We are now spending, solely for war purposes, the sum of about one
hundred million dollars every day in the week. But, before this
year is over, that almost unbelievable rate of expenditure will be
doubled.
All of this money has to be spent--and spent quickly--if we are to
produce within the time now available the enormous quantities of
weapons of war which we need. But the spending of these tremendous
sums presents grave danger of disaster to our national economy.
When your government continues to spend these unprecedented sums
for munitions month by month and year by year, that money goes into
the pocketbooks and bank accounts of the people of the United
States. At the same time raw materials and many manufactured goods
are necessarily taken away from civilian use, and machinery and
factories are being converted to war production.
You do not have to be a professor of mathematics or economics to
see that if people with plenty of cash start bidding against each
other for scarce goods, the price of those goods goes up.
Yesterday I submitted to the Congress of the United states a seven-
point program of general principles which taken together could be
called the national economic policy for attaining the great
objective of keeping the cost of living down.
I repeat them now to you in substance:
First.
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