736 State Papers and Addresses
organizations. The same spirit explains the enrollment of 12, 000 Maryland
Minute Men, already to fight to the last ditch, for the protection of their
homes and their loved ones.
Truly, therefore, Maryland has become an Arsenal of Democracy. But
the success of the arsenal depends upon the men and women working steadily
and efficiently to increase production, week by week, month by month. Such
production will even be more important during the next few months when
decisive developments in the war will occur. During this period, America
must regain lost ground and carry the fight to the enemy on a front so that
America's honor can be maintained.
America will not lose because it is impossible to believe that America's
spirit can be killed. It cannot lose if the redblooded men and women, who
are America, march shoulder to shoulder in a parade of increased production.
Labor and management are to be congratulated upon the attitude already
displayed. There is now a unity of action and purpose while we fight to
maintain a system of Government guaranteeing the right of workers1 to or-
ganize and to have decent working conditions, and also guaranteeing the
right of free enterprise and of individual initiative. Bendix has furnished
such an example and we glory in the success which it has attained.
It is to preserve a Country that makes such things' possible that we must
carry on and struggle through to victory. No! America will never give up
this fight until freedom has been restored throughout the world. It is a
solemn obligation that has been laid upon us, not only to maintain our own
security but to help restore to enslaved millions everywhere, the freedom that
is: rightfully theirs.
One hundred and thirty million Americans are united today in the
patriotic determination to win through to Victory in this war, no matter
what the cost. Only thus can the menace of Hitler and his perverted ideologies
be destroyed; only thus can there be reestablished throughout the world the
principles of decency and humanity that are so essential to world happiness
and to hope for maintenance of peace upon the earth.
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