Q. _But how can we expect to improve morale by criticism? Isn’t it true that if you tell a healthy man he looks ill, and tell him frequently enough, he may actually fall ill?_ A. Yes, but if you tell an ill man he looks well, and he therefore fails to take care of himself, he may die. It is not fear that we need; it is awareness. What was the common cause of the death of the fifteen nations which have fallen to Hitler? It was lack of awareness of his threat to their national existence. From Poland to Greece they were all overconfident and hence for six long years did nothing to bring about that coalition which might have saved them. Overconfidence is our danger, not defeatism. The moment our Navy was given orders to convoy and shoot, one prominent voice was raised to suggest that now we might diminish our Army, as though the war were virtually won. Q. _Our morale is very bad, then?_ A. No, that is not true. Our morale is high. That sounds like a contradiction but it is not. It is my conviction after talking to audiences all over the country that the American people are eager to find out the truth and when they hear it they are eager to act; that they are far ahead of their leaders in Congress, and even of the President; and that if the President wanted it, he could get directly from the American people, not from Congress, but from the twenty-seven million Americans who voted for him, plus many million more, approval of any measure he advocated, including a formal declaration of war. National morale depends so much on leadership that a great figure, as Roosevelt in this country and Churchill in England, can influence it to great decisions with one broadcast. But without leadership we soon sink back into smug apathy, and the kind of thoughtlessness which led Americans in the first six months of 1941 to buy 35 per cent more automobiles, 42 per cent more refrigerators, and 51 per cent more electric ranges than in the same period of 1940--all of these luxury articles being built of materials vital for our defense industry. The French too, right up to the collapse, went on eating tremendous meals, loafing behind their Maginot line, and reading illustrated magazines with pictures just like ours showing magnificent fleets of planes and tanks. An unwitting reader of some of our great periodicals would get the impression that we have one of the world’s most powerful tank armies and that our warplanes could darken the skies. We lay down the magazine with a sigh of content. Good old U.S.A. We knew we could do it. What was all that talk about unpreparedness? Q. _Haven’t we a tank army?_