○  franklin d. roosevelt: the four freedoms  ○

security, we are free to decide how much should be kept here and how much should be sent abroad to our friends who, by their determined and heroic resistance, are giving us time in which to make ready our own defense.

for what we send abroad we shall be repaid, repaid within a reasonable time following the close of hostilities, repaid in similar materials, or at our option in other goods of many kinds which they can produce and which we need.

let us say to the democracies: "we americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom.  we are putting forth our energies, our resources, and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world.  we shall send you in ever-increasing numbers, ships, planes, tanks, guns.  this is our purpose and our pledge."

in fulfillment of this purpose we will not be intimidated by the threats of dictators that they will regard as a breach of international law or as an act of war our aid to the democracies which dare to resist their aggression.  such aid is not an act of war, even if a dictator should unilaterally proclaim it so to be.

and when the dictators—if the dictators--are ready to make war upon us, they will not wait for an act of war on our part.

they did not wait for norway or belgium or the netherlands to commit an act of war.  their only interest is in a new one-way international law, which lacks mutuality in its observance and therefore becomes an inst

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