Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman Before the Senate

firm SPEECH OF SENATOR TRUMAN (D. Mo.) Before the Senate Mr. President: The paramount consideration on the domestic front, at this moment when we are on the eve of liberating the countries under Hitler's heel, is full and uninterrupted war production. As Chairman of your Committee to investigate war production, I have had during the past several years the great privilege of seeing at first hand the magnificent efforts of America to achieve full- scale war production. Just as the road to victory is not an easy one, so the difficulty of galvanizing our huge production machines to the ever increasing output of war materials has e not been a simple matter. The initial difficulty in 1940 and 1941 was the conversion of peacetime industries, plants, and machinery to wartime production. A not inconsiderable part of this conversion was the necessity to change peoples minds to a wartime tempo. With the growing realization that we were in this war to a finish and that our enemiestere skillful, strong, and resourceful, I am glad to say that the overwhelming majority of American management and labor did adjust them- selves and their plants to war production. It was more difficult, however, to change the minds of American business and labor when it came to manpower problems. For, in the utilization of all existing manpower, it was necessary, just as in the case of plants and machinery, to change the thinking of people. Here too, it was necessary to convert from peacetime ways of thinking to the wartime necessity of using every able-bodied American regardless of his race, creed, color, or ancestry. This was also a difficult step to take. At the beginning of our war effort, it was soon dis- covered that minority groups, particularly Negroes, were not being given an opportunity to produce the goods which we needed so badly to defeat the Axis NARA