History: Franklin Roosevelt Speech

The period of World wars and Great depression  in American history was known to be wrongly dealt with by the US government. The way these events inform our reading of Roosevelt’s speech is through the lack of choice the Americans had to deal with. From the stock market crash to the great depression, the population had its hands tied by the government and had no liberty when it came to the way they wanted to live; the unemployment, and the  bankruptcies were things that prevented them to pursue the happiness their constitution allowed them to do. On the other side, around the world in the late 1930s, liberty was nowhere around when it came to war; in the crash course we covered the story of Mussolini, who ran from country to country not to get drafted in the military and actually ended up dictating his country, preventing them from the same liberty he was seeking years before. Franklin D. Roosevelt knew what his country has gone through under the lead of Hoover and knew exactly what the people wanted as citizens of the free world.

This speech over liberty, had a huge impact in the role of the United States in World War II. Germany was under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, a general who had a really strong belief that some people who did not fit his criteria did not deserve to live a normal life in his country. Based on that, Hitler created internment camps where Jewish, and many other groups of people were held prisoners and killed. Along with that was his ally Mussolini who was a man that believed in liberty and personal choice making, that ended up being a dictator in his home country, Italy. The US government strongly fought against those principles during World War 2 and that devotion to human rights was addressed way beforend its more important goal during the war was to set free those millions of Germans who were done wrong by one of their own.

By the end of 1945, the world powers came together and created the United Nations. The UN primary goal is to maintain peace, international security, and harmony between the nations. Because of this organization, the world had been at a certain level of peace for years now, and worldwide, the US government is making sure that the human rights are protected and that the principle of “Liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness” is given to every human being.