Toledo Blade: FDR's economic fairness initiative resonates today

Article published Sunday, October 12, 2008
CAMPAIGN 2008
FDR's economic fairness initiative resonates today


By IGNAZIO MESSINA
BLADE STAFF WRITER

Nearly 65 years ago, a forward-looking President Franklin Delano Roosevelt— searching for recovery of the economy and looking toward the end of a global war on two fronts — presented to the country his idea of a second Bill of Rights dictating the right of all Americans to have jobs, adequate medical care, food, shelter, and education.

The nation's political leaders now are seeking to reverse unemployment, fix an economy battered by turmoil on Wall Street, and win — or at least honorably end — a global war on terror being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Leaders in Ohio and Michigan are fighting to improve two of the worst state economies in the country, with jobless rates the highest in years and plant closings routine news.

Today, when Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama returns to Toledo, The Blade, on its front page, asks Mr. Obama a simple question: Do all Americans who want to work have the right to a job where they live?

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081012/NEWS09/809290251

FDR: This article 'gets' it.
ER: Hey, in '48 we still couldn't get the Right to Work in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights! Best of luck to Mr. Obama.