‘Necessitous men are not free men.’ People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

Echoing Thomas Jefferson’s language in the opening of the Declaration of Independence , FDR continued: “In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.” The 32nd president then proceeded to call for an economic bill of rights that at its heart would guarantee to all Americans a useful job at a living wage, universal healthcare, a good education, food security, a decent home, and opportunities for recreation.

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This was not a new agenda for Roosevelt: He had long been committed to realizing what he now proposed at the close of his third term. In his first presidential campaign, in 1932, he had outlined an Economic Declaration of Rights to challenge the persistent Gilded Age order. He pointed in the same direction with his 1941 State of the Union Address, in which he proclaimed the Four Freedoms that would become the nation’s declared war aims: freedom of speech and worship, and freedom from want and fear. However, he knew that he would not be able to advance the idea in Congress at that time. While Democrats nominally controlled both the House and the Senate, a coalition of conservative Republicans and reactionary Southern Democrats essentially managed congressional business and had already set themselves on the path of dismantling New Deal agencies in 1942. In fact, FDR was able to secure passage of the transformational GI Bill of Rights only because the conservative American Legion used its influence to push it through Congress.

Still, FDR had little doubt that the majority of Americans, especially working-class Americans, wanted the freedom that extends from economic security. At times inspired by Roosevelt, and at times pushing him to go farther than he may ever have intended, they had, over the 11-year period since his presidency began, battled reactionary forces at home during the Great Depression and then battled fascism abroad during World War II. In so doing, the people had radically transformed the nation and themselves. For all their sins of omission and commission, they had subjected big bus…