of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor • 585

MARYLAND FARM BUREAU DINNER
LORD BALTIMORE HOTEL

January 8, 1942
Baltimore

A LITTLE more than a year ago, at the National Farm Bureau Convention,
which we were privileged to hold here in Baltimore, I took occasion to
express the high regard in which the people of the State hold our farm people
and farm groups. These farm people and farm groups constituted, I declared
at that time, the very backbone of our conservative democratic institutions,
and their membership was indelibly associated with the basic doctrines of
Amercan civilization.

Within the past month again it was my privilege to be associated with
your honored National President, Mr. Edward A. O'Neal, in a declaration of
fealty and support to the President of these United States, following the out-
break of war with the Axis powers.

It was fitting, indeed, that the American Farm Bureau Federation was one
of several leading national organizations to join in this declaration of loyalty.
While unquestionably the farm people of our Country are contributing in the
most splendid manner to the program of war preparedness, there still devolved
upon your shoulders, as members of the Bureau, and as leaders in your various
communities, a very grave responsibility in this hour of crisis. You must
assume and assert leadership in the matter of organization of our defense with-
in the State.

The Farm Bureau, in its contacts with so many thousands of persons
throughout the State, many of whom are not readily reached by the usual
publicity media, can be a most important and effective factor in registering
forcibly the needs of the hour, and the part that every single Marylander must
play in efforts to prepare against any and every type of emergency.

Naturally, the farmer must give first thought to his No. 1 responsibility.
Not only must we, as a Nation, produce all the foodstuffs possible for our own
use, but we must bear in mind that we are one of the United Nations whose
total resources have been dedicated to the defeat and destruction of militarism
throughout the world.

Thus, while we are producing the thousands of tanks and planes and guns,
the millions of tons of shipping that will be required to supply our allies as
well as ourselves, it must be borne in mind that the same maximum production
must be attained in foodstuffs as well.

The 125, 000 planes which President Roosevelt has promised that the
Country will produce for use against the Axis nations in 1943, must be matched
by a correspondingly overwhelming production of farm products during that
same twelve-month period. The whole system of defense activity is so throughly