of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 717

minutes' reading of the headlines of any of our newspapers today will suffice to
convince any understanding person of the tremendous difficulties that lie ahead
for America before Victory can be won.

Certainly there can be little comfort in the accounts of the recent advances
of the German troops into Russia, with the implied threat to the Caucasus and
the great oil supplies there; the stand made by the English troops in Libya; the
heartening, still doesn't remove the threat to Cairo and the Suez Canal; the
claim by Germany of wholesale sinkings of American vessels, bound to Russia
with vital war materials for the Russian armies; the further advances of the
Japanese troops in various parts of China; none of these things, by any stretch
of the imagination, can be looked upon as harbingers of an early victorious
Peace.

Confronted with such developments, America's task unfolds as a war-flung
and serious one, indeed. Russia must be kept fighting, and that will require
many a boatload of American guns and tanks, ammunition and food, as well as
all the planes that can be gotten there.

In China a similar need for bolstering their forces requires like amounts
of fighting materials and planes. To deliver these fighting materials the sea
lanes must be kept open to the Russian ports, to Australia and to China. And
all this, while we train several millions of our own troops here at home, feed,
clothe and outfit them, and then transport them to England, to Alaska, to
Australia, or to the many other points where American troops now are on duty.

Surely there is no room for complacency in the contemplation of this situa-
tion. With our Country threatened as never before in all its long history, and
with many millions of once-free peoples throughout the world now suffering the
most bestial type of bondage, every American citizen, without exception, must
be prepared to realize his duties and responsibilities, and to put every ounce of
his energy into the National war effort.

Entirely appropriate and timely is it, therefore, that meeting like this be
held, to rewaken in our people true appreciation of what America means, and
of their responisbility to defend it in this grave emergency.

Never in the entire history of our Country has there been greater need for
patriotic rededication than faces us today. Literally, America and the United
Nations are fighting against staggering odds. On all the Continents and on
each of the seven seas, the mightest, most brutal military machines the world
has ever known have put to challenge every right, every privilege, every liberty
we have heretofore known and enjoyed. Their threat covers our way of life
in all its phases—economic, political, social and religious.

Under such a threat to the security of our Nation, every other considera-
tion must be laid aside except that which will make for a stronger National
Unity and for a more concerted national effort. Questions of racial origin, of
religion and of class never had a place in America, but certainly deserve no
thought today when the energies of every one of our citizens is needed for de-
fense.

To every American citizen our Commander-in-chief has1 thrown down the
guage of true Americanism. Rightly has it been pointed out that we cannot