EXCERPTS OF “ADDRESS BY MRS. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT—THE CHICAGO CIVIL LIBERTIES COMMITTEE,” MARCH 14, 1940 *
The numerals in brackets refer to the paragraph number of the speech.
[2] Now we have come here tonight because of civil liberties. I imagine a great many of you could give my talk far better than I because you have first-hand knowledge of the things you have had to do in Chicago, over the years, to preserve civil liberties. But I, perhaps, am more conscious of the importance of civil liberties in this particular moment of our history than anyone else, because, as I travel through the country and meet people and see the things that have happened to little people, I am more and more conscious of what it means to democracy to preserve our civil liberties. All through the years we have had to fight for civil liberty, and we know that there are times when the light grows rather dim. Every time that happens democracy is in danger. Now, largely because of the troubled state of the world as a whole, civil liberties have disappeared in many other countries. It is impossible, of course, to be at war and to maintain freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. They disappear automatically. And so, in some countries where ordinarily these rights were inviolate, today they have gone. And in some other countries, even before war came, not only had freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of speech disappeared, but also freedom of religion. And so we know that here in this country we have a grave responsibility.
[7] There are many times when, even though there is freedom of the press and freedom of speech, it is hard to get a hearing for certain noble causes. I often think that we, all of us, should think very much more carefully than we do about what we mean by freedom of speech, by freedom of the press, by freedom of assembly. I sometimes am much worried by the tendency that exists among certain groups in our country today to consider that these are rights are only for people who think as they do, that they are not rights for the people who disagree with them. I believe that you must apply to all groups the same rights, to all forms of thought, to all forms of expression, the same liberties. Otherwise, you practically deny the fact that you trust the people to choose for themselves, in a majority, what is wise and what is right. And when you do that, you deny the possibility of having a democracy. You have got to be willing to listen, to allow people to state any point of view they may have or to say anything they may believe, and then to trust that, when everyone has had his say, when there has been free discussion and really free, uninfluenced expression in the press, in the end the majority of the people will have the wisdom to decide what is right. We have got to have faith, even when the majority decides wrongly. We must still hold to the fundamental principles that we have laid down and wait for the day to come when the thing that we believe is right becomes the majority way of the people.
[11] I think we should begin much earlier to teach all the children of our nation what a wonderful heritage of freedom they have–of freedom from prejudice–because they live in a nation which is made up of a great variety of other nations. They have before them and around them every day the proof that people can understand each other and can live together amicably, and that races can live on an equal basis even though they may be very different in background, very different in culture. We have an opportunity to teach our children how much we have gained from the coming to this land of all kinds of races, of how much this has served in the development of the land. Yet somehow I think we have failed in many ways to bring early enough to children how great is their obligation to the various strains that make up the people of the United States. Above all, there should never be race prejudice; there should never be a feeling that one strain is better than another. After all, we are all immigrants–all except Indians, who, we might say, are the only inhabitants of this country who have a real right to say that they own the country. I think that our being composed of so many foreign peoples is the very reason why we should preserve the basic principles of civil liberty. It should be easy for us to live up to our Constitution, but there are many groups among us who do not live up to what was written in that Constitution.
[12] I am very much interested to find that in our younger generation there is a greater consciousness of what civil liberty really means. I think that is one of the hopeful things in the world today: that youth is really taking a tremendous interest in the preservation of civil liberties. It is a very hard period in the world for youth because they are faced with new problems. We don’t know the answers to many of the problems that face us today, and neither do the young people. But the problems are very much more important to the young because they must start living. We have had our lives. The young people want to begin, but they can’t find a way to get started. Perhaps that has made them more conscious of civil liberties. Perhaps that is why when you get a group of them together, you find them fighting against the prejudices which have grown up in our country, against the prejudices which have made it hard for the minority groups in our country.
[13] The other night someone sent up a question to me: “What do you think should be done about the social standing of the Negro race in this country?” Well, now, of course I think that the social situation is one that has to be dealt with by individuals. The real question that we have to face in this country is: what are we doing about the rights of a big minority group of citizens in our democracy? That, we all have to face. Any citizen of this country is entitled to equality before the law; to equality of education; to equality at earning a living, as far as his abilities make that possible; to equality of participation in government, so that he may register his opinion in just the way that any other citizen can do. Now, those are basic rights, belonging to every citizen in every minority group. We have got, I think, to stand up and be counted when it comes to the question of whether any minority group is not to have those rights, because the minute we deny any of our basic rights to any citizen, we are preparing the way for the denial of those rights to someone else. Who is going to say it is not right today to do this or that? Who is going to say it is not right tomorrow? And where does it stop? We have to make up our minds as to what we really believe. We have to decide whether we believe in the Bill of Rights, in the Constitution of the United States, or whether we are going to modify it because of the fears that we may have at the moment.
[15] I should like to remind you that behind all those who fight for the Constitution as it was written, for the rights of the weak and for the preservation of civil liberties, there was a long line of courageous people. And that is something to be proud of and something to hold on to. But its only value lies in the premise that we profit by it and continue the tradition in the future; that we do not let those people back of us down; that we have courage; that we do not succumb to fears of any kind; that we live up to the things we believe in; that we see that justice is done to the people under the Constitution, whether they belong to minority groups or not; that we realize that this country is a united country, in which all people have the same rights as citizens; and that we are grateful for that; and finally, that we trust the youth of the nation to herald the real principles of democracy-in-action in this country and to make this even more truly a democratic nation.
* THE COMPLETE SPEECH MAY BE FOUND AT VOICESOFDEMOCRACY.UMD.EDU/ELEANOR-ROOSEVELT-ADDRESS-BY-MRS-FRANKIN-D-ROOSEVELT-THE-CHICAGO-CIVIL-LIBERTIES-COMMITTEE-4-MARCH-1950.