WOMEN'S CLUB SPEECH - CONTINUED

I said a few moments ago that unless preducticn was
increased there would be a shcrtage in a few months. People
will say to ycu, perhaps, that the war may be over in a few
menths - that the war with Germany, at least, is fairly sure
to be over in a few months. Perhaps it will - I dcen't know
enough ®ven to make a guess abcut it.

But let's not insist that something is sure to happen
Simply because we want it to happen. Let's remember that
in September of 1940 adolf Hitler was sure England would be
beaten in «© few months - and most of us here agreed with him.
Let's remember that in the summer cf 1941 most of us here were
sure that Russia would be beaten and out of the war in a few
months. «and then let's ask curselves if Germany is very much
worse off now than Britain was in 1940 and Russia in 1941.

And even if Germany shculd be out of the war in a few
mcnths, there will still be Japan = and there will still be a
need for great quantities cf heavy gun ammunition, and for
people to make it. Things are going well for us in the war
with Japan now, but we still have a long way to go; our army
hasn't yet fought the great Japanese Army in China, an army
made up of several millicn well-trained, cruel fanatics.

We are capturing islands and we have begun to bomb Japan
itself - but on the mainland of asia - and that's where most
of the Japanese army is - the Japs have built a great industrial
empire, The fall of Hengyang a few weeks ago gave the Japanese
land communicaticns between the raw material areas in the South
and their factories in the North; their army will be near those
great bases of supplies, but our army will huve to fight a good
five thousand miles frem its home bases,

Let's not allow ourselves te indulge in wishful thinking -
let's not allow this war tc last longer because we want so much
to believe that it's almost over. JI cannot think of anything
worse than having scme of the men frem this community - cur
husbands, sons, or brothers - fail to come back because we
had insisted that the war would be over in a few mcnths,

Just what can we do? A great many things are being done,
and will be done, und we can't all be on the committees that
are doing them. But I believe that if the women of a com=
munity like curs really decide that they want scuabhine to be
done it is dene,

al

Our job, as I seo it, is to make this community thoroughly

and completely and everlastingly conscicus of the importance of