Remarks at a Ceremony Marking the Issuance of the "Women in the Armed Services" Commemorative Stamp

Mr. Postmaster General:

I appreciate very much having the first sheet of these stamps which honor the women in the services.

Women in the services are something that has taken place on a great scale in my lifetime. In times gone by women weren't allowed to vote or hold office or to work in industry except in a menial capacity. In this long struggle for liberation and equality for our mothers and our sisters, and our cousins and our aunts, we have had most violent opposition.

I was in the gallery of the United States Senate one time, when I heard a senior United States Senator from Missouri make a most bitter speech against woman suffrage. He wouldn't dare do that today because he couldn't get back there if he did.

We had some opposition to women in the services, but we took them in, and no one would throw them out now, I am sure of that. In fact, the services would have a hard time operating without them.

There were over 300,000 women in the services in World War II. They filled 239 different types of military jobs and released fighting men for the front. There are nine components in which women serve and have permanent status, by act of Congress signed and approved by the President of the United States. Four hundred and fifty types of jobs in the services are open to women. Some of them require highly complicated training. There are 46,000 women now serving as voluntary officers and enlisted personnel. They are serving in 15 countries.

We need many more thousands to meet the military manpower needs. And I hope you will tell everybody you see that there are a lot of good places for good-looking young ladies, and good-looking middle-aged ladies, who can help the welfare of this country now as never before.

Now, this place here has some historical significance. This is the place where it is my duty, sometimes, to pin Medals of Honor on men who have earned them at the front-the highest honor that can come to anyone in the military services. And it is the highest honor that I myself receive, when I hand out those medals.

I want to say to you women of the services, that your devotion to duty is right in line with those men who earned those medals. If you had the opportunity, you would earn those medals, too. Sometimes you earn the medals and never get them.

But I want to say to you that I think this is a great occasion, and I appreciate it. I appreciate the privilege of being a party to the commemorative stamp which has been ordered to be distributed today. This, I think, will be really an historical event.

I want to congratulate the services on the way they are handling the women in the services. Today, you see the women in the front ranks, and you see the soldiers and the sailors and the marines in the back rank. Now they are always in the front rank, no matter what happens, because there isn't a man alive who doesn't owe something to his mother, or his sister, or his wife.

Again I want to say that I am just as happy as I can be to be here, and to help celebrate this occasion.

Congratulations to the women in the services.