The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-07-25

tremendous campaign in Russia, the
 rulers of Germany and Japan are carrying on their too familiar tech-
 nique of encirclement through the
 work of their agents among our neighbors to the South. Strength,
 and strength alone, can give us
 chance of survival. We think too
 much in terms of dollar signs and figures. We should realize that the problem of creating and maintain ing military force trained in the units necessary to meet the condi- tions of modern warfare goes far beyond dollars and figures.
 I have given you the barest out- line of the force being built by our Army. An ideal condition of our defense forces would have main tained in time of peace a trained reserve of men with a reserve of modern weapons, plus the raw ma- terial reserve and industrial cap- acity to turn out the munitions necessary to equip and maintain whatever force actually in service at any time might be necessary. As you know, in spite of the pleas for preparedness by the veterans of the last war, this was not done. We lis- tened rather to the pracifists, will ing or unwilling dupes of our ene- mics, until too late.
 We had made a small start on the material side with stock pile legislation and educational orders, but the crisis was upon us before these measures had been In effect long enough to correct our material deficiencies.
 Ruthless War Machine
 Since we were shocked into action by the fall of France before the ruthless war machine of Germany, we have been working to overcome our deficiencies. We have been granted 8 year. In that year, as I have indicated, We have greatly in- creased the number of men in the Army. We have formed them into units: we have made start on the training of those units, and a start on furnishing them modern equip ment. We have great aircraft and engine plants; great powder, high explosive and shell manufacturing and loading plants, whose con- struction is being completed, and which now are coming into pro- duction. We are turning out five times the number of planes we were a year ago. We have had this year granted us by Divine Providence. We have done the job of tooling and coming into production in many respects far more quickly than I, for one, thought possible on the basis of our World War ex- perience. But the progress we have made is not sufficient to insure our safety. We must have more time; we must have the cooperation of all of our people, SO that none of the time remaining to us be wasted. To buy time during the last year, we have found 1t necessary to support the British out of our own inSuffi- cient reserves. We still need to re- build those reserves, as well as to supply our own forces with the planes and tanks and guns we now are beginning to turn out in quan- tity for ourselves and the British.
 Remember this. Even if we reach 3 production over and above our production for the British of 1000 fighting planes, a division of tanks, 100000 rifles, 10000 machine guns, several thousand artillery pieces i every month, more than a year will | pass before our present forces can | be adequately equipped for com. bat.
 We must equip these forces and we must have capacity to maintain | that equipment At proper level for | ouT safety. Don't let figures on rate Of production lull you into any false | sense Of security. That is our worst | danger. We have found in our in. l vestigatlon of the raw mateFfals site | lasion that q lack of appreciation oF the part ef government agencies 1 lhsmselyeb-of the Fsal needs of the