During the ten days before the German surrender, I had continuous conversations with the Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff on what forces and supplies we would send from Europe to the Far East. It was decided that those military divisions and units that had not seen much active service on the fighting front would be the first sent from Europe to the Pacific.

We had to keep in mind that we needed adequate forces of occupation in Europe, not only to maintain law and order in the land of the conquered enemy, but to keep vigil against any sudden eruptions of little would-be Hitlers who might seek to fan the flames of fanatical nationalism.

At the same time, we had to keep a watchful eye on our home economy, and I was having detailed plans and studies made on how we could, in an orderly way, go from an economy based on military requirements to a civilian economy.

We also had to reckon with the problem of a devastated Europe where there were starvation and disorganization. War refugees and displaced persons had to be cared for.

The end of the war in Europe necessitated replanning in many fields and redirecting the activities of existing government agencies, civilian as well as military.

Our industrial capacity now was so great that we could supply all fronts simultaneously. Therefore, the end of hostilities in Europe left a large surplus of production facilities. We had to give immediate consideration to converting some of these war production plants to civilian use.

We were now beginning to experience growing shortages in our basic food supplies. At the same time, there was an increasing demand for shipment of food abroad. Sugar supplies, for example, had been so seriously drained that we were forced to issue a drastic order cutting consumer rations by 25 percent.

This was the first time in more than twenty years that we had to depend entirely on current production of sugar, all surpluses having been used up.

As shortages grew, and rationing became tighter, resentment against the OPA developed in many communities, and strong criticism was voiced in Congress.

On May 1, I called Chester Bowles, the OPA Administrator, to the White House to discuss the situation. Bowles pointed out that criticism and resistance to rationing were making it difficult for him to keep his organization functioning. Many of his top men wanted to quit. Some key men had already left their posts. I told Bowles that I considered the pressure against the OPA due largely to lobbyists working for special interest groups, and I felt that neither the people nor the Congress would turn against the OPA while the war had yet to be won. I commended Bowles for his able, patient, and successful administration and told him that I was issuing that day a public statement showing how OPA had contributed toward the winning of the war and the preservation of economic stability on the home front.

In this statement, I stressed the continued need for OPA, even though I understood the natural weariness of the people under rationing and the perfectly normal resentment of businessmen, farmers, and merchants at being told what to charge for their products. But the OPA, touching the life of every citizen, was still urgently needed not only to preserve the economic balance on the home front, but also to supplement the badly depleted resources and supplies of our allies. We needed help for millions in the liberated areas if we were to prevent anarchy, riot, and disease.

I knew that the OPA had made mistakes. But I also knew that the price-control program had made an enormous contribution in preventing runaway inflation. Inflation in other countries had brought disorder and tyranny. By curbing inflation in the United States, the OPA had kept our country sound and stable.

This had not been an easy task. Although the vast majority of our citizens put their selfish interests aside during the war, this was not true of some.

John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers, for example, disregarding the fact that we were at war, ordered a strike. Here we were in the midst of one of the gravest conflicts in the history of civilization. Men were dying in battle. Our citizens were tightening their belts and making every sacrifice to help save the world from tyranny. Compromises and adjustments were being made by management and labor with a minimum of strife. Most labor unions were setting fine examples of give-and-take, and some had assigned their best men to work with the government to prevent industrial dislocation. But John L. Lewis, undisturbed by what it would do to the nation, ordered his coal miners to strike. This strike appeared all the more inexcusable because Lewis seemed more concerned with trying to browbeat the government and intimidate the President of the United States than with the welfare of the mine workers. He seemed to believe that by using hammer-and-tongs methods, he could impress other labor unions and so cause them to turn to him for leadership if he were successful in forcing the government to meet his terms.

I would not stand for that. A coal strike would seriously cripple the war effort, and we could not permit it. For Lewis to resort to such action that endangered the national security merely to satisfy a personal craving for power was downright shameful.

The crisis had arisen as a result of a labor dispute between the United Mine Workers of America and the anthracite coal operators. In connection with this, the National War Labor Board had issued an interim order on April 20, 1945. Under this order the parties were required to continue uninterrupted production of coal under the contract terms and conditions formerly in effect until the differences could be resolved.

The War Labor Board held a public hearing on May 1, 1945, and affirmed this order. The operators promptly accepted it. No reply was received from the union, however, and the strike, which was in effect at well over 300 anthracite coal mines, continued.

