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Show that rallied our lines in France when the fight got hot. When we hear 120,000,000 voices shout it over here our gxeat war will be ended.' "We Never Knew Defeat and Haven't Learned It" "Never since we entered the World Ward has our country been roused to the need for concerted action as it is today. It is Inherent in our people that in the time of a national crisis they put service above self, patrotisra above person. per-son. That is the spirit that rapidly is being reawakened all over this country and it is in that spirit that we shall drive through ! NEW YORK, Aug. 31 Louis I Johnson, national commander of the American Legion, tonight made a nation-wide appeal to save America in the next three days by having every employer of j labor sign under the Blue Eagle iby Labor Day. I The national . commander .was the key speaker on the NRA program pro-gram broadcast from here by the Columbia System. I . The address follows: I "Fellow Americans: j "Just about this time fifteen years ago, some two million broad-shouldered, broad-shouldered, tin-hatted American doughboys were fighting their way through hell in the Argonne to win an armistice and peace for a ! world that was weary of war and bloodshed and suffering. I don't need to tell you what success crowned their bravery and determination. deter-mination. It is a matter of history that a few weeks later a crushed and bewildered foe sued for peace . and on November 11th the arm-I arm-I istice was signed. The World War I was ended victoriously. i knew how to handle them in the World War, and wc shall know how to handle them in this war. What do you suppose would have happened if some of those doughboys dough-boys had argued and procrastinated procrastinat-ed in the Argonne? "I'll tell you there wouldn't have been any country to save today. "The slacker in this war is the employer who fails to enlist under the Blue Eagle and the consumer who trades with him. The conscientious con-scientious objector is the fellow who refuses to enlist for partisan political reasons. I say that it is nothing short of treason to even think about politics in a time like this. There can be no politics in the midst of a national emergency. In the face of the enemy, whether he be a foreign army or economic anarchy, we must be Americans and nothing else. But right here I want to sound a word of caution. We have laws to punish law violators. vio-lators. It is not our right or duty as good citizens to attempt to punish recalcitrants in this war except through our own incontestable incontest-able right of deciding for ourselves ly as we threw all of our resources, to victory in this fight as certain-all certain-all of our strength and patriotism into the battle that won the World War. "The National Recovery Administration Admin-istration is the medium through which the individual can render his most valuable service. It is the great army in which the people can serve and will be the force that will bring this . deprssion to , an end. But it has powerful allies. Our President's recovery program is many fold. There is a separate agency working to solve the agricultural ag-ricultural problem, one of the important im-portant salients in this battle front. Then we have the tremendous tremen-dous public works program, which is authorized to spend three billion dollars on important construction projects to give jobs to the unemployed. unem-ployed. Since jobs is the key to .this whole situation, that is one of the most important parts of the whole program. There are others but time will not permit me to mention all. Suffice it to say that a great national machine is rolling on to victory. "Now a word especially to my comrades of The American Legion. God grant that in a time like this there shall not be a slacker in our land. But to be sure that there are none in our ranks. We had none in 1917 and 1918. No man can wear the Legion's button today to-day unless he served honorably during the fighting days of the World War. We will not stain our record by having slackers In our part of the army in this war. "There may be some of you who have had disappointments, some who are disheartened because a comrade lost his compensation. My answer to that is this: The greatest great-est service you can do your disabled dis-abled buddy is to get our County I "Not a handful of people within sound of my voice know the anxiety an-xiety with which our commanders went into battle. Some of the best military minds In Europe said: "It can't be done. The enemy had every advantage. For two years, and in some places for four years, they had been fortifying' that whole sector. For hundreds of miles forts, powder mines every j device of slaughter military ingenuity in-genuity could conceive stretched row upon row. The foe held every point of vantage. We had only that staunch pioneer American 'spirit that doesn't know the mean-ling mean-ling of defeat, and the knowledge that there was a job to be done. I "It can't be done. I "Well, it was done. Those sturdy I youths, as they marched into the j Argonne and many of them never came out of it, God rest , their souls cried 'whad'a'ya mean lit can't be done? It's got to be I done.' And it was. Through shot land shell, through fire and gas, j through blood and mud, those American Am-erican columns swept resolutely J on to victory and peace. The war j against oppression was won- "History, my countrymen, is repeating re-peating itself today! "We arc in the thick of the most ! important battle in our whole history. his-tory. It is a battle to win the war against depression, to save our country and the world from complete com-plete catasrophe. It is a battle to give an honest job and an honest living wage to every breadwinner who wants to work, a battle to feed starving women and little children. It is a battle to force j o J out of the rut of deperession as quickly as possible. When that job is done have no fear that our County will permit any act of injustice to those of its veterans who need and deserve its assistance. assist-ance. But there is one thing that is patent. We can't take proper care of our disabled if our citizens are without jobs and our treasury is empty. "Fellow Americans, it all boils down to one question: Shall we approach another winter with millions