Franklin Roosevelt's Speech Against Tariffs

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The protective tariff has dominated economic rhetoric almost since our nation’s dawning. From Henry Clay to William McKinley to Donald Trump, politicians promise (dubiously) that tariffs will be an “American System” or put “America First.” Those are powerful words. Tariffs are always popular, but they are usually a terrible idea.

Although tariffs might help the few, they will, overall, cause more harm than good. Writing for the conservative Cato Institute, Erica York remarks that: “It is dubious to claim that tariffs can be imposed with no economic trade-offs, and economists generally consider them to be poor tools for achieving various policy objectives.”

Tariffs Are Nothing New under the Sun: Trump's Tariffs versus Henry Clay's "American System" 

Franklin Roosevelt explained this important principle, almost alone among the United States' leaders. Speaking during the depths of the Great Depression at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on September 23, 1932, during his first presidential campaign, Roosevelt linked tariffs to the ancient battle between the rich and powerful versus the ordinary citizen:

“The issue of government has always been whether individual men and women will have to serve some system of government of economics, or whether a system of government and economics exists to serve individual men and women.”

Thus, Roosevelt did not discuss the economy by throwing out complex facts and figures and percentages, or by citing mathematical formulas. Instead, he put the tariff controversy in its human context. He showed how the protective tariff was a government regulation that harmed the overall economy, disrupted international relations, and degraded the nation’s welfare.

As Roosevelt spoke, the massive Smoot-Hawley Tariff had been crushing the world economy and, according to almost all economists, worsening the Great Depression. Economics Professor Kris James Mitchener comments that the Smoot-Hawley Act triggered “the mother of all trade wars.”

Thus, Roosevelt showed considerable insight when he noted how the anti-regulation businessperson:

“…is the first to go to Washington and ask the government for a prohibitory tariff on his product.”

As he spoke, building on that contradiction, Roosevelt developed the theme that the rich and powerful seek their own benefit at the nation’s expense. 


Roosevelt Opposed the Tariffs

Roosevelt placed the tariff into its historical background from the 1800s:

"The tariff was originally imposed for the purpose of 'fostering our infant industry', a phrase I think the older among you will remember as a political issue not so long ago."

 
Yet, after reviewing the history of the American economy (quite an enterprise for a short speech!), Roosevelt squarely ridiculed the contradiction of modern businesspeople who want to keep the government away from business and yet demand that the government protect them with tariffs. In contrast, Roosevelt insisted, as almost all economists do, that tariffs defend particular industries at a cost to the overall economy. Tariffs cause trade wars, he explained, and the trade wars restrict the markets to which American industries can sell their products. Oddly, instead of encouraging American business, tariffs force businesses to locate their factories overseas. While a few benefit, the many suffer a downturn. Roosevelt explained as he continued:

“Our system of constantly rising tariffs has at last reacted against us to the point of closing our Canadian frontier on the north, our European markets on the east, many of our Latin American markets to the south, and a goodly proportion of our Pacific markets on the west, through the retaliatory tariffs of those countries. It has forced many of our great industrial institutions who exported their surplus production to such countries, to establish plants in such countries within the tariff walls.”

(Doesn’t that sound just like Donald Trump’s trade war? But I digress.)


A Message of Hope

Yet, like all great leaders, Roosevelt ended his speech, not with fear, but with a message of hope. As a terrible economic depression wracked the world, Roosevelt urged the American people to fulfill their old values – which he called “the old social contract” – to avoid “a rising tide of misery engendered by a common failure” – and to work together as a common people, for economic recovery:

“… failure is not an American habit; and in the strength of great hope, we must all shoulder our common load.”

Of course, the economic troubles that the United States of America faces today, although real, have not reached the massive disaster of the Great Depression--yet. Still, we must ask whether we as a nation have failed to learn from history’s most terrible mistakes. Can we find leaders today who can explain why and how narrow economic policies harm the overall public? Can we find leaders who can help people understand difficult economic forces? Sadly, those questions remain open.

Unfortunately, politicians instead continue to promote harmful economic policies in the face of overwhelming resistance from economic theory and history. 


Tariffs Harm the Economy

So, yes, economic historians have long concluded that protective tariffs worsened the Great Depression. Indeed, studying the Great Depression, economists Mario J. Crucini and James Kahn suggest in the Journal of Monetary Economics that “the global escalation of the tariff war precipitated the collapse of world trade, along with declines of several percent in international output and investment.”

Reed Smoot

Similarly, Douglas A. Irwin writes in the Annual Review of Economics that, “Perhaps the most important ramification of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was its role in triggering retaliation against US exports.” By economic principles, Roosevelt's controversial speech was squarely in the right. 

