652 State Papers and Addresses

the world already, is by the utmost cooperation and work and complete unity by
every single citizen of this State of all the states of the union.

There are people who will tell you "don't blame the German people, it is
only Hitler who is responsible for this. " I say to you that it wasn't Hitler, it
was a representative group of the German people who shot down these seamen
in cold blood off the Maryland Coast, just as groups of German men committed
the thousands of excesses in all the conquered countries, just as it was the rank
and file of the Japanese Army that ravaged China's cities as possibly no other
country in the world has ever been ravaged.

It isn't Hitler who is still condemning to death each day Frenchmen and
Poles and residents of other countries; it wasn't the Mikado of Japan who
brutality and conquest manifest in these outrages is typical of the entire Ger-
butchered the manacled British captives at Hong Kong. No, the spirit of
man and Japanese armies. We would be blind, indeed, if we didn't recognize
fully that we will not be spared any of these excesses if we are weak enough
or cowardly enough to let them gain victory over us.

Rather, the contrary is true. Both Germany and Japan know only too well
that but for the help of the United States, their conquests would be relatively
easy. Germany knows that England could never have survived without United
States help. Japan is fully aware that China could never have battled so suc-
cessfully, and that she would be entire master of the Southwest Pacific right
now, or in the very near future, if it were not for the United States fighting
men and planes and supplies of every kind.

Under the circumstances, you may be sure that whatever outrages have
been perpetrated already by these barbarians will be multiplied many times over
if they ever are victorious over America. In view of this, the American who
holds back from an all-out effort, who refuses to fight or to work or to give of
his financial resources to the limit to insure victory over these devilish op-
ponents, will deserve the worst that can befall him. We are fighting for our
very lives and for all the blessings of freedom that we long have enjoyed. We
have all the resources necessary to win through to victory quickly and com-
pletely. If we don't win through, we can have no one to blame but ourselves.

We've tightened the National belt another. notch—"No more building, " the
War Production Board decrees. No new homes—or new construction for civilian
purposes without express permission from the War Production Board.

No tires, no electrical household appliances, no new automobiles, to men-
tion only a few of the conveniences and luxuries now forbidden—privations and
annoying to the extreme, of course. But nothing like as tragic, for instance,
as the anguish caused those gallant American defenders of Bataan Peninsula,
now at length forced to yield because they had no planes, no big guns, no food,
no ships to get these vitals of war to them. They've lost their lives or their
freedom without complaint. Can we say the same?

We're in war. We're in dire danger of losing not only our freedom but
everything we value most. Some thousands of our young men already have
lost their lives, and other thousands possibly will—and there in no assurance
that even here, protected as we may be, some of our people will not be called