of weary men tramping our streets and millions of starving starv-ing women and children waiting in vain ,for their rainbow of hope? Or shall we all put our shoulder to the wheel right now, shall we make what little sacrifices are asked of us for the common good, and get this Country we all love back on the solid highway of reasonable prosperity for all? "As for The American Legion, I say: 'We'll do our part! We've enlisted en-listed again for the duration of the war. We never knew the meaning of the word "can't" fifteen fif-teen years ago and we haven't learned it since.' I hear a million Legion voices, supported by a half-million members of its auxiliary, auxil-iary, cry out 'Carry on!' as we sweep over the top. It is the cry with whom we will or will not do business. That must be our weapon, weap-on, and if there is any police work to be done let the proper authorities author-ities do it. "The program of the National Recovery Administration has only three essential points. First, to give a job to every one who wants to work; second, to give every-job holder a decent living wage, and, third, to put an end to the ruinous cutthroat practices in industry and business which have contributed contrib-uted largely to our present suffering suffer-ing and economic chaos. Tight-lipped Tight-lipped conservative or shouting radical neither can find fault with such a program. It there is politics in that, then the keystone of our Constitution is politics. If NRA was politically conceived, then the principle of equal opprtunity the dream of every republic in the world is ridden with politics. "This is the week that is going to tell the tale. No battle was ever fought that did not have a crisis. Wp had it in the Argonne, when we were going over the hump and every tree, every rabbit hole, it seems, was a machine gun nest. But we kept on going; and when to victory, compared with what we we got over it was like coasting had been through. We are going over the hump in this battle. Our objective is to have every employer em-ployer of labor s in the United States signed on the dotted line under the wings of the Blue Eagle by Labor Day. "Three days to save America! "Here is something for every red-blooded American to fight for. Here is a supreme test of the patriotism pat-riotism of our citizenship. We are a peace-loving people ,but when our country and our institutions are threatened we are adeadly foe. We are a united peaceful people today, keyed to wartime pitch to drive from our land the forces that have brought upon us the greatest tragedy, the worst . economic depression, de-pression, in our history. We have never yet been bested in war and we won't be in thi3 war. "Who will ever forget November 11, 1918 ? Whether you were with us in France or whether you were donig your bit back home, you will never forget that thrill when the command rang around the world: 'Cease firing!' For four long years the world had trembled to the symphony of the guns, night and day and night. At last it was over the dread chorus was silenced. It remained only to reconstruct out of the ruins a newer and better world. "The opportunity to do just that is ours today. "The fifteenth anniversary of that first Armistice Day is only ten weeks off. If we win this Argonne, Ar-gonne, if we carry the big objective ob-jective of this week to have every employer und,er the Stars and Stripes enlisted under the Blue Eagle we can give Armistice Day a newer significance. At present it commemorates the surrender of oppression. We can make it also the surrender of depression. It will mark the beginning of the better day we looked forward to fifteen years ago. "If we carry the objective of this week, we can bring the forces of depression to terms by Armistice Armis-tice Day. Our unemployed will begin to return to their jobs by millions once we have put the Blue Eagle in every shop, factory and store in the country. Hungry women wo-men and children will begin to smile again. It is by no means a stretch of the imagination to say that we can end this depression by Armistice Day. Then, indeed, "we can tie the whistles down again, send down blizzards of confetti and ticker tape, and celebrate in carnival spirit the final ending of ?our big war. anothed armistice a permanent armistice with the forces that brought us to the threshold of destrlctlon. It is a battle to guarantee guar-antee a new deal and a new day to all of our people. "We are 120,000,000 strong in this army today. Our front lines are in every community in the country. Every man and woman is needed and there must be no shirking. Just as some timid souls said back in 1918 it couldn't be done, so I hear the same old croakers moaning today: "It can't be done. And I say, 'What d'ya mean, it can't be done? It's got to be done.' Everything we are, everything we hope to be, is at stake.- The only 'can't' we of the! Legion know it that we can't fail. "No man who founght in France will ever forget the horors of No Mans Land. But I say to you that there isn't a hamlet or crossroads cross-roads in our country today that doesn't have its No Man's Land. It is a No Man's Land of despair and tragedy, of women and children child-ren crying for bread and sustence, it is a No Man's Land of wretched, hungry, disheartened men, tramping tramp-ing our highways and byways like lost souls, looking for jobs that don't exist. "We have got to provide those jobs, to assure every decent citizen citi-zen a decent living standard. "The right of every American to equal opportunity the freedom to live and work and learn is incontestable. incon-testable. Through four years of economic chaos these rights have been denied millions of our citizens. citi-zens. Under the leadership of our President we have plunged into a light to restore these inalienable rights to our whole citizenship. We will not fall. "The way to do It is to provide a job for every person who wants to work. The way to do that is to enlist every employer, every consumer, con-sumer, under the Blue Eagle of the National Recovery Administration. Adminis-tration. 'As for The American Legion and its Auxiliary, I can assure you that its members are enlisted, down to the last man and woman, for the duration of this war. I have said before and I repeat it here, this is no time for slackers or conscientious objectors. Wc |