of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 633

war we are all virtually enlisted personnel in the total Army of the United
States.

Our job is to work hard—to do the things we can do because we
know how—and willingly to make every sacrifice and to offer our services
wherever needed. Any other course with the enemy threatening our shores
means defeat. Remember that unity and morale mean victory.

Civilian Defense workers, for instance, who patriotically give of their
time as airplane spotters, or in some other field, may more than nullify their
contribution to vistory unless they are just as alert in other fields. Let me
illustrate. To repeat and help to spread wild rumors, many of which are very
destructive of morale, is to give aid and comfort to the enemy, just as surely
as if one were supplying plans and specifications of defense areas.

To complain, just for the sake of complaint, about inconveniences caused
by tire or automobile or sugar rationing, is the very opposite of patriotic co-
operation. In general, whatever tends to make people satisfied with conditions
that have been deemed necessary by the responsible officials in Washington,
strengthens by so much the complete effectiveness of our war efforts.

There is no sense in trying to delude ourselves into the belief that priva-
tions suffered by other warring peoples will pass us by because we are Amer-
icans, and hence used to the best of everything. There are still people in
America who believe that as American citizens they have the right to get tires
if they want them or to secure all the sugar they need, or that they should be
excused from other restrictions, simply because they have been accustomed to
having complete freedom in such matters all their lives.

Such people don't seem to realize, what eventually they must be brought to
realize, that our freedoms, and all the privileges that have been our birthright
and our heritage here in America, are ours1 not by any permanent title, but only
because our valiant, hard working, far-seeing ancestors won and retained them
for us.

They don't seem to realize that we have been blest far beyond many other
peoples. They fail to see that even while we were enoying the fullest measure
of individual liberty, many other peoples in, many other countries, had less, and
sometimes nothing at all, of these freedoms and privileges.

Over the past two years there has been convincing evidence on all sides
throughout the world that the good things of life must be earned, and must be
defended—that those nations which had not valued them enough, and have not
defended them to the fullest, in many cases had lost them completely.

No one can ever say with assurances that America will not also lose its
freedom and all the privileges attendant upon such freedom. Such an eventu-
ality, of course, seems unthinkable. Nevertheless, it once seemed unthinkable
to the people of France, apparently secure behind the Maginot line. To the
people of America, the oceans upon which they have depended so utterly for
security, have dwindled proportionatly as the range and the speed of airplanes
have been increased. The result today is that there is no assurance of Safety
beyond our readiness to fight, and our capacity to produce the fighting things
necessary, to a greater extent than our combined enemies can do.