【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 et too high or too low, our objective is quicker and better results.
　　To give you two illustrations:
　　We are behind schedule in turning out finished airplanes. We are working day and night to solve the innumerable problems and to catch up.
　　We are ahead of schedule in building warships, but we are working to get even further ahead of that schedule.
　　To change a whole nation from a basis of peacetime production of implements of peace to a basis of wartime production of implements of war is no small task. And the greatest difficulty es at the beginning of the program, when new tools, new plant facilities, new assembly lines, new shipways must first be constructed before the actual material begins to flow steadily and speedily from them.
　　The Congress of course, must rightly keep itself informed at all times of the progress of the program. However, there is certain information, as the Congress itself will readily recognize, which, in the interests of our own security and those of the nations that we are supporting, must of needs be kept in confidence.
　　New circumstances are constantly begetting new needs for our safety. I shall ask this Congress for greatly increased new appropriations and authorizations to carry on what we have begun.
　　I also ask this Congress for authority and for funds sufficient to manufacture additional munitions and war supplies of many kinds, to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war with aggressor nations. Our most useful and immediate role is to act as an arsenal for them as well as for ourselves. They do not need manpower, but they do need billions of dollars’ worth of the weapons of defense.
　　The time is near when they will not be able to pay for them all in ready cash. We cannot, and we will not, tell them that they must surrender merely because of present inability to pay for the weapons which we know they must have.
　　I do not remend that we make them a loan of dollars with which to pay for these weapons a loan to be repaid in dollars. I remend that we make it possible for those nations to continue to obtain war materials in the United States, fitting their orders into our own program. And nearly all of their material would, if the time ever came, be useful in our own defense.
　　Taking counsel of expert military and naval authorities, considering what is best for our own security, we are free to decide how much should be kept here and how much should be sent abroad to our friends who, by their determined and heroic resistance, are giving us time in which to make ready our own defense.
　　For what we send abroad we shall be repaid, repaid within a reasonable time following the close of hostilities, repaid in similar materials, or at our option in other goods of many kinds which they can produce and which we need.
　　Let us say to the democracies: amp。quot。We Americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom. We are putting forth our energies, our resources, and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world. We shall send you in everincreasing numbers, ships, planes, tanks, guns. That is our purpose and our pledge.amp。quot。
　　In fulfillment of this purpose we will not be intimidated by the threats of dictators that they will regard as a breach of international law or as an act of war our aid to the democracies which dare to resist their aggression. Such aid Such aid is not an act of war, even if a dictator should unilaterally proclaim it so to be.
　　And when the dictators if the dictators are ready to make war upon us, they will not wait for an act of war on our part.
　　They did not wait for Norway or Belgium or the Netherlands to mit an act of war. Their only interest is in a new oneway international law, which lacks mutuality in its observance and therefore bees an instrument of oppression. The happiness of future generations of Americans may well depend on how effective and how immediate we can make our aid felt. No one can tell the exact character of the emergency situations that we may be called upon to meet. The nationamp。39。s hands must not be tied when the nationamp。39。s life is in danger.
　　Yes, and we must prepare, all of us prepare, to make the sacrifices that the emergency almost as serious as war itself demands. Whatever stands in the way of speed and efficiency in defense, in defense preparations of any kind, must give way to the national need.
　　A free nation has the right to expect full cooperation from all groups. A free nation has the right to look to the leaders of business, of labor, and of agriculture to take the lead in stimulating effort, not among other groups but within their own group.
　　The best way of dealing with the few slackers or troublemakers in our midst is, first, to shame them by patriotic example, and if that fails, to use the sovereignty of government to save government.
　　As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armaments alone. Those who man our defens