They are doing everything that high freight charges can do to make
the war a failure, to make it impossible. I do not say that they
realize this or intend it.

The thing has happened naturally enough, because the commercial
processes which we are content to see operate in ordinary times have
without sufficient thought been continued into a period where they
have no proper place. I am not questioning motives. I am merely
stating a fact, and stating it in order that attention may be fixed
upon it.

The fact is that those who have fixed war freight rates have taken
the most effective means in their power to defeat the armies engaged
against Germany. When they realize this we may, I take it for
granted, count upon them to reconsider the whole matter. It is high
time. Their extra hazards are covered by war-risk insurance.

THE LAW TO DEAL WITH OFFENDERS

I know, and you know, what response to this great challenge of duty
and of opportunity the Nation will expect of you; and I know what
response you will make. Those who do not respond, who do not respond
in the spirit of those who have gone to give their lives for us on
bloody fields far away, may safely be left to be dealt with by
opinion and the law--for the law must, of course, command those
things.

I am dealing with the matter thus publicly and frankly, not because I
have any doubt or fear as to the result, but only in order that, in
all our thinking and in all our dealings with one another we may move
in a perfectly clear air of mutual understanding.

And there is something more that we must add to our thinking. The
public is now as much part of the Government as are the Army and Navy
themselves. The whole people, in all their activities, are now
mobilized and in service for the accomplishment of the Nation's task
in this war. It is in such circumstances impossible justly to
distinguish between industrial purchases made by the Government and
industries. And it is just as much our duty to sustain the industries
of the country, all the industries that contribute to its life, as it
is to sustain our forces in the field and on the sea. We must make
the prices to the public the same as the prices to the Government.

PRICES MEAN VICTORY OR DEFEAT

Prices mean the same thing everywhere now. They mean the efficiency
or the inefficiency of the Nation, whether it is the Government that
pays them or not. They mean victory or defeat. They mean that America
will win