Speech

^ OV GOVERNOR 2-1119 LIBRARY m. RESERVE^ UNISON OF ACTION By M. o. Szymczak Member of Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System Washington, D. C. Opening of "Liberty Center - Northwest Town" War Exhibit Sponsored by U. S. Treasury, War Savings Administration, 0 Northwest Town Office of Civ- ilian Defense, and Chicago Chapter, American Red Cross. Chicago, Illinois Evening of June 24, 1943. Release for Morning newspaper: June 25, 1943- HE, So, America has always represented a combination of many people. But it also represents singleness of purpose, a. search for opportunity, for liberty and for human dignity. It stands above all for unity. The American culture into which we have been born or which we have adopted is wholesome because it is free and unlimited. It is a rich mixture of traditions and cultures. They make our nation strong. It is something to which you and I are contributing. It affords a point of view that is definitely directed toward the future rather than toward "the past. It is wholly new in the world, an attitude unexampled, and, therefore, truly American. Wq meet here today as Americans. We are one. To win the war and to van the peace we mast have unison of action. %ery day and every moment that unison of action is threatened. It is threatened by the danger that we may lose sight of the end point in in- terpreting rationing and rumors of rationing - that we may think of gaso- line shortages and housing problems merely as domestic inconveniences and hot as necessary weapons for winning the war. It is threatened by the danger that we may unwittingly permit just or unjust criticism of our Allies or our leaders to affect our will to work. is threatened by the danger that the initial successes of our armed forces may tempt us to slacken our efforts and thus prolong the war. IVhen the Tunisian cam- paign was concluded many people believed that peace was just around the corner; when Attu was taken from a few Japanese many thought we were just a step from Tokio; when Pantelleria and other islands in the Mediterranean fell many thought the invasion of all Axis occupied Europe a deed practi- cally accomplished. We are too eager for signs that the enemy is near exhaustion. Let us not forget th; t wo have but ih \rl,ly passncl from the defensive to the offensive. We must not let ourselves forget this fact. Don't we remember the wail of the Stukao, the shriek of the shell the cries of the wounded and dying?! That was four years ago - when Hitler invaded Poland. Since then Hitler has spread throughout Europe. One coun- try after another fell under the Nazi heel. Since then the Japs have moved and wide throughout the Pacific. Today starvation is so rampant in other lands that the waste from n °° your meals would be a feast to anyone of millions of oppressed peo- ples in Europe, in China, in the Middle East. Yet these Allies fight on - fight on our side. Our sacrifices so far have been comparatively small - nothing at a U relative to those already made by many of the people fighting for our 1 Joint cause. The greatest sacrifice which most of us have borne so far is the s ending of our loved ones into the lines of this battle for freedom. Those V/ho have made this sacrifice do not speak about the "hardships" of civilian ^•ife. They realize how unimportant the loss of some of our accustomed c °niforts is by comparison. As we know, this war is all-out. Someone once said: "What we give / v 'e have; what we keep, we lose." This truth stands o.ut forcefully today. Today we must buy more war bonds. War bonds help win the war. bonds are an investment - the money will be returned to us with in- vest after we win the war. War bonds help us fight inflation - at home - because many people are anxious to use their increased income to buy things that they were not able to afford before. Let us take an example: suppose that many of those who now have money decide to spend it on new household furniture. The increased demand for furniture comes at the very time when furniture is less plentiful than usual. Many of the workmen who used to make furniture are now in the armed services; others are working in war Plants. Many of the materials which used to go into furniture are now going into war production. Many of the furniture factories have gone to war too, and are making war goods instead of beds and tables and chairs. If all the people who would like to have new furniture insist on trying to buy some of the curtailed supply, they vail exert a pressure upon prices by bidding against one another. The net result will be that they vail have s pent their increased income through paying higher prices and, therefore, financially vail be in the same position as before they received their in- leased income, or worse. This is the kind of spending that defeats price filings and brings black markets into existence. It does no end of harm all of us and no good to anyone. Using additional income for buying War bonds has the opposite ef- fect to using it for buying civilian goods. It is in effect using money war materials which must be produced in enormous quantities now, and Preventing it from exerting demand for goods whose production might inter- fere with the war effort. The bonds we buy direct our additional income aw ay from the channels where it will do the most harm and toward the chan- where it will do the most good. And there are other ways in which we can help to van the war. ^he Red Cross needs money to finance its relief work in war-stricken areas, an d it needs our personal assistance right here at home. By contributing 0 ^ the Red Cross and by becoming a volunteer worker we can send our help to the farthest parts of the earth and also strengthen the home front. We can also help by donating blood to the Red Cross Bank. Your blood can go into active service even though you stay at home. It vail help some boy - maybe your own - when he needs it most. What a rare Privilege it is to save a life! If a man must go far from home and risk his life for his country, surely we can make a little effort to protect that life for him - and to