Excerpts from the Press Conference

THE PRESIDENT: I have got a number of things, all of which shed a light on operations.

The first thing is that I received yesterday morning a very fine telegram from the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Lord Beaverbrook, offering to help the United States in any particular where we were short of any materials, and specifically offered to turn over to us the product—the output of three shell-making plants in Canada, in case we need that immediate output. The thing is being studied at the present time. I just use that as an illustration of the spirit.

Number two, the Treasury reports that on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday—this week—we sold, through banks, defense bonds of $5,592,000 as against last week's sale, on the first three days of the week, of $2,474,000. In other words, 126 percent up—more than double. Through the post offices in the same period, at five big offices, we sold $1,510,000, in the first three days of this week, as compared with $852,000 the first three days of last week, or an increase of 70 percent. And the post office stamp sales—again just in five of the biggest post offices- went up 25 percent. . . .

I signed last night an Executive Order relating to certain regulations in setting up eight defensive sea areas. You will get the list. Portland, Maine; Portsmouth; Boston; Narragansett Bay; San Diego; San Francisco; Columbia River; and Puget Sound. And the Navy says that there is no reason why this shouldn't be made public in detail. It would be a good thing to have it made public for the use of our own coastwise navigation so that they will know where they can go, and where they ought not to go.

And finally, I am about to sign a Proclamation- which I think probably ought to be stressed a little bit, because it has nothing to do with war operations, but it has to do with the conduct of the war—in regard to the Red Cross. (Reading):

"Whereas in preparation for just such an emergency as we are now facing, the American National Red Cross has been spending funds at the rate of more than one million dollars a month, which is but a small fraction of the amount that the organization now requires in order to carry out effectively its functions as an essential auxiliary of our armed forces, particularly as a friendly liaison in welfare problems between the man in service and his family at home, and as a key agency in the civil-defense plans: . . .

"I hereby proclaim the beginning, as of this date, of a Red Cross War Fund Campaign for the raising of a minimum sum of fifty million dollars; and appeal to the American people to make this campaign an overwhelming success."

I think it is very important that we carry this out as an essential part of the war.

Q. Mr. President, would you care to make any comment, sir, on the attitude expressed by various Latin American Governments in support of our position?

THE PRESIDENT: I would say just two words. First: Excellent. And second: Wholly satisfactory. That's three words. (Laughter)

Q. Mr. President, have you decided who will go to the American conference in Rio?

THE PRESIDENT: No. Not yet. We haven't discussed it.

Oh, I have one other thing that I might as well tell you about, because the thing only came up this morning. That is this:

In the World War, everybody that was in it—both sides, I think- and in the present war all those who were in it since the first of September, the papers have not carried columns of the names of casualties. That was done by common consent. And the thought of both the Army and the Navy is that we should conform to that common consent agreement.

Just as soon as it is possible, the next of kin will be notified of those on both the death list and the wounded list, so that there is nothing hidden from the people who are interested in the man's name, and we get it to them just as soon as we can. The newspapers will give out the totals of killed and wounded.

And I want to express the hope that the newspapers of the country, and the radio—of course they do not do it on the radio, probably, anyway- will not print the lists, for very obvious reasons. It gives information to the enemy ....

Q. Mr. President, is the garrison at Wake Island still holding out?

THE PRESIDENT: So far as we know, Wake Island is holding out -it has done a perfectly magnificent job. We are all very proud of that very small group of marines who are holding the Island. We have no further information today. They are holding out. We knew that very early this morning ....