[Department of State Bulletin, November 8, 1941.]

MISS PERKINS, MR. GOODRICH, MR. PHELAN, DELEGATES AND ADVISORS TO THE CONFERENCE:

Taking part in a conference of the ILO is not a new experience for me. It was exactly at this time of year in 1919, that the ILO had its first conference in Washington. Apparently someone had fallen down on the job of making the necessary physical arrangements for the conference. Finally someone picked on the then Assistant Secretary of the Navy to help. I had to find office space in the Navy Building, as well as supplies and typewriters to get the machinery organized.

In those days the ILO was still a dream. To many it was a wild dream. Who had ever heard of governments getting together to raise the standards of labor on an international plane? Wilder still was the idea that the people themselves who were directly affected-the workers and the employers of the various countries-should have a hand with government in determining these labor standards.

Now 22 years have passed. The ILO has been tried and tested. Through those extravagant years of the Twenties it kept doggedly at its task of shortening the hours of labor, protecting women and children in agriculture and industry, making life more bearable for the merchant seamen, and keeping the factories and mines of the world safe and fit places for human beings to work in.

Then through the long years of depression it sought to bring about a measure of security to all workers by the establishment of unemployment and old-age insurance systems; and again to set the wheels of industry in action through the establishment of international public works, rational policies of migration of workers, and the opening of the channels of world-trade.

Now for more than two years you have weathered the vicissitudes of a world at war. Though Hitler's juggernaut has crowded your permanent staff out of its home in Geneva, here in the New World, thanks in large part to the efforts of our friend, John Winant, you have been carrying on. And when this world struggle is over, you will be prepared to play your own part in formulating those social policies upon which the permanence of peace will so much depend.

Today, you, the representatives of 33 nations, meet here in the White House for the final session of your conference. It is appropriate that I recall to you, who are in a full sense a parliament for man's justice, some words written in this house by a President who gave his life in the cause of justice. Nearly 80 years ago, Abraham Lincoln said: "The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds."

The essence of our struggle is that men shall be free. There can be no real freedom for the common man without enlightened social policies. In last analysis, they are the stakes for which democracies are today fighting.

Your concern is the concern of all democratic peoples. To many of your member states, adherence to the ILO has meant great sacrifice. There is no greater evidence of the vitality of the ILO than the loyal presence here today of the representatives of the nations which suffer under the lash of the dictator. I welcome these representatives especially.

I extend the hand of courage to the delegates of those labor organizations whose leaders are today languishing in concentration camps for having dared to stand up for the ideals without which no civilization can live. Through you, delegates from these despoiled lands, the United States send your people this message: "You have not been forgotten; you will not be forgotten."

We in the United States have so far been called upon for extremely limited sacrifices, but even in this country we are beginning to feel the pinch of war. The names may be unfamiliar to you, but the workers of Manitowac, Wis., who used to make aluminum utensils, have had to sacrifice their jobs that we may send planes to Britain and Russia and China. Rubber workers in a hundred scattered plants have had to sacrifice their opportunities for immediate employment that there may be ships to carry planes and tanks to Liverpool and Archangel and Rangoon. Tens of thousands of automobile workers have been shifted to other jobs in order that the copper which might have been used in automobiles may carry the deadly message from the mills of the Connecticut Valley to Hitler. But with all this, we have not yet made any substantial sacrifices in the United States.

We have not, like the heroic people of Britain, had to withstand a deluge of death from the skies. Nor can we even grasp the full extent of the sacrifices that the people of China are making in their freedom from aggression. We have in amazement witnessed the Russians oppose the Nazi war machine for four long months-at the price of uncounted dead and a scorched earth.

Most heroic of all, however, has been the struggle of the common men and women of Europe, from Norway to Greece, against a brutal force which, however powerful, will be forever inadequate to crush the fight for freedom.

As far as we in the United States are concerned, that struggle shall not be in vain. The epic stand of Britain, of China, and of Russia receives the full support of the free peoples of the Americas. The people of this country insist upon their right to join in the common defence.

