Address Broadcast to the Women of the United States.

[Delivered from the White House at 1:30 p.m.]

I SPEAK to you today--the women of the United States--in order to emphasize the need for greater participation by women in the affairs of our country. Our Nation, at this time, must have responsible citizens, thoughtful citizens, earnest citizens, who will work to solve the difficult problems confronting us.

The women of this country, by recognizing their responsibility to take an active part in the determination of the grave issues of the day, can furnish this type of citizenship.

Women can provide immediate leadership in dealing with one of these great issues. Women can make an invaluable contribution to the welfare of our Nation--and of the world--by lending their wholehearted support to our food-saving program. Indeed, the responsibility for the success of that program rests very largely with the American housewife. She is an indispensable fighter in our war against hunger. The American housewife has never failed her country when she has been called upon to sacrifice in its interest. I know that she will not fail in the great task before us now.

I know, too, that if the women of our Nation exert the tremendous moral force for good which they possess, we shall make greater and more lasting progress in overcoming the other difficulties that concern us and the world.

As a Nation we stand now on the threshold of a wonderful opportunity, unique in history. We are a thriving country. The facts of our high employment and our great farm and industrial production speak for themselves. We are a strong and peace-loving Nation.

The United States, more than any other nation, is in a position to give reality to the Four Freedoms. The United States should and can be the first nation in which the people--all the people--are free from want, free from fear, free to speak and to write as their hearts dictate, and free to worship as they will.

This is no idle dream. It is a goal well within the power of this mighty Nation of ours to achieve.

The actions of our Government to improve social security, public health, and education, and to develop and conserve our national resources, must not be allowed to lag behind the needs of the people. Nor can we falter in our unceasing quest for a just, permanent peace in the world. The need is for us, the people, to summon the will to achieve these goals, and to translate that will into positive action.

In this undertaking, the women of the United States have a great opportunity and a great responsibility to play a decisive part. Women in this country won the right to vote only after a long, hard struggle. Now, over one million more women than men are eligible to vote in the United States. Thus, the power lies in the hands of the American women--in your hands--to shape the destiny of America. And yet when the time comes to register and the opportunity comes to vote, many of our women neglect this responsibility of citizenship.

Foreign nations are deeply interested in the size of our vote. The reason is clear. The United States is the foremost example of democratic government in the world. Men and women of other lands are comparing the operation of our democratic system with other forms of government. We do not want them to conclude that we are not interested in the vigor of our Government, or that we are indifferent to the issues before us! We must prove to them that we take our democracy seriously. They must understand that we accept the responsibilities of our form of democracy as well as its privileges.

When you, the women of America, make your will felt at the polls, you make an invaluable contribution to this democratic system. The moral force of women has always had a wholesome influence upon the character of our civilization. They are deeply responsive to the fundamental human values. Women care more for people than for dollars, more for healthy children than fat dividends. Women want a society in which we build schools instead of prisons. Women want a world in which we sow and harvest the seeds of a good life instead of the seeds of war.

You now have a great opportunity to make this wholesome influence increasingly effective by the full use of your power at the ballot box.

Your vote is your insurance that the American people will always be free members of a democratic society; your insurance that we shall continue to live in a democracy where men can worship God in their own fashion, can speak and write as they please, and have equal justice under the law.

Your vote is your investment in the future of the United States, your investment to insure a country where your children will have opportunities for decent homes, good health, good jobs, and adequate education.

Your vote is a down payment on the kind of world in which nations respect one another, a world in which nations are good neighbors because they know that good neighborliness offers the only hope of lasting peace.

Your vote is your best way of getting the kind of country--and the kind of world-you want.