Library, spoken before. We always love to have him welcome back. Harvey, thank you. It is such pleasure. And its and im going to now make clear to everyone. Congratulations, bill becoming the director. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Its an honor. And today, of course, weve got a wonderful to talk about your book on the four freedoms and four freedoms are ever relevant or should be ever, because even more sort of something thats aspiration. While we would hope that their bedrock what we do every day and how we think about what we do. So i always like to ask this question just to sort what what brought you or do you want to talk about four freedoms in relationship to the past enter today sorry and hope i dont take too much time explaining this because theres actually a bit of a story behind it. I grew up in a fdr democratic household, so there was no question about how the family felt about. Franklin roosevelt but what . But my first major work in history, because i trained actually different fields in American History, but my work was on thomas paine and i what i did was, i told the story of Thomas Paines life and labors and then basically retold the american story through thomas paine as as the legacy of thomas paine. And when i got to the roosevelt, the thing that really struck me because this is important, everyone had assumed that thomas paine had been forgotten in American History everyone had assumed that conservatives and reactionary of all sorts had suppressed thomas memory. And then there i was in the forties. Okay, the thirties, actually in the late thirties. And first of all, Eleanor Roosevelt in a very, very small but important book, the moral basis of democracy, dedicated more pages to to discussing thomas paine on questions like freedom, worship, freedom of religion, freedom and democracy than she did to anyone else and for anyone else in the book and, of course, i went through commie call me crazy. But the old fdr speeches, i was looking for some kind of acknowledgment on his part. And what was strike going was that on the washingtons birthday weekend of 1942, when fdr was going to explain to americans that indeed we were capable of global two front war and he had everyone get maps to see what that entailed. He opens that fireside chat on that washingtons birthday weekend, recalling washingtons retreat across new jersey to the delaware. And he then reviews the state of american the trials and tribulations of macarthur in the philippines. I mean, he really covers all the bases to get americans ready for a serious long term quite long possibly war effort but he closes that fireside chat with an amazing set of remarks. He basically he starts quoting Thomas Paines famous lines from, the first of the american crisis papers. These are the times that try mens souls. And he quotes it at length. And basically, to paraphrase fdr, he said, paine spoke for us. Then paine speaks for us now because paine promised that the victory would the triumph ultimately be, you know, this great moment. And so i wow. Heres fdr. So i paid all the more attention to fdr speeches in the wake of doing that, doing that, that thomas paine and the promise of america. And i had an original first idea was i was going to write on the economy bill of rights speech of. January 1944 because i thought it was imperative for americans to be aware of that speech the populace ready of those ideas and of course how it had come to be suppressed in ensuing years. But just around the time a professor who ended up harvard, a law professor, cass sunstein, brought out a book on the second bill of rights from a legal perspective. And i thought, oh, i dont want to look like im piggybacking. Cass sunstein and i talked to my editor. And he says, well, lets go bigger. It says, think about going bigger. So as i backed away and i looked at the trajectory, fdr, his work, i saw as i maybe get to talk later he opens his one of his big Campaign Speeches in 1932 after hes won the nomination is calling for an economic declaration of rights. And then of course in january 41, he gives the speech, which is essentially the call to arms for americans, even though the war our involvement in the war directly would occur until december 7th of that year. But that speech that he delivers that state of the Union Message of january 41, close is is on the four freedoms. And i thought wow it all hangs on the freedoms. Okay both in terms of americas purpose and promise and moreover in terms of americas if you like responsibility. And so it was that moment where i said my editor, you know what . I really like to work on as some in some ways to honor my parents generation is, fdr, the greatest generation. And i want to frame in terms of the four frames. And as i went through work on that, i mean, i took several to do it. What struck me is, despite everyones claims that americans tell you what the four freedoms were during the war, and ive had a lot of arguments about that it was striking the degree to which the four freedoms not only became a slogan. Okay for you know a war bond drive and and any number of speeches but indeed theyd actually the definition of that generation. When you think about the generation of the depression, the war and then and everyone thinks my generation for the sixties but actually its that generation which was which elected liberals to office literally veterans of the depression and World War Two into congress and the and what Lyndon Johnson pursue is basically in terms of the great society, the war on poverty, a further extension and not mention Immigration Reform. Okay. Medicare and medicaid in many ways. But the story roosevelt and Arthur Schlesinger jr himself talked about the long age great age of roosevelt really does extend. From 30 to 33 all the way through. And i see the four freedoms as the spirit of that generation, the ethos of that generation. Its interesting that you should mention the very fact or not the fact, but the discussion thats had about whether americans know the individual. Four freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom from want and, freedom from fear. But in some ways i find