No realistic attempt to face the necessity of organized production and distribution is even implied in this point. Instead, President Roosevelt was able virtually to write into an international document a statement of his ideals; as Woodrow Wilson wrote his League of Nations into the Fourteen Points. Mr. Roosevelt's freedoms are specific; people (not "nations") are to be free from want, from fear, from oppression. Freedom from want is the actual new thing in the world; want--need--hard times--poverty--from the beginning of European history these have been the accepted order, the lot of man, the inescapable fate to which he was doomed by being born. The Charter rose out of our history and out of England's need. Let me outline again the connection with our history. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence showed a way out of the poverty-labyrinth in the destiny of man; the Declaration declared for prosperity (then synonymous with free land) and offered it to all (citizenship and equal rights to the immigrant, the chance to share in this new belief in prosperity by becoming American). In a century and a half Europe has scoffed and sneered at this (relatively successful) attempt to break through economic damnation--and at the end, as Europe rocks over the edge of destruction, an American offers this still new and imperfect thing as a foundation stone of peace in the world: freedom from want. It has not yet been completely achieved in America; but we know it can be achieved; we have gone far enough on our way to say that it can be achieved in the whole world. The American standard is far above freedom from want. It is based, in fact, on wanting too many things and getting a fair percentage of them. But President Roosevelt's point does not involve "leveling"; it is not an equal standard of living all over the world (which is the implied necessity of international Communism). The negative freedom from want is not freedom from wanting; it is explicit, as the words are used: it means that men shall have food and shelter and clothes; and medicine against plague; and an opportunity to learn and some leisure to enjoy life; in accordance with the standards of their people.