Speech Transcript:

To the Congress:

This Nation in the past two years has become an active partner in the
world's greatest war against human slavery.

We have joined with like-minded people in order to defend ourselves
in a world that has been gravely threatened with gangster rule.

But I do not think that any of us Americans can be content with mere
survival. Sacrifices that we and our allies are making impose upon us
all a sacred obligation to see to it that out of this war we and our
children will gain something better than mere survival.

We are united in determination that this war shall not be followed by
another interim which leads to new disaster--that we shall not repeat
the tragic errors of ostrich isolationism--that we shall not repeat
the excesses of the wild twenties when this Nation went for a joy
ride on a roller coaster which ended in a tragic crash.

When Mr. Hull went to Moscow in October, and when I went to Cairo and
Teheran in November, we knew that we were in agreement with our allies
in our common determination to fight and win this war. But there were
many vital questions concerning the future peace, and they were
discussed in an atmosphere of complete candor and harmony.

In the last war such discussions, such meetings, did not even begin
until the shooting had stopped and the delegates began to assemble at
the peace table. There had been no previous opportunities for
man-to-man discussions which lead to meetings of minds. The result
was a peace which was not a peace.

That was a mistake which we are not repeating in this war.

And right here I want to address a word or two to some suspicious
souls who are fearful that Mr. Hull or I have made "commitments" for
the future which might pledge this Nation to secret treaties, or to
enacting the role of Santa Claus.

To such suspicious souls--using a polite terminology--I wish to say
that Mr. Churchill, and Marshal Stalin, and Generalissimo Chiang
Kai-shek are all thoroughly conversant with the provisions of our
Constitution. And so is Mr. Hull. And so am I.

Of course we made some commitments. We most certainly committed
ourselves to very large and very specific military plans which
require the use of all Allied forces to bring about the defeat of our
enemies at the earliest possible time.

But there were no secret treaties or political or financial
commitments.

The one supreme objective for the future, which we discussed for each
Nation individually, and for all the United Nations, can be summed up
in one word: Security.

And that means not only physical security which provides safety from
attacks by aggressors. It means also economic security, social
security, moral security--in a family of Nations.

In the plain down-to-earth talks that I had with the Generalissimo
and Marshal Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill, it was abundantly
clear that they are all most deeply interested in the resumption of
peaceful progress by their own peoples--progress toward a better
life. All our allies want freedom to develop their lands and
resources, to build up industry, to increase education and individual
opportunity, and to raise standards of living.

All our allies have learned by bitter experience that real
development will not be possible if they are to be diverted from
their purpose by repeated wars--or even threats of war.

China and Russia are truly united with Britain and America in
recognition of this essential fact:

The best interests of each Nation, large and small, demand that all
freedom-loving Nations shall join together in a just and durable
system of peace. In the present world situation, evidenced by the
actions of Germany, Italy, and Japan, unquestioned military control
over disturbers of the peace is as necessary among Nations as it is
among citizens in a community. And an equally basic essential to
peace is a decent standard of living for all individual men and women
and children in all Nations. Freedom from fear is eternally linked
with freedom from want.

There are people who burrow through our Nation like unseeing moles,
and attempt to spread the suspicion that if other Nations are
encouraged to raise their standards of living, our own American
standard of living must of necessity be depressed.

The fact is the very contrary. It has been shown time and again that
if the standard of living of any country goes up, so does its
purchasing power-- and that such a rise encourages a better standard
of living in neighboring countries with whom it trades. That is just
plain common sense--and it is the kind of plain common sense that
provided the basis for our discussions at Moscow, Cairo, and
Teheran.

Returning from my journeyings, I must confess to a sense of
"let-down" when I found many evidences of faulty perspective here in
Washington. The faulty perspective consists in overemphasizing lesser
problems and thereby underemphasizing the first and greatest problem.

The overwhelming majority of our people have met the demands of this
war with magnificent courage and understanding. They have accepted
inconveniences; they have accepted hardships; they have accepted
tragic sacrifices. And they are ready and eager to make whatever
further contributions are needed to win the war as quickly as
possible--if only they are given the chance to know what is required
of them.

However, while the majority goes on about its great work without
complaint, a noisy minority maintains an uproar of demands for
special favors for special groups. There are pests who swarm through
the lobbies of the Congress and the cocktail bars of Washington,
representing these special groups as opposed to the basic interests
of the Nation as a whole. They have come to look upon the war
primarily as a chance to make profits for themselves at the expense
of their neighbors--profits in money or in terms of political or
social preferment.

Such selfish agitation can be highly dangerous in wartime. It creates
confusion. It damages morale. It hampers our national effort. It
muddies the waters and therefore prolongs the war.

If we analyze American history impartially, we cannot escape the fact
that in our past we have not always forgotten individual and selfish
and partisan interests in time of war--we have not always been united
in purpose and direction. We cannot overlook the serious dissensions
and the lack of unity in our war of the Revolution, in our War of
1812, or in our War Between the States, when the survival of the
Union itself was at stake.

In the first World War we came closer to national unity than in any
previous war. But that war lasted only a year and a half, and
increasing signs of disunity began to appear during the final months
of the conflict.

