Evening star., 1941-07-15
Women Voters League Urges
Intensified Defense Effort
LocuI Port Of National Drive to Be
Cimoxed by RoIy Tomorrow Night

Calling for work and sacrifice to
win the battle of production. the
National League of Women Voters
has launched Nationwide pro-
gram to get the American public
behind the defense effort.
Their national program goes into
1,500 communities where league
members are urging government,
industry, labor, farmers, every citi-
zen to get together to use public
opinion as an added lever in shifting
industrial machinery into high gear.
Climaxing the local drive will be
an "all-out defense rally at pm.
tomorrow at the Palisades Play
ground field house, Sherrier place
and Edmunds street NV.
Stokes to- Address Rally.
Richard L. Stokes. Washington
correspondent of the ST. Louis Post
Dispatch, will be the principal
speaker. A panel discussion on ma
tional defense and the rendition of
a choral poem entitled The Battle
of Production, written by Mrs. Har-
old Stone. legislative chairman OF
the Voteless District Of Columbia
League, will be features of the pro-
gram.
The local league is using notion
picture announcements, window dis
plays. radio programs. leaflets
wrapped around milk bottles and
stickers on laundry bundles to fur
ther the drive to unite the people.
The campaign traces back to a
meeting of the general council Of
the national league in May. In
stead of pausing to celebrate the
passage of the Lease-Lend bill. the
general council went to work to
consider what should be done to
make the lease-lend program effec-
tive.
Must Recognize Emergency.
The council agreed that the plan
which the American people had in
augurated for defending democracy
would succeed only if the people
recognized the emergency and
worked and sacrificed with the same
unity of purpose hitherto charac-
teristic of wartime.
The council felt that the Amer
ican people, vocal during the debate
on the lease-lend bill. had not
shown an equal amount of interest
in insisting that all obstacles IN
the way of production be overcome.
With various groups organized to
arouse sentiment for or against war.
for or against specific features of
American policy. no citizens group
had been formed to work for the
success of the lease-lend plan, the
council believed.
League leaflets tell in bold type
the point league members are trying
to put across to the country.
keep Free Peoples Free
"Win Americas battle, produc-
ton" the leaflets urge. More
planes, more tanks. more guns. more
goods faster-now. More getting
together, more sacrifices. more taxes,
more work-now. Do everything to
help, say nothing to hinder. The
battle of production, for defense at
home-aid abroad. To keep free
peoples free
Stating the problem directly, the
women say:
For a war people naturally unite.
For a miracle of production, the
battle our country has chosen to
fight, they do not naturally unite.
Therefore the league will work to
create unity and loyalty as war
creates them and to make produc-
ton understood as something as
fraught with fate as war itself would
be"
Explaining the leagues position,
Mrs. Louise Leonard Wright of Chi
cago, league foreign policy chairman,
and Miss Marguerite M. Wells,
league president, will make coast
to-coast broadcast at 6:15 pm. today.
Pleads for United Support.
In pre-broadcast statement
Miss Wells emphasized that the
leagues campaign has notnng 10
do with going into war or staying
out of it.
The campaign she explained,
"is based on our country's plan for
defense by all-out production, for
use at home and aid abroad. 1t is
harder to unite people behind such
a program than to unite them for
war, but if such a program can
succeed, it is a thousand times bet
ter than war. Whether or not it
succeeds, rests both with the people
and with the government. The
Leagues campaign at this time Is
directed 70 the people.