To be sure, there are still some misguided among us-thank God they are but a few-both industrialists and leaders of labor, who place personal advantage above the welfare of their Nation. There are still a few who place their little victories over one another above triumph over Hitler. There are still some who place the profits they may make from civilian orders above their obligation to the national defence. There are still some who deliberately delay defense output by using their "economic power" to force acceptance of their demands, rather than use the established machinery for the mediation of industrial disputes.

Yes, they are but few. They do not represent the great mass of American workers and employers. The American people have made an unlimited commitment that there shall be a free world. Against that commitment, no individual or group shall prevail.

The American workman does not have to be convinced that the defense of the democracies is his defence. Some of you, from the conquered countries of Europe and from China, have told this conference with the eloquence of anguish how all that you have struggled for-the social progress that you and your fellow men have achieved-is being obliterated by the barbarians.

I need not tell you that one of the first acts of the Fascist and Nazi dictators-at home and in conquered countries-was to abolish free trade unions and to take away from the common people the right of association. Labor alone did not suffer. Free associations of employers were also abolished. Collective bargaining has no place in their system; neither has collaboration of labor, industry, and government.

Nor need I tell you that the Nazi labor front is not a labor union but an instrument to keep labor in a state of permanent subjection. Labor under the Nazi system has become the slave of the military state.

To replace Nazi workers shipped to the front and to meet the gigantic needs of her total war effort, Nazi Germany has imported two million foreign civilian laborers. They have changed the occupied countries into great slave areas for the Nazi rulers. Berlin is the principal slave market of the world.

The American worker has no illusions about the fate that awaits him and his free labor organizations if Hitler should win. He knows that his own liberty and the very safety of the people of the United States cannot be assured in a world which is three-fourths slave and one-fourth free. He knows that we must furnish arms to Britain, Russia, and China and that we must do it now-today.

Our place-the place of the whole Western Hemisphere-in the Nazi scheme for world-domination has been marked on the Nazi timetable. The choice we have to make is this: Shall we make our full sacrifices now, produce to the limit, and deliver our products today and every day to the battlefields of the entire world? Or shall we be satisfied with our present rate of armament output, postponing the day of real sacrifice-as did the French-until it is too late?

The first is the choice of realism-realism in the terms of three shifts a day; the fullest use of every vital machine every minute of every day and every night; realism in terms of staying on the job and getting things made, and entrusting industrial grievances to the established machinery of collective bargaining-the machinery set up by a free people.

The second choice is the approach of the blind and the deluded who think perhaps we should do business with Hitler. For them there is still "plenty of time." To be sure, many of those misled individuals honestly believe that if we should later find that we can't do business with Hitler, we will roll up our sleeves later-later-later. And their tombstones would bear the legend "Too late."

In the process of working and fighting for victory, however, we must never permit ourselves to forget the goal which is beyond victory. The defeat of Hitlerism is necessary so that there may be freedom; but this war, like the last war, will produce nothing but destruction unless we prepare for the future now. We plan now for the better world we aim to build.

If that world is to be one in which peace is to prevail, there must be a more abundant life for the masses of the people of all countries. In the words of the Atlantic Charter, we "desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement, and social security."

There are so many millions of people in this world who have never been adequately fed and clothed and housed. By the undertaking to provide a decent standard of living for these millions, the free peoples of the world can furnish employment to every man and woman who seeks a job.

We are already engaging in surveying the immediate post-war requirements of a world whose economies have been disrupted by war.

We are planning not to provide temporary remedies for ills of a stricken world; we are planning to achieve permanent cures-to help establish a sounder life.

To attain these goals is no easy task. Yes, their fulfillment will require "the fullest cooperation between all nations in the economic field." We have learned too well that social problems and economic problems are not separate water-tight compartments in the international any more than in the national sphere. In international, as in national affairs, economic policy can no longer be an end in itself. It is merely a means for achieving social objectives.

There must be no place in the post-war world for special privilege for either individuals or nations. Again in the words of the Atlantic Charter: "All states, great or small, victor or vanquished," must have "access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity."

In the planning of such international action the ILO with its representation of labor and management, its technical knowledge and experience, will be an invaluable instrument for peace. Your organization will have an essential part to play in building up a staple international system of social justice for all peoples everywhere. As part of you, the people of the United States are determined to respond fully to the opportunity and challenge of this historic responsibility, so well exemplified at this historic meeting in this historic home of an ancient democracy.