save a trained man for the service of our coun- try. When you give your blood you make .it possible for some mother to get hack a son who would otherwise have been lost, or for some child to grow U P with a father whom he might otherwise never have seen. To you it is n °ly a momentary inconveniencey to someone else it may be the difference between life and death. It is a little thing to give in return for so much. Another way we can help to win the war is to participate in civil- ian defense activities. The purpose of these activities is two-fold. The first is "to prepare for the day we pray may never come; when bombs and a rtillery fire fall on our cities, towns, and countryside". The second is "to better the health, economic security, and well-being of our people, to make our country strong". There is a civilian defense organization in y°ur community. Go there and offer your service in the accomplishment of these purposes. You will find there is a great deal to be done - and a Sreat deal you can do. What we are asked to do is so small - so small - w heri compared with what others are doing. This as you will remember, appeared in an Associated Press dis- patch some time ago: Quote: This is the story of a little Polish pilot hero and his British plane (Wimpy) or what's left of it. "The Pole, with four other members of his crew wounded and unconscious, brought back his shattered Wellington 'Wimpy' from the 4-figure Cologne raid "'Wimpy' squatted in the hangar in battered glory. Her in- terior was caked with blood, great tufts of grass clung to her scarred belly from her pancake landing and there was a hole in her fuselage the size of home plate. But she's there. "In the rear gun-turret there was a hole you could put your foot through. A cannon shell from a Nazi night fighter had taken off the rear gunner's foot. But he managed to keep alive and, with tracer bullets streaming at him, he managed to return the fire. Quote continued: "There were 17 bullet holes in the front turret, six separate cannon shell holes, in the underwido of the fuselage (of the plane). "The Polish pilot grinned when I asked him about it. "'I don't speak much English,' he said. 'But those men that were with me are so good. When they are hit they keep still. When I tell them I vdll get them back one of them says, "Hear, hear," just like they do at public speakings. "'We get home all right but I cannot get my wheels down to land. I got over the airfield once, twice; and I hear them groaning back there (in the plane). "'Then I say, "Okay Butch," and I bring her in. God he is at our right hand, I know.'" End quote That's the sort of thing that is going on over there - day after ^y. What are you and I doing in war work, in conservation, in civilian ^fense, in buying more v/ar bonds, to compare with that? All of our war efforts, of course, are made with the future in ^nd. We believe in certain principles, and we want to secure for our- selves find for all others who believe as we do, the right to live by those Principles. When the armed forces of the United Nations shall have won the war, the battle for our ideals will not have been finished; in many 0ri3es ° it will have just begun. The peace will bring problems even more than those of war, and we must prepare now to solve those problems. The men in our armed forces must be reestablished in peacetime occupations with as little delay and maladjustment as possible. Factories must switch from war production to peace production. We can not make our domestic postwar adjustments successfully if vie ignore the sufferings of other countries, for today no nation in the world is immune from the ills of other nations. Devastated areas must be rebuilt and these starved Peoples must be fed and restored to health. With the other United Nations, we must work out a system of international cooperation so that the rehabil- itation of one nation will not be accomplished at the expense of other countries. Yes, billions of dollars, and much sacrifice, are needed to win this war, but what are billions, ana the every day sacrifices we are asked to make, compared to the freedom we're fighting for - our freedom and the freedom of those millions throughout the world, who are hungry and beg f or food, who are thirsty and reach out feebly for a glass of water, who are wounded and seek balm, who are depressed and plead for a word of en- couragement, who scarcely breathe under the barbaric heel of the oppressor. Their enemy is our enemy. He must be beaten! Just as the American pioneer realized that if he desired the inde- pendence which this new world afforded him, he must endure the test of / severe privation, perils and sacrifice - so vie, too, realize today that v/o cannot preserve the benefits of our nation for ourselves and for pos- terity unless we summon all our faith, all our strength to surmount as they did in their day, the dangers and the difficulties that beset us. People from all parts of the world have come here to live.. We are, therefore, truly representative of the whole world. Not only does -7- this add to our responsibilities as a nation, but it compels us to look forward as one nation and not backward as many separate and independent parts, ajid as one it compels us to make the most of our individual oppor- tunities to contribute to the making of a greater and better world for the sake of humanity. We must - arid we will win the war and we must - and we will win the peace - but we must, and 1 am sure we will, be constantly on the alert to effect a unison of action like the steady "tramp, tramp, tramp" of our' soldiers as they march against the enemy - to conquer and to win.'

M.S. Szymczak (1943, June 23). Speech. Speeches, Federal Reserve. https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/speech_19430624_szymczak

@misc{wtfs_speech_19430624_szymczak,
  author = {M.S. Szymczak},
  title = {Speech},
  year = {1943},
  month = {Jun},
  howpublished = {Speeches, Federal Reserve},
  url = {https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/speech_19430624_szymczak},
  note = {Retrieved via When the Fed Speaks corpus}
}