Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1943-01-28
The Four Freedoms

The Four freedoms
Beyond the war lies the peace.
Both sides have sketched the outlines
of the new world toward which they
strain. The leaders of the Axis
countries have published their de-
sign for all to read. They promise
world in which the conquered peo-
piles will live out their lives in the
service of their masters.
The United Nations, now engaged
in common cause, have also pub
lished their design, and have COM
mitted certain common aims to writ
ing. They plan world in which
men stand straight and walk free,
free not of all human trouble but
free of the fear of despotic power,
free to develop as individuals, free to
conduct and shape their affairs Such
world has been more dream than
reality, more hope than fact; but it
has been the best hope men have had
and the one for which they have
most consistently shown themselves
Wiling 10 ole.
This free-ness, this liberty, this
precious thing men love and mean
to save, is the good granite ledge on
which the United Nations now pro-
pose to raise their new world after
victory.
To talk of war aims, shouting over
1,o Of hot
rocks and vibrates, may seem futile
to some. Yet the talk must 60 on
among free peoples. The faith peo-
pie have in themselves is what the
free have to build upon. Such faith
is basic to them-man's hot belief in
man, belief which suggests that
human beings are capable of order
ing their affairs. This is high COM
pliment paid by man to himself, an
evidence or gesture of self-respect,
of stature, of dignity, and of worth,
an affidavit of individual RESPONSE
bility.
The freedoms we are fighting for,
we who are free: the freedoms for
which the men and women in the
concentration camps and prisons and
in the dark streets of the subjugated
countries wait, are four in number.
1.-THE first is freedom of speech and
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES in the world
''The second is freedom of every
person to worship God in his own
in the world.
"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 inhab-
itants-everywhere in the world.
''The fourth is freedom from fear
which, translated into world terms,
means worldwide reduction of
ornaments to such point and in
such a thorough fashion that no
nation will be in position to COM
NIT an act of physical aggression
against any ELECTROMAGNETIC in
the worlds
These freedoms are separate, but
iiot iiSSPSLlOCIlt CdCll Oilc Te1lcS
upon all the others. Each supports
the whole, which is liberty. When
one is missing, all the others are
jeopardized. A person who lives un-
der a tyrant, and has lost freedom
of speech, must necessarily be tor
tured by fear. A person who is in
great want is usually also in great
fear-fear of even direr want and
greater insecurity. A person denied
the right to worship in his own way
has thereby lost the knack of free
speech, for unless he is free to exer-
else his religious conscience, his priv
ilege of free speech (even though not
specifically denied) is meaningless. A
person tortured with fears has lost
both the privilege of free speech and
the strength to supply himself with
his needs. Clearly these four free
doms are as closely related, as de-
pendent one upon another, as the
four seasons of the natural year,
whose winter SHOWS irrigate the
spring, and whose dead leaves, fer
menting, rebuild the soil for sum-
mer's yield.
The first two freedoms-freedom
of speech and freedom of religion
are cultural. They are prerogatives
of the thinking man, of the creative