586 State Papers and Addresses

bound together that it cannot function properly unless every single phase is
fulfilled. At the moment we are suffering defeats in the Pacific and in the Far
East, because we are out-manned, and because our foes have superiority in
planes and ships and tanks. Following the President's vibrant speech on Tues-
day, there is no doubt in anyone's mind but that the Nation's industries will
be geared quickly to the high pitch necessary to produce the staggering totals
of armament demanded.

President Roosevelt did not, in that speech, go into the matter of foodstuffs
but certainly this was not because there was any lesser importance attached to
production in this field. We can, and we will, produce the war materials; we
can and we will, train the necessary men; we can, and we will, assist our Allied
Nations to the limit of our power in this respect. Unless, however, we are pre-
pared at the same time to give them like supplies of foodstuffs for their fight-
ing men, as well as for their home populations, great deal of the cumulative
effect of our industrial production will be lost.

Industry generally is heeding the President's plea for a twenty-four seven-
day-week. Surely agriculture can do no less. I am confident that their support of
the President's policy, of the efforts of our fighting men on sea, on land and in
the air, will measure up completely to what 'will be expected and to what will
be demanded if the final victory that must come to us, is to be achieved with-
out heartbreaking delay and unnecessary sacrifice of lives and of resources.

The significance of Agriculture's contribution to the National war effort,
in the minds of the leaders who are directing this effort in Washington, is
indicated clearly by the favorable recognition given to the need of Agricultural
machinery in the extremely drastic tire rationing regulations, which so recently
have been made known to our people.

Among the very limited group of wheeled vehicles to which consideration
will be given in the allotment of tires, farm tractors and other farm implements
are specifically indicated. When you consider the many important types of
commercial vehicles whose operations has been considered as almost vital to the
economic life of the Nation, which are denied tires and tubes under these regula-
tions, the fact that Agriculture's needs have been appreciated so fully is a
tribute, indeed, to the value of the farm effort.

Because your sphere of residence and of operation is in most instance
removed from the more closely inhabited cities and industrial areas of our
State, there is a possibility that your members may take a dangerously com-
placent attitude with regard to certain aspects of defense, and particularly that
of Civilian Defense. In thinking of and planning against possible bombing
raids upon our State, we have been accustomed to thinking in terms of the
highly industrialized areas and to devote most attention to them. Assuredly,
it would be tremendously to the advantage of the Axis powers if they could
cripple, wholly or partially, the vastly important airplane, shipbuilding and
steel producing plants located around our State's largest city.

Appreciation of this fact, I repeat, may lead to a dangerous feeling of
complacence upon the part of the farm people of our State. Civilian Defense
planning in Maryland, however, is not, and can never be, localized endeavor.