WILL THAULT: Freedom Month Part 3: Freedom from want

Editor’s Note: Will Thault — in celebration of “Freedom Month” — is taking a look throughout the month of July at President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous “Four Freedoms” speech. For a look at Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” illustrations based on Roosevelt’s words, follow this link: Norman Rockwell Four Freedoms paintings inspired by Franklin Roosevelt.

What does freedom from want mean to us? A fully-stocked fridge? A full gas tank? Central A/C with the thermostat set on 70 degrees? Smart phones and a TikTok account?

It’s hard to imagine being without many of these things. However, for some, freedom from want such as this is only a dream. Just learning to survive day by day is challenging enough, with the insecurity of no job, no income, no food on the table or a roof overhead. Sadly, in a nation that’s been blessed with abundant natural resources and luxuries unimaginable even today in third world countries, we still have poverty and homelessness.

Why is FDR’s long ago vision of this freedom still one of the most elusive of the Four Freedoms? “The third freedom from want — which translated into world terms,” he said, “means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.” FDR’s wish for “a healthy peacetime life” wasn’t just about material possessions either; he meant security and contentment — a better standard of living.

While many take these basic needs for granted today, consider the shaky economic conditions of the time that Roosevelt made his speech. The Great Depression was just winding down, after a decade of disasters beginning with the stock market crash and Wall Street panic of 1929, followed by years of high unemployment, bread lines, soup kitchens, mass migrations caused by severe droughts wiping out farms and livestock during the Dust Bowl of the Southern Plains. All this was still fresh in people’s minds. The rest of the world was suffering from want as well, made even worse by dictatorships forcibly subjugating the land, its people and its resources, leaving millions to starve.

The bleak picture of a world at war in 1941 and a nation still in economic recovery only galvanized Americans’ resolve to overcome this evil. But first, Roosevelt knew his task was to clearly identify those universal human values that would give meaning to the human sacrifices soon to be expected from us. Norman Rockwell popularized these ideals in his Four Freedoms illustrations of exaggerated realism to drive home the president’s points.

In his allegorical setting for Freedom from Want, he chose to portray a multigenerational family gathered around the dinner table for a holiday meal, as the perfect imaginings of good fellowship and plenty. At the center of the table is a roasted turkey, but we notice that it’s not the food that stands out, it’s the happy and contented faces — sharing the experience of freedom from want, celebrating all that we have and can be grateful for among friends and loved ones. Rockwell’s interpretation was idyllic, but the imagery has stood the test of time and become an iconic symbol of the classic American Thanksgiving.

When seeking a contributing essayist to Rockwell’s painting, the editors of the Saturday Evening Post chose Filipino novelist and poet, Carlos Bulosan, “because,” they said, “a man struggling to reach a goal often sees the goal more clearly than one who has already reached it.” Bulosan’s experiences as a migrant worker gave his words authenticity. “When our crops are burned or plowed under, we are angry and confused,” he writes. “Sometimes we ask if this is the real America. Sometimes we watch our long shadows and doubt the future. But we have learned to emulate our ideals from these trials. We know there were men who came and stayed to build America. We know they came because there is something in America that they needed, and which needed them.”

Bulosan’s essay is as meaningful now as it was then. “Our march toward security and peace is the march of freedom. It is the dignity of the individual to live in a society of free men, where the spirit of understanding and belief exists; of understanding that all men are equal; that all men, whatever their color, race, religion or estate, should be given equal opportunity to serve themselves and each other according to their needs and abilities.

“Sometimes we divide into separate groups and our methods conflict,” Bulosan continues, “though we all aim at one common goal. The significant thing is that we march on without turning back. What we want is peace, not violence. We know that we thrive and prosper only in peace.

“But our march to freedom is not complete unless want is annihilated.”

“What do we want? We want complete security and peace,” Bulosan concludes. “We want to share the promises and fruits of American life. We want to be free from fear and hunger.”

Is this too much to ask for anyone? It’s not too late. Together, we can work to identify the inequities and cast them aside, so that all may have the opportunity to live a “healthy peacetime life” free from injustice and want.