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C SPEECH TO BE DELIVERED BY SENATOR HARRY S. TRUMAN BEFORE THE ST. LOUIS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, AT THE JEFFERSON HOTEL, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, ON MAY 13, 1943. TO BE RELEASED ON DELIVERY Mr. Chairman and friends: It is a pleasure for me to have the privi- lege to meeto today with the membership and friends of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce. In the midst of this great war we are waging against the powerful allies of evil we can all be thankful for the opportunity to be gathered here and to be able to discuss -- amongst ourselves -- the problems that affect each one of us. This meeting is truly American as it typifies the rights of a free people to meet together, at their own time, at their own will, in their own way, and to voice their own thoughts on any subject. This is representative of the traditional American principles of democracy and freedom. Today those principles are endangered by foreign enemies. The freedom that we have so long cherished is in peril. America is being attacked on every side -- in the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Caribbean. American lives are being lost and American ships are being sunk, but Americans are fighting - as they have always fought in the past -- with honor and glory. When the savage blow fell which brought the United States fully into the war -- the dastardly attack of the Japanese on Pearl Harbor -- we were not completely unprepared. When it became apparent that the Nazis had embarked on a course to crush and conquer their friendly neighbors, our nation began to pre- pare for defense against the aggressor. Our President early determined that adequate defense of this nation against our enemies compelled us to institute a program of armament greater than the world had ever seen before. The construc- tion of our two ocean fleet was well on its way when the Nazis swept through TRUMAN ARCHIVESE for RECORDS ADMIN