E30 State Papers and Addresses

JUNIOR BAR CONFERENCE, AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
RADIO STATION WFBR

November 8, 1941
Baltimore

IT is appropriate, indeed, that the programs sponsored by the Junior Bar Con-
ference of the American Bar Association, on "The Urgency of Preparation
for Home Defense, " should be gotten underway this evening, just prior to the
opening of "Civilian Defense Week" on Armistice Day.

In planning thus to bring to the attention of the people of our State, and
in fact to all within listening distance of Station WFBR, salient facts regarding
State and National Defense planning and progress to date, the members of the
Junior Bar Conference are to be heartily commended, for they are performing
an educational service that is most timely and necessary in these critical times.

The people of America today are facing a situation without parallel in the
history of our Nation. Most of them are facing it with full appreciation of the
needs of the moment, and with the courage and resolution that will be required
if they ever are actually called upon to fulfill their respective parts. Many,
however, it is feared, have not sufficient appreciation of the true situation, and
of the dangers inherent in this failure to evaluate present conditions properly.

America has faced war before, and many of its people have known the
intimate horror of battles staged within sight of their very homesteads. Our
history recounts many incidents, too, where our women, and sometimes even
our half-grown boys, have taken active part in efforts to repulse enemy attack.

Down through the pages of history other nations, too, have known the
terrible consequences of invasion and complete subjugation. All too many
records there are of whole peoples being dispersed or carried into slavery or
maltreated in savage fashion. In every instance, however, the treatment visited
upon the women and children of conquered towns and countries has come as a
result of victory, and only after the warriors on opposing sides had settled the
issue by force of arms.

Today, however many countries of the world have faced, or are facing,
assaults upon their non-combatant populations, such as even the most ruthless
barbarians of ancient times never conceived. These attacks, moreover, are not
an afterthought of conquests, but are the result of devilish advance planning.
They are being carried on as a part of a general all-out plan to destroy entire
peoples.

At the moment the peoples of America, our women, our children, our aged
and infirm, the little babes in their cradles, are free from the dangers of sudden
death, or fearful injury, through invasion. Whether they will be free from such
dangers tomorrow, or next month, is a matter which a foreign dictator may
undertake to decide.