696 State Papers and Addresses

if need be, to insure for America of today and of all the tomorrows, continued
enjoyment of our American freedoms.

By now all our people finally are beginning to feel the pinch of war. Be-
cause of Selective Service, gasoline, tire and sugar rationing, registration of
men above 46, and the coming registration of boys of 18 and 19, it is being
impressed more and more upon everyone that this Country is embarked upon
such a struggle as never before has even been visualized by military experts.

Despite what has happened already, however; despite the serious incon-
veniences to our accustomed mode of life caused by limitations of various kinds,
there may be a tendency on the part of many of our people to believe that every-
thing is being done that will be necessary to insure Victory in this war.

It is timely to emphasize, therefore, that such is hardly the case. There is
imperative need that our people comprehend fully the scope and character of
the job America has tackled, in lining up with the United Nations to challenge
the onrush of the Axis powers. If they come to such full understanding now,
perhaps the many and severe additional blows to our National economy and to
our individual lives that will be necessary, may be softened to some degree.

In all the talk about plane and tank and ship production, do our people real-
ize that, in setting herself up as the "Arsenal of Democracy, " to quote our Pres-
ident's words, America has engaged to build such an Arsenal as the world never
before has seen. »

As we see the pictures of tanks rolling off the assembly line, or thundering
into action in Libya or in Russia, it is generally understood that America. is now
engaged in building the world's greatest mechanized Army, greatest in both
numbers and in total equipment.

The same thing applies to our building program with regard to the mer-
chant marine. Indeed, our success in achieving this production goal may well
determine, and in any case certainly will greatly affect, the amount of success
to be looked for from all the vast armament and arms production. Nor have
we been able to allow ourselves ten years in which to achieve these production
records, as Germany and Japan did. All of this must be accomplished within
2 or 3 years. Further, it has to be accomplished without sacrificing any more
than is absolutely necessary, the high standard of living that has set the
United States apart from every other Nation in the globe.

As we marvel at the reports of production of fighting planes and bombers,
of destroyers and cruisers and giant battleships, do we comprehend that the
completion of the projected programs in these respects will give us an Air Force
and a Navy greater than all the Air Forces of the world, larger than all the
Navies of the world?

When it is noted how the initial chaos and bewilderment of December and
January has been overcome by the genius of American industrial organization,
there is no question in anyone's mind but that everything we have started out
to do in this regard will be done. It will be done as no other nation of the world
could possibly do it. But, at the same time, we must understand, and be prepared
to accept the fact, that the doing of all this will cause such strains on our