interesting about them and then when one thinks about the generation and this moment in january 1941, this kind of transition from one sort of approach to another focus is that theres there is overlap within them. So that one is in a related with the other, it a related with the other. And so in some ways it is important to know the different ones, but at the same time all build upon each other as and there itself, there theyre less powerful without the others together with them right. Think about it because i think about africanamericans in the south whose rights being suppressed ever since the postreconstruction era. Okay the idea of freedom of speech and expression was intimately linked to freedom from fear. Yeah right. Thats right given given the muggings of elderly, you know, men and women on the streets of places like and brooklyn and elsewhere by. Really reactionary sort of almost well, hitlerian kind of in america. Okay. Mean freedom of worship may have been the case, but that freedom of worship beyond a synagogue, a temple. Thats right. Was whole idea of freedom from fear to to be able to walk the street kind of of freedom. So, yeah, theyre absolutely very intimately connected. And the other thing id say, and this was also very striking to me, i did i when i get into a subject, i just dig. And it was it was really well, it really was amazing that when you looked at it from the Vantage Point of, the generation that heard that speech, whether they were in their sixties and seventies or younger, when they heard fdr, his words were, we shouldnt assume they that what fdr said exactly was what ended up being in their memory banks. So and i mean by that is that most people when asked about the for even if they could name them individually they could actually speak to number one. Yes and other thing was that they heard that speech not in the global terms. Fdr wanted them to hear it. They heard about it in terms of, well, weve through the new deal and new deal is not going to stop. Okay. We are going to extend the rights of people by way of industrial, the National Labor relations act. We are going to make sure that all faiths are honored in their respective ways, that immigrants themselves will be understood as american as anyone else, whether you know, native born or newly arrived. And indeed, and to take even further that freedom from want which new deal spoke directly to that, they would continue to pursue it, which would literally at some point leap, leap to the economic bill of and that freedom from fear. I mean, americans actually said that they heard it in those terms and the polling groups that followed up on these things, they were convinced americans. They wanted at all. Okay, this is before for the economic bill of rights. So is its its not though its a a its a political expression in that sense of programs that can advance a certain set of ideals, lets say our principles. But right. It it it is beyond politics. Those notions, its how you achieve them or how you move forward may have a political solution. Right. All that. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. So lets go back. Lets go back and think about fdr and how he got to january 1941. Lets go back to, you know, im struck by Herbert Hoover him a radical because as the scion of an old family democrat though may be he was certainly man of the establishment. Absolutely. Completely. And his wife also the the niece of a republican president. Right. So to whom fdr was a cousin, i mean. Yes. So so he embodies the establishment. And yet a radical. Well, hes everything to everybody in a way. Hes a communist hes a socialist. Hes whatever youre afraid of when it comes to change, isnt he . Yes, but heres what. But fdr, in his own, he feared something more significant. Okay, say so. Fdr, you. Hes born in the late 19th century, born in the middle of the gilded age. And and he grows up in a in a in a in a political and economic order, in which, you know, the expression rich are getting richer and working people are barely holding their own and many are enduring. Okay, its an in which if you talk to the foremost of his day, William Graham sumner, yale, its you know, its an age social darwinism. What do classes owe each other they owe nothing to each. Whats the role of government to be . The role of government is to protect property and the capacity to own all the more property. I mean its its everything we think of as reactionary and was the prevailing political and order now there were challenges there the populists in out here in the midwest there were the progressives in major urban centers. There were, of course, also the socialists who a rising force and in fact, in 1912, when Teddy Roosevelt was one of the four candidates for president , it was said that at least three of the four, four candidates were truly progressive in some way. Now, fdr was growing up in this in these circumstances, somehow or other, long before and i take nothing away from frances perkins, woman who knew fdr you know extremely well but makes it out as if fdr doesnt really become Democrat Small d the sympathetic, you know, of humanistic democrat until the until the twenties, when enduring suffering polio. And hes educated by eleanor the people she introduces to to find out more about working class life. So on fdr from the very beginning. King is has is been questioning and even trying to find a way to act politically that he would not be taken a socialist necessarily. And so, for example, in 1912, when gives a speech at the Peoples Forum actually talks about well look were pretty much effectively achieve liberty. The individual obviously something of an exaggeration. But the trick is, he says how can we pursue liberty of the community was looking how how and this is the key thing how create a force that would keep the robber and their ilk from getting ewing to prevent americans to deny americans the majority of americans from enjoying or at least having the chance to enjoy the promise made in the declaration and the constitution, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and a government of we the people. He is even as young man is twenties and thirties