In this war, we have been compelled to learn how interdependent upon
each other are all groups and sections of the population of America.

Increased food costs, for example, will bring new demands for wage
increases from all war workers, which will in turn raise all prices
of all things including those things which the farmers themselves
have to buy. Increased wages or prices will each in turn produce the
same results. They all have a particularly disastrous result on all
fixed income groups.

And I hope you will remember that all of us in this Government
represent the fixed income group just as much as we represent
business owners, workers, and farmers. This group of fixed income
people includes: teachers, clergy, policemen, firemen, widows and
minors on fixed incomes, wives and dependents of our soldiers and
sailors, and old-age pensioners. They and their families add up to
one-quarter of our one hundred and thirty million people. They have
few or no high pressure representatives at the Capitol. In a period
of gross inflation they would be the worst sufferers.

If ever there was a time to subordinate individual or group
selfishness to the national good, that time is now. Disunity at
home--bickerings, self-seeking partisanship, stoppages of work,
inflation, business as usual, politics as usual, luxury as usual
these are the influences which can undermine the morale of the brave
men ready to die at the front for us here.

Those who are doing most of the complaining are not deliberately
striving to sabotage the national war effort. They are laboring under
the delusion that the time is past when we must make prodigious
sacrifices--that the war is already won and we can begin to slacken
off. But the dangerous folly of that point of view can be measured by
the distance that separates our troops from their ultimate objectives
in Berlin and Tokyo--and by the sum of all the perils that lie along
the way.

Overconfidence and complacency are among our deadliest enemies. Last
spring--after notable victories at Stalingrad and in Tunisia and
against the U-boats on the high seas--overconfidence became so
pronounced that war production fell off. In two months, June and
July, 1943, more than a thousand airplanes that could have been made
and should have been made were not made. Those who failed to make
them were not on strike. They were merely saying, "The war's in the
bag--so let's relax."

That attitude on the part of anyone--Government or management or
labor--can lengthen this war. It can kill American boys.

Let us remember the lessons of 1918. In the summer of that year the
tide turned in favor of the allies. But this Government did not
relax. In fact, our national effort was stepped up. In August, 1918,
the draft age limits were broadened from 21-31 to 18-45. The
President called for "force to the utmost," and his call was heeded.
And in November, only three months later, Germany surrendered.

That is the way to fight and win a war--all out--and not with
half-an-eye on the battlefronts abroad and the other eye-and-a-half
on personal, selfish, or political interests here at home.

Therefore, in order to concentrate all our energies and resources on
winning the war, and to maintain a fair and stable economy at home, I
recommend that the Congress adopt:

(1) A realistic tax law--which will tax all unreasonable profits,
both individual and corporate, and reduce the ultimate cost of the
war to our sons and daughters. The tax bill now under consideration
by the Congress does not begin to meet this test.

(2) A continuation of the law for the renegotiation of war
contracts--which will prevent exorbitant profits and assure fair
prices to the Government. For two long years I have pleaded with the
Congress to take undue profits out of war.

(3) A cost of food law--which will enable the Government (a) to place
a reasonable floor under the prices the farmer may expect for his
production; and (b) to place a ceiling on the prices a consumer will
have to pay for the food he buys. This should apply to necessities
only; and will require public funds to carry out. It will cost in
appropriations about one percent of the present annual cost of the
war.

(4) Early reenactment of the stabilization statute of October, 1942.
This expires June 30, 1944, and if it is not extended well in
advance, the country might just as well expect price chaos by
summer.

We cannot have stabilization by wishful thinking. We must take
positive action to maintain the integrity of the American dollar.

(5) A national service law--which, for the duration of the war, will
prevent strikes, and, with certain appropriate exceptions, will make
available for war production or for any other essential services
every able-bodied adult in this Nation.

These five measures together form a just and equitable whole. I would
not recommend a national service law unless the other laws were passed
to keep down the cost of living, to share equitably the burdens of
taxation, to hold the stabilization line, and to prevent undue
profits.

The Federal Government already has the basic power to draft capital
and property of all kinds for war purposes on a basis of just
compensation.

As you know, I have for three years hesitated to recommend a national
service act. Today, however, I am convinced of its necessity. Although
I believe that we and our allies can win the war without such a
measure, I am certain that nothing less than total mobilization of
all our resources of manpower and capital will guarantee an earlier
victory, and reduce the toll of suffering and sorrow and blood.

I have received a joint recommendation for this law from the heads of
the War Department, the Navy Department, and the Maritime Commission.
These are the men who bear responsibility for the procurement of the
necessary arms and equipment, and for the successful prosecution of
the war in the field. They say:

"When the very life of the Nation is in peril the responsibility for
service is common to all men and women. In such a time there can be
no discrimination between the men and women who are assigned by the
Government to its defense at the battlefront and the men and women
assigned to producing the vital materials essential to successful
military operations. A prompt enactment of a National Service Law
would be merely an expression of the universality of this
responsibility."

I believe the country will agree that those statements are the solemn
truth.

