Mr. and Mrs. America

[Music] ladies and gentlemen the president of the united states i do not need to tell you that we are still locked in a deadly struggle with our enemies the enemies of our ways of life the war is still the cheap job of each one of us the greatest production of which we are capable faithful adherence to regulations that make it possible to supply our men in battle with everything they need and buying and holding war bonds these are things that we at home must do to speed victory in the past three years more than 85 million americans have invested billions of dollars in bonds never before have so many people held such a direct share in a great and national effort to save to buy and to hold all we can of war bonds this is a small service to ask of us who do not fight yet it is one of the biggest things that we can do for our fighting men it is one of the biggest things that we can do for our fighting men these are our fighting men these are bonds in action now this minute here in battle they speak to the enemy in words of steel voices of thunder here right now you john are speaking and you marry and you mike and you and you and you you're speaking because your name is on a piece of paper a war bond and the enemy listens to you and dies when america speaks but battle isn't all noise there's also silence the deep silence of men's suffering hear the words you speak fall soft and reassuring here your bonds say relief from pain they say hope health sanity they reinforce the skilled fingers of surgery shelter injury and illness give back life itself to men who who face losing it because it's their job the power of life and death death to the enemy and life to our fighting men that's a tremendous vital power and you hold it it war bonds you hold another power too your war bond has two sides one side fights the war the other side wins the peace your own personal peace as mr philip murray president of the cio says the great payroll savings plan now numbering some 27 million workers was introduced as a wartime measure to help finance the war and combat inflation few of us realized when it was introduced three years ago that it was also a powerful instrument for winning the peace through a program of regular savings engaged in now and carried over into the post-war era the working men and women of america have an unprecedented opportunity to ensure themselves a substantial measure of security mr william green president of the afl men of labor know that in organization there is strength and the men and women of america are today organized into a vast war-bond army if we remain united by buying and holding war bonds until they mature we shall be taking a great step forward toward the realization of that security to which we look forward in the future [Music] [Music] ah [Music] [Music] [Music] these two are our fighting men they have security [Music] timeless and eternal they got it the hard way [Music] it wasn't the kind they wanted but they knew what they had to do and they knew too these partners of yours what you have to do they knew what bonds mean out there and back here now and in the future they knew what mr eric johnston president of the united states chamber of commerce means when he says a great industrial machine of america has performed miracles during this war and it will continue to meet any demand that may be placed upon it until at long last victory is ours but it takes work and money and plenty of both to keep this immense industrial machine operating at full steam the bonds you buy and hold now account for a large part of that money and when the war is over these very same bonds will form a backlog of funds with which you can buy home or educate your children or put you in a small business or if needed for food rent and clothing the bonds that you buy today and hold in the future give you a vital stake in our america that is and in our america that is to be the america to be where will you stand in it here's how some other americans stand when the war is over i'm going to open up a beauty parlor my boy is going to go to a good american college we're buying and holding our war bonds for a little home in the suburbs all right so what happened at the last war i keep on buying my bond 75 and i get a hundred dollars after 10 years for him me and my husband buying a war bond and my son come back from the war and i buy and go home out the country i got a brother over there when he comes home we're going to open up a filling station if that doesn't work we're going to open up some other business [Music] i have a boy in this wall and i'm saving my bounds for his education when he gets back the main thing is to help our boys that's why i'm buying war bonds i buy bonds every month and keep them so as i can pay for a college education after the war i buy bonds every payday and i hold all that i've bought when this scrap is over i'm going into retirement and do lots of fishing i have been buying bonds since the beginning of the war and will continue to buy and keep them until after the war so as to have enough money to start into a business of my own and now the secretary of the treasury mr morgenthau i think all of us have a better idea now what war bonds mean to the winning of the war and to our security in the future but there are a few other things that you should know about your war bonds the war bonds you buy e-bonds were especially designed for your protection they're an obligation of the government and are guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the government in the same way as a dollar bill in your pocket but with special privileges here are some of the special privileges you get with e-bonds each e-bond is owned individually in your name it's yours it's worthless to anyone else if it's lost or stolen you can get another one you can name someone in the family to own it with you a co-owner which means that you both own the bond like a joint savings account you can name someone as beneficiary the way you do on your life insurance policy this means that if you die whoever you name beneficiary will get the money after 60 days the e-bond is always redeemable in cash and after one year it is worth more than you put into it the longer you hold the bond the more it increases in value for example when you pay seventy five dollars for a hundred dollar bond this is what happens the second year it's worth 76.50 the fourth year it's worth eighty dollars the sixth year it's worth 84. the eighth year it's worth ninety two dollars at the end of ten years one hundred dollars as secretary of the treasury i can assure you that the government will stand back of this bond and fulfill every provision of it it'll be paid precisely and exactly according to terms under which it was issued you have only to hold on to your bonds to receive the maximum return for they are designed to favor those who hold them the longest keep buying them regularly and hold them to maturity that's the story put every dollar you have into the green uniform of the e-bond and for the nation's future and for your own all of them they work for the war and they work for you i know what i'm talking about i used to work in a war plant myself two years ago since then but i'm still buying bonds and saw my buddies millions of them we're buying them and we're holding them just like we held henderson field at guadalcanal you remember but we're going right on for america and our future how about you [Music] [Applause] you