FDR

It must not be impeded by those who put their own selfish interests above the interests of the nation.

Ask the women and children whom Hitler is starving whether the rationing of tires and gasoline and sugar is too great a "sacrifice.

Ask the businessmen of Europe, whose enterprises have been stolen from their owners, whether the limitation of profits and personal incomes is too great a "sacrifice.

Ask the workers of France and Norway and the Netherlands, whipped to labor by the lash, whether the stabilization of wages is too great a "sacrifice.

If you doubt it, ask those millions who live today under the tyranny of Hitlerism.

When, at the end of this great struggle we shall have saved our free way of life, we shall have made no "sacrifice.

Because the demands of the war effort require the rationing of goods of which there is not enough to go around.

Because we must put every dime and every dollar we can possibly spare out of our earnings into war bonds and stamps.

You will have to forego higher wages for your particular job for the duration of the war.

Ceilings are being placed on the prices at which you can sell your goods or rent your property.

Indeed in these days, when every available dollar should go to the war effort, I do not think that any American citizen should have a net income in excess of $25,000 per year after payment of taxes.

Well, your profits are going to be cut down to a reasonably low level by taxation.

Some people are already taking the position that every one of the seven points is correct except the one point which steps on their own individual toes.

We must discourage installment buying, and encourage paying off debts and mortgages.

We must ration all essential commodities which are scarce.

First. we must, through heavier taxes, keep personal and corporate profits at a low reasonable rate.

You do not have to be a professor of mathematics or economics to see that if people with plenty of cash start bidding against each other for scarce goods, the price of those goods goes up.

When your government continues to spend these unprecedented sums for munitions month by month and year by year, that money goes into the pocketbooks and bank accounts of the people of the United States.

But the spending of these tremendous sums presents grave danger of disaster to our national economy.

But, before this year is over, that almost unbelievable rate of expenditure will be doubled.

We are now spending, solely for war purposes, the sum of about one hundred million dollars every day in the week.

Here at home everyone will have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary, not only to supply our fighting men, but to keep the economic structure of our country fortified and secure during the war and after the war.

That front is right here at home, in our daily lives, and in our daily tasks.

But there is one front and one battle where everyone in the United States--every man, woman, and child--is in action, and will be privileged to remain in action throughout this war.

Although the treacherous attack on Pearl Harbor was the immediate cause of our entry into the war, that event found the American people spiritually prepared for war on a world-wide scale.