A country is a champion of freedom if it strives to protect the blessings of liberty. By definition, liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views. In the 1940s, the United States was a champion of freedom to a limited extent by protecting the legitimacy of democracy and freedom of thought but failing to provide equal legal protection and societal treatment for all Americans.
The United States protected freedom by remaining a democratic state in the wake of multiple dictatorships across the globe. As illustrated in the 1940 Cantwell v. Connecticut case, the United States maintained its three-branch separation of power. In the case, the supreme court overruled unconstitutional state laws in violation of the first amendment’s protection of religious freedom. The decision thus extended the liberty of American citizens and propelled an increase in religious freedom. Freedom was also upheld in the U.S. presidential election of 1940. Citizens were ensured the right to vote for any candidate, whether it be for one of the two forerunners, Franklin D. Roosevelt or Wendell L. Willkie, or a write in. Citizens of Germany under the fascist Nazi regime were not extended such rights, participating in solely ceremonial elections for a singular candidate, Adolf Hitler. The U.S. did stray from its historic democratic precedent by electing FDR for a third presidential term. He became the only president to hold executive power for more than 8 years. However, Roosevelt was within the bounds of the constitution to run for a third term and was elected as a result of both an 84.6% majority in the electoral college and a majority in the popular vote. Thus, by appointing Roosevelt based on majorities in a fair election, the United States championed freedom by respecting the voice of its people.
The United States further upheld the constitutional privileges of its people by protecting freedom of media compared to fascist regimes such as the Nazi party. In Germany, all forms of media were censored by Joseph Goebbels, head of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Goebbels replaced free media with brainwashing propaganda to drive German nationalism and spread the principles of eugenics. In the same era, the U.S. maintained its standards of free media, exercising no specific control over radio or news. Unlike the Nazi regime, the United States did not militarize their youth into complete obedience or subject them to adore a dictator. On the other hand, the U.S. Department of War Information did released content that evaluated the events leading up to WWII with major bias against Axis powers and for the United States. While it may not have conveyed a fair and wholistic judgement of the events at the time, the content was produced on a small scale to sway public opinion compared to the 125,000 Nazi posters distributed weekly to foster citizens’ submissions to the Nazi regime. Thus, compared to its German counterparts, the United States was a champion of freedom, maintaining the right to free thought for its people.
However, the United States undermined the universal standard of freedom by creating policies that targeted the rights of specific races. In 1942, Roosevelt passed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the secretary of war to create military zones where, “the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War…may impose.” The order created a legal basis for the removal and internment of Japanese Americans, stripping them of natural rights and freedom to leave at will. Secretary of State Cordell Hull further threatened freedom when he advocated for the removal of the Japanese in Latin America and their subsequent detainment in the United States in 1942. Hull did, in fact, act on these detainments with the specific intention of using Japanese people for prisoner exchange with the Axis powers to free American soldiers. However, according to historian Daniel Masterson, the passports of the detained Japanese were taken in order for them to be declared “illegal enemy aliens…subject to deportation,” and Japan, “was a country most had never seen.” The U.S.’s policies cost the freedom of thousands of people and stripped away their rights cruelly and unusually through policies rooted in race.
The U.S. also fell short in championing freedom by failing to create effective policy to ensure equal treatment of citizens, especially groups that were historically discriminated against. In the 1940s the practice of lynching was used discriminatorily to oppress the black community of the South, much like it was used pre-civil war to silence the voices of dissenting slaves. Despite pleas from the likes of NAACP executive secretary Walter Francis White, the U.S national government did not engage in any legal intervention. The Van Nuys lynching ban resolution was set aside due to a question of state versus national jurisdiction, an example of the U.S. failing to provide equal protection to its citizens. A. Philip Randolph confirms this lack of legislative protection in his 1941 speech at a Detroit black rights protest, where he states, “the fight for democracy has meaning only when it grants [the oppressed] the full measure of every right.” Randolph expresses his dejection about the failures of democracy because not all constitutional rights were a reality for African American citizens. President Roosevelt did pass the 8802 Executive Order in 1941, aimed to stop racial discrimination in the workplace and protect the rights of African Americans. However, in 1944, historian L.D. Reddick wrote that “discrimination in employment is the number one problem among Negroes, North and South.” Reddick’s account suggests that even the minimal legislature created to protect the rights of African Americans was ineffective, and that the U.S. failed to champion the freedom of all of its citizens.
The shortcomings of the U.S. as a champion of freedom in the 1940s can also be seen in the matter of societal inequalities between black and white Americans at the time. Tall tales about tickle barrels in Levi Hubert’s American Life Histories illustrate the very real African American fear of Southern retribution. Black Americans in the South could not do simple things (such as, in the tickle barrel anecdote, laugh) without fear of offending the white community and being hunted by the KKK. When Hubert describes the “terror and intimidation of Negroes” as “the favorite Southern pastime,” it is clear African Americans were viewed as inferior in the eyes of Southern white dominated society and that they were subsequently oppressed. From another perspective, Mrs. Thomas Irvington, a white Southerner raised in Georgia, reflects on the lives of her black servants, stating “as we prospered, so did they, and shared all of our fortunes, as they also shared our misfortunes,” painting a happier account of African Americans in the South. However, the insightfulness of Mrs. Irvington’s account can be questioned by her racist beliefs, specifically about the laziness of black people. Mrs. Irvington’s account also illustrates the inequality of black and white education. Quotes from her servants are misspelled and grammatically incorrect. It can be inferred that the education of African American children was placed beneath the education of white children in American society, thus that the U.S. fell short in championing freedom of historic social inequalities.
During the 1940s, the United States championed freedom by upholding the principles of democracy through an international lens, however failed to implement such rights in reality for all members of American society. Unlike other fascist countries, the U.S. had a stable base of rights outlined within in the constitution to protect the freedom of its people. Yet, in the 1940s the United States remains a champion of freedom to a limited extent due to its inability to enforce and protect the ideological freedoms of Americans.