National service is the most democratic way to wage a war. Like
selective service for the armed forces, it rests on the obligation of
each citizen to serve his Nation to his utmost where he is best
qualified.

It does not mean reduction in wages. It does not mean loss of
retirement and seniority rights and benefits. It does not mean that
any substantial numbers of war workers will be disturbed in their
present jobs. Let these facts be wholly clear.

Experience in other democratic Nations at war-- Britain, Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand--has shown that the very existence of
national service makes unnecessary the widespread use of compulsory
power. National service has proven to be a unifying moral force based
on an equal and comprehensive legal obligation of all people in a
Nation at war.

There are millions of American men and women who are not in this war
at all. It is not because they do not want to be in it. But they want
to know where they can best do their share. National service provides
that direction. It will be a means by which every man and woman can
find that inner satisfaction which comes from making the fullest
possible contribution to victory.

I know that all civilian war workers will be glad to be able to say
many years hence to their grandchildren: "Yes, I, too, was in service
in the great war. I was on duty in an airplane factory, and I helped
make hundreds of fighting planes. The Government told me that in
doing that I was performing my most useful work in the service of my
country."

It is argued that we have passed the stage in the war where national
service is necessary. But our soldiers and sailors know that this is
not true. We are going forward on a long, rough road--and, in all
journeys, the last miles are the hardest. And it is for that final
effort--for the total defeat of our enemies--that we must mobilize
our total resources. The national war program calls for the
employment of more people in 1944 than in 1943.

It is my conviction that the American people will welcome this
win-the-war measure which is based on the eternally just principle of
"fair for one, fair for all."

It will give our people at home the assurance that they are standing
four-square behind our soldiers and sailors. And it will give our
enemies demoralizing assurance that we mean business--that we,
130,000,000 Americans, are on the march to Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo.

I hope that the Congress will recognize that, although this is a
political year, national service is an issue which transcends
politics. Great power must be used for great purposes.

As to the machinery for this measure, the Congress itself should
determine its nature--but it should be wholly nonpartisan in its
make-up.

Our armed forces are valiantly fulfilling their responsibilities to
our country and our people. Now the Congress faces the responsibility
for taking those measures which are essential to national security in
this the most decisive phase of the Nation's greatest war.

Several alleged reasons have prevented the enactment of legislation
which would preserve for our soldiers and sailors and marines the
fundamental prerogative of citizenship--the right to vote. No amount
of legalistic argument can becloud this issue in the eyes of these
ten million American citizens. Surely the signers of the Constitution
did not intend a document which, even in wartime, would be construed
to take away the franchise of any of those who are fighting to
preserve the Constitution itself.

Our soldiers and sailors and marines know that the overwhelming
majority of them will be deprived of the opportunity to vote, if the
voting machinery is left exclusively to the States under existing
State laws--and that there is no likelihood of these laws being
changed in time to enable them to vote at the next election. The Army
and Navy have reported that it will be impossible effectively to
administer forty-eight different soldier voting laws. It is the duty
of the Congress to remove this unjustifiable discrimination against
the men and women in our armed forces--and to do it as quickly as
possible.

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the
strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of
an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We
cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living
may be, if some fraction of our people--whether it be one-third or
one-fifth or one-tenth--is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill housed, and
insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength,
under the protection of certain inalienable political rights--among
them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by
jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our
rights to life and liberty.

As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however--as our
industrial economy expanded--these political rights proved inadequate
to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual
freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.
"Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of
a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as
self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights
under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established
for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops
or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and
recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return
which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an
atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by
monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and
enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age,
sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must
be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to
new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon
how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice
for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there
cannot be lasting peace in the world.

One of the great American industrialists of our day--a man who has
rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis--recently
emphasized the grave dangers of "rightist reaction" in this Nation.
All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern. Indeed, if such
reaction should develop--if history were to repeat itself and we were
to return to the so-called "normalcy" of the 1920's--then it is
certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the
battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism
here at home.

I ask the Congress to explore the means for implementing this
economic bill of rights--for it is definitely the responsibility of
the Congress so to do. Many of these problems are already before
committees of the Congress in the form of proposed legislation. I
shall from time to time communicate with the Congress with respect to
these and further proposals. In the event that no adequate program of
progress is evolved, I am certain that the Nation will be conscious
of the fact.

Our fighting men abroad--and their families at home--expect such a
program and have the right to insist upon it. It is to their demands
that this Government should pay heed rather than to the whining
demands of selfish pressure groups who seek to feather their nests
while young Americans are dying.

The foreign policy that we have been following--the policy that
guided us at Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran--is based on the common sense
principle which was best expressed by Benjamin Franklin on July 4,
1776: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang
separately."

I have often said that there are no two fronts for America in this
war. There is only one front. There is one line of unity which
extends from the hearts of the people at home to the men of our
attacking forces in our farthest outposts. When we speak of our total
effort, we speak of the factory and the field, and the mine as well as
of the battleground--we speak of the soldier and the civilian, the
citizen and his Government.

Each and every one of us has a solemn obligation under God to serve
this Nation in its most critical hour--to keep this Nation great--to
make this Nation greater in a better world.