Yes. 1944. Let's all take a minute to remember what the hell was going on.
I'm sure you'd approve of a similar speech by W.
Get out your wallets.
June 12, 1944
Address of the President in Connection with the Opening of the Fifth War Loan Drive
Ladies and Gentlemen:
All our fighting men overseas today have their appointed stations on the far-flung battlefronts of the world. We at home have ours too. We need, we (and) 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 from 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 act of 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 -- something nearly everyone seems to be doing. Although there are now approximately sixty-seven million persons who have or earn some form of income (including the armed forces), eighty-one million persons or their children have already bought war bonds. They have bought more than six hundred million individual bonds. Their purchases have totaled more than thirty-two billion dollars. These are the purchases of individual men, women and children. Anyone who would have said this was possible a few years ago would have been put down as a starry-eyed visionary. But of such visions (however) is the stuff of America (fashioned).
Of course, there are always pessimists with us everywhere, a few here and a few there. I am reminded of the fact that after the fall of France in 1940 I asked the Congress for the money for the production by the United States of fifty thousand airplanes per year. Well, I was called crazy -- it was said that the figure was fantastic; that it could not be done. And yet today we are building airplanes at the rate of one hundred thousand a year.
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There were people trrying to take over the world--and take our freedom. Every available soul from children to geezers was working, raisingmoney and giving to the war effort.
I'm suprised it was ONLY 94%.
That kind of dramatic giving isn't necessary now.
There is a basement. There should be a ceiling.