It was clear that the coal produced by these mines was essential to the production of war material and for domestic consumption, and the Economic Stabilization Director, William H. Davis, recommended government seizure of the mines to keep production going. The Attorney General and the Secretary of the Interior concurred, as did Fred M. Vinson, head of the Office of War Mobilization.

I approved the recommendation and issued an executive order which directed the Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, to take possession of any and all anthracite coal mines at which there were interruptions or threatened interruptions of operations. Actually this meant that the same people continued to do the work but that they were now working for the government. I have never believed that the government should operate private business, but it must have the means to suppress open defiance such as John L. Lewis’s.

This was no time to upset our production and our economy. Serious problems of reconversion would soon face us. Certain phases of our armament and production program had reached levels where government spending and contracts could be cut back. As soon as I saw that this would not interfere with our all-out effort against Japan, I recommended to the Congress on May 2 that it cut $7.445 billion from the budget proposed for the fiscal year of 1946. The bulk of this $7 billion, I suggested, could come from the reduction of the Maritime Commission’s construction activities.

I asked Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau to make a careful study of our tax situation and to be prepared to discuss with me at an early date possible tax cuts. The next day, I received the following note from Secretary Morgenthau:

“I just want to tell you how delighted I was to learn of the retrenchments you have made in Federal expenditures.

“This move on your part will have a most beneficial anti-inflationary effect, and will also be helpful to us in our coming Seventh War Loan Drive.”

Throughout the war years, our farms had been highly productive. We had been most fortunate in having excellent harvests when we and our allies needed them most. In 1945, however, we were faced with new demands on our farm production. Liberated Europe was virtually starving. Fields in many areas there had not been planted, or crops had been destroyed, and in many instances the lateness of the season made it impossible to plant again.

Nevertheless, I disapproved a resolution by Congress to extend deferment to agricultural workers. I felt that in time of war every citizen is under obligation to serve his country. No group should be given special privileges. In my veto message of May 3, I said that Congress had wisely provided in the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 that no deferment should be made of individuals by occupational groups. In less than three hours, the House voted 185 to 177 to override my veto, but this was far below the two-thirds necessary, and therefore my veto was sustained.

Moreover, the Southern Hemisphere was experiencing a drought. This meant still further demands on our supplies. In the House of Representatives, a committee was set up to investigate the food shortage. It was headed by Clinton P. Anderson of New Mexico. On May 2, I asked Congressman Anderson and his committee to meet with me at the White House. We discussed measures to meet the situation. With Anderson were Congressmen Stephen Pace, Earle C. Clements, Christian A. Herter, Martin Gorski, August H. Andresen, and Hal Holmes.

While swiftly moving events around the world were crowding me for attention, there were enormous housekeeping tasks here at home which also required immediate decisions and actions.

I took up many of these matters at my second meeting with Director of the Budget Harold Smith on May 4.

Commenting on the favorable public reaction to the announced cuts in the budget, I pointed out to Smith, however, that there was some confusion in the public mind as to the difference between reduction in cash expenditures and the lopping off of authorizations for contracts previously approved and no longer needed.

Smith began his report to me by saying that the Red Cross was making urgent representations for a government appropriation of funds to supplement those privately raised by the Red Cross. I told him I was still of the same conviction, and that was that the American Red Cross should not use or spend government funds and should continue to raise money through voluntary contributions.

The Budget Director then brought up the matter of the President’s Fund amounting to $59 million, $12 million of which was for unvouchered funds to be used for intelligence work outside this country. I told Smith I did not want the fund enlarged and that I wanted a study made of all the agencies and services engaged in intelligence work.

I told him what my thinking was on the subject of our intelligence activities and my misgivings about some of the fields of these activities. I again wanted to make one thing clear:

“I am very much against building up a Gestapo,” I told him.

He asked for instructions with regard to a bill introduced in the Senate appropriating large sums for the building of a network of airports from coast to coast. This was being pushed by Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada and was supported by the Civil Aeronautics Administration.

This was a bad bill, I told him, and the report of the CAA was also bad. I was opposed to it on the grounds that it would lead to “pork barrel” legislation.

I then turned to a situation which I thought required urgent action. This was the reorganization of the executive branch of the government to make it more efficient. There was too much duplication of functions, too much “passing of the buck,” and too much confusion and waste. Much of this was inevitable as the war kept piling up additional burdens on the government, but I told Smith I wanted to establish governmental lines so clearly that I would be able to put my finger on the people directly responsible in every situation. It was my intention to delegate responsibility to the properly designated heads of departments and agencies, but I wished to be in a position to see to it that they carried on along the lines of my policy.

