THE WAR SAVINGS CAMPAIGN
May 27, 1918
Of course the primary factor in deciding this war is and will be the army. But there can be no great army in war to-day unless a great nation stands back of it. The most important of all our needs is immensely to strengthen the fighting line at the front. But it cannot be permanently strengthened unless the whole Nation is organized back of the front. We need increased production by all. We need thrift and the avoidance of extravagance and of waste of money upon non-essentials by all. We need the investment of our money in government securities by all of us.
The Government, through the War Savings campaign, offers the opportunity to every individual in the Nation to join in a great national movement to secure these ends. The Treasury Department proposes as a means to achieve these ends that all our people form themselves into Thrift clubs or War Savings societies. This is the people’s war. The responsibility for the Government rests on the people as a whole. The army is the people’s army. It can be supported only if the people invest in the securities of the Government. And this investment by the people should be as nearly universal as possible. All the men and the women and half the children of the land should be active members of Uncle Sam’s team. The War Savings campaign offers them the chance to be active members. This campaign means the encouragement of thrift and production. But it means much more than this. It also means to make our people realize their solidarity and mutual interdependence and to make them understand that the Government is really theirs. Therefore it is a movement for genuine Americanization of all our people. It is a movement to fuse all our different race stocks into one great unified nationality. It is emphatically a movement for nationalism and patriotism.
Between thirty and forty millions of our people to-day own Liberty bonds or War Savings Stamps. All of us who come in this class have an increased sense of loyalty and responsibility to the Government. The Treasury Department has offered through the War Savings plan a great opportunityfor the entire Nation to group itself into War Savings societies or Thrift clubs and thus be of immediate and direct service to the Government. Neither through government programme and traditions nor through the habits of the people were we in any way prepared for this struggle. We were a spendthrift Nation. One of the roads to national unity and national force in this war is through thrift, using the word to include both increased production in every field and also the conservation of those things which are so desperately needed for the winning of the war. The conscientious thrifty man to-day will conserve food as requested by the Food Administration. He will conserve fuel as requested by the Fuel Administration. And he will conserve to the best of his ability the labor and materials which the Government needs by not using his money for purchasing any of the non-essentials and thereby using up materials and labor needed by the Government. He will, by purchasing government securities, entrust the spending of his money to the Government in order to speed up the war and to secure the peace of overwhelming victory.
Let all of us join in this movement. The success of the War Savings campaign means an immense addition to our war strength. It also means the first step in economic preparedness for what is to come after the war. We must never return to our haphazard spendthrift ways. Thrift should be made a national habit as part of our social and industrial readjustment.
We are just finishing our Red Cross campaign. Now let us put through the War Savings campaign.