Roosev

Ladies and gentlemen, all our fighting men overseas seize today have their appointed stations our battlefronts of the world. And we at home have ours too. We need, we are proud of our fighting men most decidedly.

But during the anxious times ahead, let us not forget that they need us too. It goes almost without saying that we must continue to forge the weapons of victory. The hundreds of thousands of items, large and small, essential to the waging of the war.

This has been the major task when the very start and it is still a major task. This is the very worst time for any war worker to think of leaving his machine or to look for a peacetime job.

And it goes almost without saying too that we must continue to provide our government with the funds necessary for waging war, not only by the payment of taxes, which after all is an obligation of American citizenship, but also by the purchase of war bonds, an active free choice which every citizen has to make for himself under the guidance of his own conscience.

Whatever else any of us may be doing, the purchase of war bonds and stamps is something all of us can do and should do to help win the war. I am happy to report tonight that it is something which nearly everyone seems to be doing.

Although there are now approximately 67 million persons who have or earn some form of income, including the armed forces, 81 million persons or their children have already bought war bonds. They have bought more than 600 million individual bonds.

That purchases have totaled more than 32 billion dollars. These are the purchases of individual men and women and children. Anyone who would have said that this was possible a few years ago would have been put down as the Starry-eyed visionary, but of such visions is the stuff of America. Of course, there are