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This Week in
American History

April 11—17, 1945

FDR Writes His Last Speech, To Celebrate Thomas Jefferson's Birthday

On March 30, 1945, President Franklin Roosevelt arrived at Warm Springs, Georgia to recoup his failing health and to work, for a few weeks, at a slower pace than was possible at the White House. The Allies were succeeding on both the Atlantic and Pacific fronts, and Roosevelt knew that the war in Europe would last no longer than late spring or early summer.

One of the President's tasks was to work on a speech for Thomas Jefferson's birthday, which he intended to deliver over the radio on April 13. Robert Sherwood, one of his speech writers, had sent him the draft of a possible speech about Jefferson. Roosevelt, according to his usual custom, then dictated a speech to his secretary on the afternoon of April 11, using Sherwood's draft as a takeoff point. While he was working on the speech, Roosevelt also did some research, trying, unsuccessfully, to find a link between Thomas Jefferson and Isaac Roosevelt, FDR's ancestor who had worked with Alexander Hamilton during and after the American Revolution.

Roosevelt had always been interested in Thomas Jefferson, and during his Presidency had made the construction of the Jefferson Memorial one of his projects. He had pushed it through despite the threats, not carried out, of a group of women who said they would chain themselves to the cherry trees which had to be moved in order to make room for the monument on the Tidal Basin.

President Roosevelt had dedicated the Jefferson Memorial on April 13, 1943 on the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth. It became only the third memorial to an American President in the nation's capital. In his dedication speech, Roosevelt said that, "The words which we have chosen for this Memorial speak Jefferson's noblest and most urgent meaning; and we are proud indeed to understand it and share it: 'I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.'"

Now, almost two years later, Roosevelt was working on the draft he had dictated for Jefferson's birthday, writing in further corrections and additions on the typed copy. At this point in the war, it was not just Jefferson which claimed his attention, but the shape of the postwar world and the possibility of preventing another such conflict. The speech began: "Americans are gathered together this evening in communities all over the country to pay tribute to the living memory of Thomas Jefferson—one of the greatest of all democrats; and I want to make it clear that I am spelling that word 'democrats' with a small 'd.'

"I wish I had the power, just for this evening, to be present at all of these gatherings.

"In this historic year, more than ever before, we do well to consider the character of Thomas Jefferson as an American citizen of the world.

"As Minister to France, then as our first Secretary of State and as our third President, Jefferson was instrumental in the establishment of the United States as a vital factor in international affairs.

"It was he who first sent our Navy into far-distant waters to defend our rights. And the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine was the logical development of Jefferson's far-seeing foreign policy.

"Today this Nation which Jefferson helped so greatly to build is playing a tremendous part in the battle for the rights of man all over the world.

"Today we are part of the vast Allied force—a force composed of flesh and blood and steel and spirit—which is today destroying the makers of war, the breeders of hatred, in Europe and in Asia.

"In Jefferson's time our Navy consisted of only a handful of frigates headed by the gallant 'U.S.S. Constitution—Old Ironsides'—but that tiny Navy taught Nations across the Atlantic that piracy in the Mediterranean—acts of aggression against peaceful commerce and the enslavement of their crews—was one of those things which, among neighbors, simply was not done.

"Today we have learned in the agony of war that great power involves great responsibility. Today we can no more escape the consequences of German and Japanese aggression than could we avoid the consequences of attacks by the Barbary Corsairs a century and a half before.

"We, as Americans, do not choose to deny our responsibility.

"Nor do we intend to abandon our determination that, within the lives of our children and our children's children, there will not be a third world war.

"We seek peace—enduring peace. More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars—yes, an end of this brutal, inhuman, and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.

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