Yet, the public loves tariffs despite the historical evidence that tariffs and tariff wars harm the economy. So, is it any surprise that President Donald Trump embarked on a massive tariff war, not during a depression, but during a time of relative prosperity? His Press Secretary described this as an “America First Trade Policy” and an “America First economic agenda.” Did she not merely echo Henry Clay's speech on the pro-tariff American system? Or William McKinley's argument that tariffs and the American flag were patriotism's soul? 

McKinley's 1896 Speeches Made the Tariff Sound Patriotic - Just Like Trump!

Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” Speech, a Lesson in Positive Justice

Conclusion

The protective tariff is one of the United States’ oldest economic controversies, and thus one of the oldest subjects that political speakers discuss. Indeed, if we want to understand today’s political controversy, the old speeches, like Roosevelt's masterful speech to the Commonwealth Club, can be a great learning tool. Avoiding excessively technical discussions, Roosevelt used history’s lessons to help American voters understand how the protective tariff was hurting them while helping only the very few. People do not always understand technical arguments. Statistical charts make our eyes glaze over. People can, however, understand basic values. People can understand the eternal battle between the great and the small, between the haves and the have-nots, and between an overall view versus a narrow view. His grasp of human context helped Roosevelt gain a massive victory in the 1932 election. 

by William D. Harpine

____________________

Research Note: AmericanRhetoric.com is a terrific website, established by my graduate school classmate Martin J. Medhurst, that contains texts (and often videos) of American speeches. 

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Images of Roosevelt and Smoot, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” Speech, a Lesson in Positive Justice

The freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear: those were the four freedoms that United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed as he concluded his January 6, 1941 State of the Union Speech to Congress. Roosevelt re-imagined government and world power as forces that would help people flourish. Unlike libertarians who just want governments to get out of the way, Roosevelt said that world governments should spread new freedoms. His controversial vision, which was dramatically new in 1941, shakes world and national opinion even today.


Roosevelt’s Vision

As Roosevelt spoke, World War II (which the United States had not yet joined) raged across three continents. The world was still shaking from the Great Depression, and Roosevelt rewrote the word “freedom.” Here is Roosevelt’s vision of Four Freedoms:

“The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

“The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

“The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

“The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.”

What motivated Roosevelt’s vision? First, the free enterprise economic system had collapsed in 1929 and the world, shaking from the fear of hunger and despair, increasingly turned to dictators to save them: Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo. Never a good idea, but too many world citizens figured they had nothing to lose.


What Is Positive Freedom?

Now, the United States Constitution mostly protects negative freedoms: the government cannot do this; the government cannot do that. The government cannot establish a religion. The government cannot pass ex post facto laws. The government cannot force people to speak at their own trials. The government cannot randomly search your home or impose “cruel and unusual punishments.” And so forth. Those are negatives: things that the government is forbidden to do.

Roosevelt, instead, proposed positive freedoms: the freedoms that enable successful lives. While negative freedoms only ask the government to get out of the way, positive freedoms require group vision.

Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms gave a positive vision. He gave a vision of a world that could be free from the horrors that he felt had led to worldwide collapse. Can the reader disagree? How many people have died in religious wars? How often do cruel dictators suppress free speech? How often do nations turn to war only because they fear someone else? And does not want (hunger—homelessness—despair) become a terrible force that drives people to desperate acts?

So, although Roosevelt did lay out policies that he wanted Congress to support, his real point was to offer a new concept. How, he asked, could we restructure the world to give people more successful lives? That is a positive vision. It is a vision that resonates today. It is a vision that leads to sharp disagreements today.

Earlier Post: Franklin Roosevelt’s Pearl Harbor Speech: A Lesson for Our Own Time

Earlier Post: Ronald Reagan Spoke on the Fourth of July: Celebrating Freedom, Shared Values, and Diversity

Four Freedoms Today?

As 2023 draws to its close, nations across the world—Hungary, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and others unwisely turn away from republican government to adopt authoritarian attitudes. In January 2021, the United States itself threatened to abandon constitutional government. Poverty still wracks even the most prosperous nations, and the marketing and unpacking of armaments rattles the world’s peace. Authoritarian forces are banning library books in the United States. Countless American children (not to mention world children) go to bed hungry. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms remain a distant, still-unattained goal. 


A Commitment to Freedom

All the same, it is a speaker’s privilege to propose seemingly unattainable goals. Roosevelt projected a seemingly remote future in which the world would seek economic and political justice. Roosevelt gave a vision. Can we, in our coming new year, move forward, as a world, to improve all our lives? Or will we let fear and jealousy rule use? The world is richer than ever, but can we learn to respect one another? To help one another? To Roosevelt, this was a positive vision. It was not a vision of mealy-mouthed liberal weakness, but a vision of power and strength.

For, behind the Four Freedoms, Roosevelt pledged his nation’s moral and military vigor. Accordingly, he concluded his vision of positive freedom with these breathtaking words:

“Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

“To that high concept there can be no end save victory.”

