State of the Union AddressesRoosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
History
State of the Union Addresses
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
They know that victory for us means victory for religion. And they could
not tolerate that. The world is too small to provide adequate "living room"
for both Hitler and God. In proof of that, the Nazis have now announced
their plan for enforcing their new German, pagan religion all over the
world--a plan by which the Holy Bible and the Cross of Mercy would be
displaced by Mein Kampf and the swastika and the naked sword.
Our own objectives are clear; the objective of smashing the militarism
imposed by war lords upon their enslaved peoples the objective of
liberating the subjugated Nations--the objective of establishing and
securing freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and
freedom from fear everywhere in the world.
We shall not stop short of these objectives--nor shall we be satisfied
merely to gain them and then call it a day. I know that I speak for the
American people--and I have good reason to believe that I speak also for
all the other peoples who fight with us--when I say that this time we are
determined not only to win the war, but also to maintain the security of
the peace that will follow.
But we know that modern methods of warfare make it a task, not only of
shooting and fighting, but an even more urgent one of working and
producing.
Victory requires the actual weapons of war and the means of transporting
them to a dozen points of combat.
It will not be sufficient for us and the other United Nations to produce a
slightly superior supply of munitions to that of Germany, Japan, Italy, and
the stolen industries in the countries which they have overrun.
The superiority of the United Nations in munitions and ships must be
overwhelming--so overwhelming that the Axis Nations can never hope to catch
up with it. And so, in order to attain this overwhelming superiority the
United States must build planes and tanks and guns and ships to the utmost
limit of our national capacity. We have the ability and capacity to produce
arms not only for our own forces, but also for the armies, navies, and air
forces fighting on our side.
And our overwhelming superiority of armament must be adequate to put
weapons of war at the proper time into the hands of those men in the
conquered Nations who stand ready to seize the first opportunity to revolt
against their German and Japanese oppressors, and against the traitors in
their own ranks, known by the already infamous name of "Quislings." And I
think that it is a fair prophecy to say that, as we get guns to the
patriots in those lands, they too will fire shots heard 'round the world.
This production of ours in the United States must be raised far above
present levels, even though it will mean the dislocation of the lives and
occupations of millions of our own people. We must raise our sights all
along the production line. Let no man say it cannot be done. It must be
done--and we have undertaken to do it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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