718 State Papers and Addresses

accept our Country's gifts without shouldering its responsibilities, without
pledging ourselves to carry on and to sustain, at whatever cost may be entailed,
the heritage of freedom and liberty that has been entrusted to our care.

Just to look about us this evening, and to realize what America has given
to all of us here present, is to be confirmed forever in the realization that Amer-
ican citizenship, under our present form of Government, is the most valuable
civic possession obtainable in the world today.

To permit these American ideals of Government to be laid aside now would
be an everlasting blot upon the conscience of every American. The American
System, with its recognition of the individual as the sole reason for Government
is the truest realization of an ideal of Government that exists in the world to-
day. It is little wonder our forefathers found it such an inspiration, it is little
wonder that, throughout all the years, Americans were ever ready to give their
lives and possessions to defend it. Surely today, with conditions as they are
throughout the world, we should be poor Americans, indeed, if we did not
measure up to the high standards of National conduct set by those who preceded
us.

While America is a peace-loving Nation, to whose citizens the idea of war
is abhorrent, nevertheless the people of America realize that there are things
infinitely worse than war. Nearly all of Europe today furnishes striking ex-
ample of this truth. And the fate that overtook these nations, one by one, is
warning enough of the fate that is in store for America unless our people can
put forth the all-out effort required to stamp out the threat of Hitler and his
hordes.

To stand off, and ultimately to defeat, the powerful German and Japanese
forces that now lead the assault upon the Democratic peoples of the world, we
must truly have an all-out effort, such an all-out effort as never before has even
been conceived by the most far-sighted of our leaders. What such an all-out
effort means is simply this. America must place in the field several millions of
trained, disciplined troops and supply them with every modern weapon of war-
fare in abundance. The Philippines were lost because our men, fighting their
hearts: out, had neither weapons nor supplies to enable them to continue the
battle. That must never happen again. Every man who enters our Country's
service must have a chance for life, must have the supplies and weapons that
will help him to Victory.

To back up these military forces and to assure them the great quantities
of war materials and supplies they need, other millions of American, including
a large proportion of women, must be mobilized on a second fighting front—the
American Production Line.

Right now American industry is experiencing a shortage of skilled man-
power which, in view of the tremendous expansion of the past year, is easily
understandable. The vastness of organization in manpower required may be
understood when it is realized that, while there were approximately 6, 000, 000
people engaged in the war industries at the close of 1941, 17, 000, 000 will be
needed by the end of this year. To man the factories, to produce the weapons
and supplies and food that must be had for Victory, will mean that hundreds of