of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 649

likewise makes use of all available tools and machinery to the fullest extent.
Such a distribution is an example of Democracy at its best. This plant, here at
Chestertown, is evidence of just that.

The workers who set such a splendid example in completing this new plant,
two months ahead of schedule, have laid down a challenge which I am sure the
employees of Kent Defense Corporation will accept gladly. Production, and
more production, is the eternal cry from Washington, because only production
and more production will make it possible for America to smash the bold at-
tempt which Japan is making to bar us from the whole Far East. Any extra ef-
fort made by a single worker or by a group of workers in any war industry, hel
to put America just that much further on towards the goal of final vctory. The
quicker this plant gets into full production, the sooner our men, our sons, our
quicker this plant gets into full production, the sooner our men, our sons, our
brothers will have the necessary implements with which to crack down hard
upon the cowardly Japanese whose treacherous attack forced us into a war
which none of us wanted.

What a change it is, from the peaceful agricultural pursuits of the early
Colonists to the Industrialized Maryland we know today, with war products
being turned out in explosives plants in Elkton, and at the testing ground at
Indian Head, while other hundreds of plants from Cumberland and Hagerstown
in the West, to the highly strategic Baltimore Area, are providing America's
fighting men with sinews of war in ever-increasing amounts.

Residents of the Eastern Shore don't need to read of sinkings just off the
Coast, or to be told of the blacking-out of our entire Ocean shoreline as a pre-
caution against submarine activity, to know that we are in the war of our lives,
a war that conceivably could spell the end of American Democracy.

Our Maryland boys by the thousands and tens-of-thousands are serving in
the Army and Navy throughout the seven seas. There isn't a community on
the Eastern Shore, I am sure, which hasn't sent some of its boys to the service,
which doesn't have others of its residents now in training camps preparing to
do their patriotic duty in the defense" of American rights and freedoms.

It is gratifying to the extreme to be able to say that, in proportion to
population, Maryland leads the Country in enlistments in the Navy. Likewise,
it makes one thrill with pride to be told by draft officials in one of the counties
that so many had volunteered from their area that no calls were being made on
them for Selective Service men. Their quotas were filled completely.

It seems, at times, that we at home are doing little towards winning the
war, and that we should be able to contribute more towards the active support
of the boys! we are sending to these far-off battle fronts. It is the nature of
Americans to want to do more than is asked of them, rather than less. In this
war, let it be said, there is more opportunity than in any previous struggle of
our Country, for everyone of us to assist to the limit of our ability.

The many phases of Civilian Defense activities, in which more than 128, -
000 of our people already are enrolled, afford opportunity for everyone to help
in the capacity in which he or she is best qualified. Anyone who can participate
in such Civilian Defense activity, and who hasn't volunteered, owes it to him-