Roosevelt taught a powerful lesson to a world that was shattered by poverty, injustice, and war. He gave a powerful lesson to a world that, in 1941, faced unspeakable disaster. His lesson reaches us in the 21st Century. Will we listen? Or not?

Earlier Post: Abraham Lincoln and the Definition of “Liberty:” A Lesson for Our Time

Let us never forget the disaster of the 1940’s, nor let us forget the horrors that “strong” leaders inevitably create. Let us never forget the massive sacrifices that eventually brought a smashed world to a shaky peace. My own father received two battle stars in World War II, serving in North Africa and southern France. He survived uninjured; some of his best buddies were not so lucky. My father-in-law was a combat-disabled World War II veteran, torpedoed by a Nazi submarine. My mother never again enjoyed Christmas, not after her 19-year-old brother lost his life fighting Nazis on December 26, 1944 at the Battle of the Bulge. Perhaps 50 million people died before the war ended. The largest part of the dead were massacre victims. If the nation, the world, returns to authoritarianism, it will have callously discarded their sacrifices. If we fail to uplift one another in a positive way, we will have discarded Roosevelt's lesson. 

For, as Roosevelt told us, freedom means more than just being left alone. Freedom is not “just another word for nothin' left to lose.” Freedom, Roosevelt said, means to live in a world of justice.

__________________

Research Note: Several scholars have written about positive versus negative values. Kenneth Burke's The Rhetoric of Religion is a good place to start. 

by William D. Harpine

Copyright © 2023 William D. Harpine

Franklin Roosevelt’s Pearl Harbor Speech: A Lesson for Our Own Time

Today is the anniversary of Japan’s December 7, 1941 attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor. The next day, December 8th, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke in Congress to ask for a declaration of war. His speech’s eloquence has often been admired. Let us instead, look, today, at Roosevelt’s supreme, absolute expression of confidence. Together with that absolute confidence, Roosevelt promised that the United States would never again be vulnerable to treachery. A nation’s first requirement is to offer security to its citizens. As the United States today faces terrible threats both from within and without, let us remember that key message. Roosevelt’s speech had a message for us in 2023, if we are willing to listen.


The Promise of Victory

At the time of crisis that December 7 created, Roosevelt saw no need to persuade Congress that we were at war. The war had come. Instead, Roosevelt promised that the United States of America would use all its resources and efforts to defeat the enemy. He proposed a commitment:

“No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.”

That simple statement reminded Congress—and the people—that the road to victory would be long. He stated the “righteous might” of Americans, while promising an outcome of “absolute victory.”

At the same time, I cannot help but to be impressed by Roosevelt’s expression of humility: he did not arrogantly say that he had the right to speak for all of America. Instead, he said that “I believe.” He stated his belief that he was following the people’s will, not that he had a right to change their will to agree with his. A leader, not a dictator.

Never Again!

Also, and equally striking, Roosevelt promised that the United States would forever more protect itself against similar unprovoked attacks. He did not just commit himself, but all future leaders to safeguard the United States of America:

“I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.” [italics added]

Sadly, not all presidents since remembered Roosevelt’s promise. The September 11 terrorist attacks against New York and Washington caught us flat-footed. I fear that we are not taking enough precautions about the insidious attacks against our elections that foreign actors launch using social media. The Mueller Report, which examined Russian interference in the 2020 election, documented those attacks with great precision; sadly, however, his message was lost in a cacophony of political turmoil. 

A nation like the United States of America must protect its values of representative government and personal liberties during wartime. That poses a difficult challenge, and no president has met it with perfection. Roosevelt recognized, however, that every government must protect its people against foreign invasions. His warning passed through his own time to the future, and we, today, are the future.

Later today, I intend to write about Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s reminder that, ever since World War II, the leadership of the United States has been fundamental to world order and the fight against oppression. That is another part of Roosevelt’s message that we may have forgotten: to be “righteous.”  

Take a moment, please, to remember the 2,403 Americans who died at the Pearl Harbor raid, and the hundreds of thousands of Americans, including my teenage uncle, whose lives were lost fighting in the war that followed: not to mention the millions of service people, including my father and father-in-law, who served during the terrible, worldwide conflict. Let us also remember that cruelty can give way to hope, as the United States has today become fast friends with our former enemies of Japan, Italy, and Germany. Is not peace with justice the cure for war?

by William D. Harpine

________________

Earlier Post, discusses Roosevelt's use of epideictic speech methods:  Franklin Roosevelt's War Message, December 8, 1941

________________

Research Note: There are many excellent academic studies of Roosevelt’s speech. This superb article by Herman Stelzner, which was required in communication graduate schools back in my day, is a classic: Hermann G. Stelzner (1966) “'War Message,' December 8, 1941: An Approach to Language," Speech Monographs, 33:4, 419-437. Although it is behind a paywall, many large libraries can access it from their databases. 

Copyright ©  2023, William D. Harpine