But our newest one refuses to believe:

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." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, during his
2nd Inaugural Address, 11 January 1944.

We are united in determination that this war shall not be followed by another interim which leads to new disaster- that we shall not repeat the tragic errors of ostrich isolationism—that we shall not repeat the excesses of the wild twenties when this Nation went for a joy ride on a roller coaster which ended in a tragic crash.

Roosevelt had said this before, during that memorable wartime speech:

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.

and he went on to enumerate the changes the nation must make to hang onto its hard-won victories over depression and dictatorships, once that war ended:

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.

What you will note, reading through these rights, is the lack of obeisance to cheap labor conservativism; the lack of a bow to political concerns among parties; the lack of deference to DC insiders' courtier wisdom and cant; the lack of legitimization of the overriding concern of a wealthy few that they not be deprived of their wealth and position. This is a Democrat, ladies and gentlemen.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was related to another of the Presidents whose work I admire, Theodore Roosevelt. FDR was a forerunner -- perhaps *the* forerunner, given his (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to expand the United States Supreme Court to nine justices so that he could empanel judges more favorable to his point of view in his efforts to change the way the nation's laws operated -- to another upstanding and outgoing Democrat whose work is often reviled despite the greatness of his achievements because petty party politics and a misguided reliance on the advice of a SecDef who should probably have been fired before JFK was assassinated, rather than retained: Lyndon Baines Johnson.