Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman Before the Society of the Plastics Industry, Hot Springs, Virginia

Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri KRUMAN Society of the Plastics Industry NARA Hot Springs, Virginia May 4, 1942 TO BE RELEASED ON DELIVERY It has been prophesied that the post-wal period will be an Age of Plastics-- age in which plastics will become an increasingly essential and commonplace commodity of our everyday lire. And you the members of the plastic industry, can, by your pioneering and industrious application today translate this prophecy into the reality of tomorrow. Although marked progress has been made in the development of plastics in the past f ew years, we all know that your industry is still in its infancy. Great things are expected of it. And our war effort presents an unexcelled opportunity for you to develop one of the basic industries of the future. Even now in countless war processes, plastics are playing an important part. Much success has been achieved in the use of plastics by the aviation industry. The tremendous strides made in war surgery laan be directly attributed to the use of plastics. And in, the metals field it may well be that plastios which are now being used as substitutes for metals will eventually r eplace such metals. Although you members of the industry have already made a note- worthy contribution to American technology, you must not for one moment relax your efforts. You must continuously devise and develop additional methods, additional processes for the more extensive use of plastics in the W ar program. Only by the impact of our combined resources can we achieve superiority. Only by the cooperation of all industry in this country can we win this fight. And in this greatest crisis of American history when American freedom is in its gravest peril, I know that Amorica can con- fidently look to the plastic industry to work tirelessly and unceasingly. By so doing it will have made its maximum contribution to the winning of this ward To take the offensive and win this war--and we must tako the offensive, becauso wars are not won on the d .efonsivo==WO must produce vast amounts of instruments of war so that the forces of the United Nations can be equipped to carry the war to tho onomy wherever he may be--and arry it successfully. On the battlefronts of the world our fighting mon need planes, tanks and guns and they need them now. We have alroady suffered serious revorsos because our forces have not been adequately equipped. Wo shall not allow this to continue. I have said many times, and I say to you now, that American lives must not bo lost becauso of lack of equipment. The courago of the American fighting mon is being proven again. The valiant stand of MacArthur and the Amorican forces in the Philippinos is typical. But courage alone is not enough.