of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 459

completed under the competent direction of Brigadier General Mohr and
Adjutant General Petrott.

We realize that in the further development of its program, the National
Government must rely principally upon the resources which can be afforded
by the forty-eight States, of which Maryland is one. Anything affecting the
Union of forty-eight States necesarily affects each individual State.

That our Country faces a threat "infinitely greater" than was the case 6ne
year ago, when the Selective Service Act was passed by Congress, was declared
by President Roosevelt on • Monday of this week when he asked Congress for
a declaration of full emergency.

To any thinking American the President's statement, startling as it was,
should not have been a surprise. International events have developed so
swiftly, and so unfavorably from a peace standpoint during the past twelve
months, that even the most unwilling minds must have been impressed with
the increasing seriousness of our national situation with each succeeding month.

In the brief twelve month period we have seen the map of the world
changed almost beyond recognition by the ruthless war-like acts of dictators
who have discarded accepted ideas of right and justice, and 'have adapted the
policy of seizing for themselves whatever territory their powerful armies
could overwhelm.

Countries whose peoples had no territorial ambitions, who never had the
slightest desire to do other than to live their national lives in peace and security,
have been captured and enslaved because they were not able to defend them-
selves against agression. Never was there a time in the history of the world
when force ruled more definitely than it has ruled in the conquest of Con-
tinental Europe by the dictator armies.

To their terrible, and possibly everlasting, dismay, the people of these
conquered countries discovered, when it was too late, that they could not have
peace and security simply because they desired them. They discovered, as
many millions of thinking Americans have discovered, and as many more
millions of unthinking Americans must learn, that in the face of agression
such as is sweeping over the world today, there is no sure way to retain peace
and security other than by the one method of being powerful enough to defend
national possessions adequately.

Today, of all the once-free peoples of Europe, of all the races liberated
and restored to national unity following the first World War, England is the
one country that has survived, that still retains its freedom. Only the fact
that England has performed an heroic job in staving off the Hitler Blitzkrieg
has the tide of totalitarianism been stemmed before it reached the very shores
of our own United States.

We need not delude ourselves, either, in the comforting thought that our
priceless freedom and individual liberties would have been preserved if the
totalitarian armies and airforce could have gotten to us months ago. It is no
secret to everyone in this room that we were totally unprepared, when the
major conflagration flamed in Europe, to protect ourselves against such a