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.
This is a great deal. It was not too much for the Soviet Republics to promise, and to begin to bring, to Kalmucks and Tartars and Georgians; it is more than we have brought to our own disinherited in the South, in mining towns, in the fruitful valleys of California. Our partial failure is a disgrace, but not a disaster; our success, though incomplete, is important. For we have carried forward in the light of the other great freedom which Communism has had to sacrifice, which is freedom from fear. All the specific freedoms—to think, to utter, to believe, to act, are encompassed in this freedom from fear. Our basic disagreement with Communism is the same as our attack on nazi-fascism—both are based on illegitimate power (not power delegated or given, not power with the consent of the governed): hence both live on domination; on their capacity to instil fear. The war will prove how far this fear penetrated in Russia and in Germany, and how much longer it will be the instrument of coercion in either country.
The President's freedoms are a wide promise to the people of the world—a promise made, like Woodrow Wilson's promises, before entering any agreement with any foreign power. Into the Atlantic Charter, Mr. Roosevelt also injected his basic domestic policies and, by some astute horsetrading managed to make them theoretically the basis for international agreement. This point promises improved labor standards, economic adjustment, and social security throughout the world.
Improvement, adjustment, security—they are not absolutes; freedom from want is, in effect, security; any reasonable adjustment between owners and workers will be an improvement in most countries. But the principle behind the labor point is as clear as the inspiration of the points on raw materials and freedom: it is that wars are caused by the miseries of peoples; when the people rule, they will prevent wars unless their miseries are acute; if they are not in dire want, if they have a chance to work, if they are free of coercion and threat, they will not make war—nor will they fall under the hand of the tyrant and the demagogue.
In plain practical statesmanship, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill apologized for Versailles, which denied Germany access to raw materials and prevented improvement in labor standards and drove millions of Europeans into want and fear; and at the same time they acknowledged the connection between high diplomacy and the food and shelter and comforts of the citizen. The eight points reiterate some of the fourteen; they withdraw from others; but the new thing is all American, it is the injection of the rights of the common man into an international document.
But there the Atlantic Charter ends. As an instrument of propaganda and as a basis of making war and peace, it was outlawed by events; it is forgotten.
What Is Lacking
The Charter could not carry its own logic beyond a first step: since we were not allied to Britain we could not discuss a World system—all we could say was that aggressors would be disarmed (by ourselves and Great Britain, neither gaining a military or naval predominance) and later we also might disarm—when the world seemed safe. This was on the power side; on the economic side, our role was gratifyingly vague.
Out of the Atlantic mists a few certainties rose, like icebergs. We soon saw: