Evening star., 1942-02-24
The Presidents Report

uS iiSStOSuN NSPOiA
President Roosevelt was faced with
a difficult task in reporting to the
Nation last night on the course Of a
war which to this point has run
strongly against us. On balance,
however, there was a note of reassur-
ance in what he had to say-in his
confident prediction that we will
achieve the great production goals
set for 1912, that our strength is
increasing daily while that Of our
enemies has almost reached its peak,
that we can lose the war only If we
"slow up our effort or if we waste
our ammunition sniping at each
other"
Broadly speaking, the President
sought to accomplish two main pur-
poses in his talk. First, to demon
strate the truly worldwide scope Of
the war and to show that we can win
it only by carrying the fight to our
enemies-that a purely defensive
strategy would be the certain road to
defeat Second, that we can main
tain such an offensive war only in
full collaboration with our Allies
that division in the ranks of the
United Nations would spell disaster
for all.
The correctness of these two
propositions would seem to be self
evident Yet there is an unmistakable
tendency on the part of many Amer
leans to negate them by word or
deed; to undermine the all-essential
unity by fostering distrust of our
Allies if not outright hostility toward
them. That this more often than
not is thoughtless rather than de-
liberate detracts nothing from the
fact that it is detrimental to the
conduct Of the war, and for that
reason, If no other, there ought to
be an end to it.
Turning to the domestic aspects
Of our problem, to the vital i'm
portance Of maintaining uninter-
rupted production of arms for our
own fighting men and those of our
Allies, the President made an ex-
tremely important point. I'VE are
coming to realize" he said, that one
extra plane or extra tank or extra
gun or extra ship completed tomor-
row may, in few months, turn the
tide on some distant battlefield; it
may make the difference between
life and death for some of our fight
ing men" II the country as a whole
finally is coming to realize the pro-
found truth Of this statement, if the
vital distinction between vast arma-
ments to be produced in the future
and planes or tanks actually avail
able at the scene of battle really has
been brought home to the people by
the defeats we have suffered, then
that is indeed a bright promise for
the future.
One Is reminded in this connection
of the comment of the American
soldier on Bataan, when told of the
airplane production goal set for the
end Of 1912. Sixty thousand planes, !"
the soldier exclaimed, give us six
now" The implications of that re-
mark are applicable to virtually every
battle that the Allies have fought
and lost since the beginning of this
war. In every case the enemy has
had an neutrality-suspicious. great,
sometimes slight-but always an ad-
vantage in guns, planes and tanks.
Ultimately, no doubt, this unfavor-
able balance of strength will be
redressed, but no one can question
that we have suffered, that we are
suffering and that we will continue
to suffer because all of us have been
too ready to fight the war in terms
of potential rather than actual
strength.
1t is in this sense that the PreSi-
dents reduction Of the meaning of
armaments to terms of one tank, one
plane, one gun or one ship is helpful.
It is helpful, first, because it stresses
the fact that even slight margin of
superiority on the battlefield often
is decisive, and, second, because the
production of one tank or one plane
is meaningful to the individual.
When too much emphasis is laid on
the production Of $4,000 planes or
$4,000 tanks, something essential is
lost. The significance Of such a mass
effort, like the spending of a hundred
billion dollars, often is beyond the
grasp of the individual. But the
meaning of one tank or one plane,
when translated into terms of battles
won or lost, can be readily under
stood. Thus, to personalize the war
effort in this respect, to bring 1t down
to level where each individual can
grasp the Importance Of his par
ticular task, may well be a decisive
factor in bringing about the greater
understanding and the greater in
dividual and collective effort which
are essential to victory.