Remarks at a Masonic Breakfast.

Mr. Chairman, Frank, and distinguished guests from all over the country, and the Supreme Court and legislative branch of the Government, and the Secretaries of the executive branch:

This seems to have been a rather fixed-up proposition, to inform the President what his Cabinet and the Court and the legislative branch think of him. I am glad to know it. It is very satisfactory. I appreciate it most highly, but what I had expected to discuss with you this morning is a continuation of what these able and distinguished gentlemen have brought to your attention.

We have an emergency. I declared an emergency back in the latter part of 1950, because it was really on us--and it is on us now. And it is difficult--very difficult--for people to realize, as things go along as usual, that the Government is faced with the most tremendous emergency that any government has ever been faced with in the history of the country. And I say that because I know the history of the country very well. I know that we are going through some of the same things that were gone through in 1860, and 1916, and 1941.

We have made every effort possible to avoid a great many of those mistakes. We have not been able to avoid them all, but we are profiting by experience, and I think that I am very, very fortunate in having experienced men in every key position who understand the situation and who are honestly working it out on the basis it should be worked out.

It was necessary for me to appoint a production manager, an administrator for the Defense Production authority. He has had his difficulties, because it is very difficult to get people to understand that now is not the time to get all the traffic will bear, now is not the time to "get," because the Government is in a position where it has to have certain materials to meet the thing that General Marshall is working on: to keep the peace.

That is all this is for. It is an effort to prevent a third world war. And we are gradually approaching a position in the world where that can be prevented, if we have the support and cooperation of all the segments of the population. And that means industry, labor, the farmer, and you gentlemen--and all the white-collar people who do the inside work to make these other things operate.

Now it is necessary, I think, in this country, as well as around the world, to try to mobilize the moral forces of the world against the unmoral forces. We need to mobilize the moral forces in this country of ours to prevent selfishness of certain groups from an endeavor to take advantage of this situation.

Everybody, I don't care who he is or what his condition or his position is--from the President of the United States to the laborer who digs in the trench--must make some sacrifice in order that the whole country may be mobilized to meet the serious situation with which we are faced.

Now, for 5 years I have been endeavoring to mobilize the moral forces of the world, those forces which believe in the Sermon on the Mount, those forces which believe in a God, those forces which believe in the welfare of the individual, who believe that the Government is formed for the welfare of the individual and not that the individual is formed to be a slave to the Government.

That is what we are faced with. That is what we are trying to implant in the world.

I am here to say to you that if we could have expended the tremendous sums of money which were necessary to meet Hitler and Mussolini in the development of the resources of this world, there would have been no necessity for the slaughter of all the young men of that generation in Europe. Not at all.

It is a tremendous outlook that we have for the future of the world as a whole, if we can develop the undeveloped parts of the world to meet the pressure of populations in countries like China and India and central Europe.

It can be done. It is not impossible. But we have to understand that we are faced with an unmoral force which does not keep its agreements, which does not believe in the things for which this Government stands and for which the other free governments in the world do stand.

Now, it is your duty--you come from every section of the United States--to see if you can't revive that moral force in our own population that causes a man to give some sacrifice for the welfare of the rest of the human race.

That is your business. You are taught that. That is a part of your creed. All I am asking you to do is to help the President of the United States to mobilize the moral forces in the world to meet the unmoral forces in the world.

It can be done, and we are doing it-with some handicaps, I will admit. We have our troubles. Mr. Wilson has had his troubles, and he will have some more before we get through. But Mr. Wilson and the President of the United States will work those troubles out. This Government is going forward, not backward.

We are not in the midst of any political campaign at the present time. In all probability we will be in the midst of one next year, and we will meet that situation as we have met it before.

But that is not the object now. The object now is to meet the emergency with which we are faced, and to meet it on a basis so that everybody will make his proper contribution, and nobody will come out with any special privilege.

Now, if you gentlemen will give me a lift on that, this breakfast will have been worthwhile.

Thank you very much.