The Second Bill of Rights - Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation

by John M Repp

After seeing a film in Fremont that mentioned the Second Bill of Rights, Mike Yarrow organized a leafleting at the next showing to explain more about the idea. Also called the “economic bill of rights”, the idea was proposed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1944 State of the Union speech. FDR intended to put these rights into law rather than amend the Constitution. The speech, given towards the end of World War II, pointed out that the sacrifices the American people were undergoing due to the war were recognized and FDR wanted a new bill of rights to reward the people for their sacrifice.

FDR said that the first bill of rights were political rights and were put into the Constitution as the first ten amendments. America learned after the Great Depression that people can have political freedom but not have real freedom. If a citizen’s material needs are not met, they cannot be free.

FDR died just a few months after this speech, just before the end of World War II. His vision for a peaceful and prosperous postwar age for all did not come true. Why is worth a discussion. A short answer is: The members of the Congress from the Jim Crow South decided that black Americans should not have what FDR had promised, even though a million blacks from the USA served in the war.

See below for direct quotes of FDR’s speech.

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WHAT WE NEED NOW

A Second Bill of Rights https://www.fdrlibrary.org/address-text

From the January 11, 1944 State of the Union speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

“It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”^[8] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”