Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman Before the National Industrial Conference Council at New York, New York

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SPEECH BY SENATOR HARRY S. TRUMAN OF MISSOURI BEFORE THE NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE COUNCIL THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1942 RELEASE ON delivery Mr. Chairman, and Members of the National Industrial Conference Council, I have been asked to discuss the relation between business and government in the present war. We are engaged in a struggle for survival, and we must win this war no matter what the cost. To lose the war is to lose every- thing. But we must always bear in mind that we are fighting the war to preserve democracy and the American way or living and that so far as is consistent with winning the war we should cherish and preserve our liberties. To that end, the Senate Committee, of which 1 have the honor to be Chairman, has had a double purpose: first, to force the realization that we must achieve, as nearly as possible, an all-out war effort, and second, that this must be done in such a way as to enable us at the end of the war to return to the American way of life. lt is easier to find fault than to find the remedy. The Committee has found much that was faulty, but has reported only a part of it, and that only in such ways and at such times as the Committee honestly believed would promote better results. Most of you are today engaged either directly in the production of war materials or in making materials to be used in the production of war materials. You undoubtedly realize how much better off we would be if the War and Navy Departments had, at the beginning of the program, known more definitely what they needed and how much they needed. That they did not know is not in and of itself any cause for condemnation. is The needs of a great army on many fronts in a war such as that being U.S.