however he may not be a deep intellect, you know, he by no means, but he was seriously thinking through these political questions and he comes in 19 well, in 1910, entering the new york state senate, he becomes an hes aligned with the progressives. And that is the and identified. I mean hes got to kind of mentors in that respect hes got Woodrow Wilson who wins the presidency in 1912 a progressive democrat and hes got his own cousin and his wifes uncle who is related to all the more theodore roosevelt, a progressive republican. Now, this is the interesting he through these years in speeches as revealing his small d democratic instincts and. I wont go through all those speeches after world war one and many people had many of the progressives lined up with wilson during. The war people had believed there would be a furtherance of the progressive politics, progressive legislation to to tame control the, if you like, the gri, the selfishness, the corruption, the violence inducing power of that class of corporate bosses, that emerged during the late 19th century. However, its an age of reaction. The 1920s, and we often get message. We often get the wrong view of the twenties by way of films and things, because its the roaring twenties. Most people dont realize that working people, urban and rural alike, actually suffered a decline in their income. They, they, they they the farmers barely recovered from the recession following world war one. And people, the only way they sustained the Household Income that they they had was by way of both members of the family going out to work. Now, in this moment. Fdr has endured suffered the polio. Fdr starts to develop a new politics he doesnt leave behind progressivism. Progressivism is a is a force pursuing fdr wants to go further. This is where perkins really onto something and that is he becomes all more humane and eleanor has introduced to socialist jewish Women Organizers in new york city labor organizers and he comes to see that government that to harness the powers democratic government is not merely a matter then reforming the gilded age or reforming industrial. Its also a matter of those who are without. This is the liberalism that is cultivating during the 1920s, but heres the thing he. By the time of 1929, he and then 30, he realizes that its that gilded age capitalism and those the class longer necessarily call the robber barons. But the foremost richest men. And women in america who are really responsible for the great depression, the crash, the great depression. And he is beginning to see in part by education, in part by eleanors influence, in part literally by the whom hes interacted with, when hes assistant secretary of the navy during the First World War when hes literally meeting the Women Organizers that eleanor introduced him to, he realizes that you of go beyond just liberalism. This is where and he never use the term he a social democrat his campaign in the spring of of 1932 in which too many historians have dismiss listed as not wellplanned and well really have missed the boat. It is an agenda for social democracy and if you read his speeches during there that year he is definitely looking not only to uplift his looking, empower working people. And in fact, in 1930 he told a good friend in a letter, i can prove it. I got it up here on my wall here. He tells a friend, i think its time for this country to go fairly for at least a generation. Now, hoover didnt know of that letter, but hoover knew full well what fdr was saying on the campaign, in pursuit of the democratic nomination, and then he drives it home. Fdr, of course, in that speech of his that acceptance speech is important at acceptance speeches, promise of a new deal, he takes this agenda. Hes laid out and he promises a deal. Moreover im pretty sure its in that speech he actually says that he laws are not a perfect nature they basically they are humanly created that is one of the most radical statements of the modern age this kind of thing it almost expect to hear from the likes of. Karl marx okay. So hoovers in one way how does he come judge him as a radical . The guys from, as you know, very privileged background. Our our man, fdr. But in many ways, hoover saw a lot of people may not have seen that he was confronted politically by a radical who was to literally bring an end to the gilded age order the gilded age political and economic order. And he was going do it not only by harnessing the powers of democratic government, but he was going to engage americans in it, harnessing that power and empowering them to do so at i mean, ive come away, you know, little by little, i came to the conclusion that fdr was a radical. Okay, maybe not in the same sense as, you know, the standard radical who who buys into a particular political orthodoxy or a political creed, fdr is a radical because his understanding American History makes him a radical. And anything that would obstruct the promise of founding needed be confronted, challenged and quite possibly overthrown, which he literally calls for doing when he accepts the the second time in 1936 in philadelphia. I mean, its just how people can ignore these kinds things. Well, what i find fascinating, too, about that is hes i love way you capture him as a radical, but i find also fascinating about that. Hes a radical that wants not only work within a system about to expand the systems. Yes. Order to accomplish what those goals are so its not revolution in an overthrowing its its adapting and modify what we have to that forward and to adjust first lets think about this for first to address the freedom from want and freedom from fear in those in actions that have brought america to the brink at the time. Youve got to like get your table set before you feed somebody a meal. So you know, well, sorry. In fact, im glad you took me in that direction because one of the things that i really have come to see and this, by the way, owes to fdr as assistant secretary of agriculture who later im talking rexford tugwell. Okay. Who had been a member of the brains trust, who later writes two books about fdr, the one and ill just show everyone ill a show and tell hoping