I therefore instructed Smith to go ahead and draft a message to the Congress on reorganization legislation, requesting the delegation of the necessary powers to the President to put through needed changes. These proposed changes would, of course, be subject to congressional veto within a specified time. I wanted, also, to reshape the White House organization and its channels of communications with the other branches of the government. For that reason, I asked Smith to make a study of the organizational setup of the President’s office, as well.

Congress had always had difficulties with problems of reorganization of the government. The legislative branch seldom took the initiative in proposing changes, and a good deal of prodding was necessary to push through the changes we needed. Smith smilingly said this might be a good time to send up reorganization proposals to the Hill because “they are now showering you with expressions of good will and support.”

I reminded him, with a little more realism, not to put too much stock in tributes of the moment, much as I appreciated them. Sooner or later, I knew such praises would be forgotten in the inevitable tug of wills between the Congress and the President.

I had previously discussed with the Budget Director the reorganization of the Labor Department. I now asked him to make a thorough survey and to complete it by June 16, when there would be a new Secretary of Labor.

I raised the question whether the time had not come to establish a Welfare Department, since the Federal Security Agency had outgrown its original purpose. We needed to extend social security to the white- collar workers and the farmers. Our public health services needed expansion. I thought all these functions might properly come in a new department headed by a Cabinet officer, and I asked Smith to make a survey with that idea in mind.

Concluding our conference, I touched on a subject close to my heart and vital to the future of the nation - the development of river-valley authorities. I told Smith I would come back to this matter at a later date, when I would want him to bring me all the studies he had made on the subject.

A few days after my conference with Smith on government organization, I had my first bad experience in the problem of delegating authority.

Leo Crowley, Foreign Economic Administrator, and Joseph C. Grew, Acting Secretary of State, came into my office after the Cabinet meeting on May 8 and said that they had an important order in connection with Lend-Lease, which President Roosevelt had approved but not signed. It was an order authorizing the FEA and the State Department to take joint action to cut back the volume of Lend-Lease supplies when Germany surrendered. What they told me made good sense to me; with Germany out of the war, Lend-Lease should be reduced. They asked me to sign it. I reached for my pen and, without reading the document, I signed it.

The storm broke almost at once. The manner in which the order was executed was unfortunate. Crowley interpreted the order literally, and placed an embargo on all shipments to Russia and to other European nations, even to the extent of having some of the ships turned around and brought back to American ports for unloading. The British were hardest hit, but the Russians interpreted the move as especially aimed at them. Because we were furnishing Russia with immense quantities of food, clothing, arms, and ammunition, this sudden and abrupt interruption of Lend-Lease aid naturally stirred up a hornets’ nest in that country. The Russians complained about our unfriendly attitude. We had unwittingly given Stalin a point of contention which he would undoubtedly bring up every chance he had. Other European governments complained about being cut off too abruptly. The result was that I rescinded the order.

I think Crowley and Grew taught me this lesson early in my administration - that I must always know what is in the documents I sign. That experience brought home to me not only that I had to know exactly where I was going, but also that I had to know that my basic policies were being carried out. If I had read the order, as I should have, the incident would not have occurred. But the best time to learn that lesson was right at the beginning of my duties as President.

This was my first experience with the problem of delegating authority but retaining responsibility. The presidency is so tremendous that it is necessary for a President to delegate authority. To be able to do so safely, however, he must have around him people who can be trusted not to arrogate authority to themselves.

Eventually, I succeeded in surrounding myself with assistants and associates who would not overstep the bounds of that delegated authority, and they were people I could trust. This is policy on the highest level: It is the operation of the government by the Chief Executive under the law. That is what it amounts to, and when that ceases to be, chaos exists.

In the case of the Lend-Lease matter, a serious situation had been created. The sudden stoppage of Lend-Lease was clearly a case of policymaking on the part of Crowley and Grew. It was perfectly proper and right, of course, to plan for the eventual cutting off of Lend-Lease to Russia and to other countries, but it should have been done on a gradual basis which would not have made it appear as if somebody had been deliberately snubbed. After all, we had extracted an agreement from the Russians at Yalta that they would be in the Japanese war three months after the Germans folded up. There was, at this time, a friendly feeling in America toward Russia because the Russians, though fighting for their own survival, had saved us many lives in the war against the Germans. There were more than a million Japanese deployed in China and ready to carry on war for an indefinite time there. We were eager for the Russians to get into the war with Japan because of their border with China and their railway connections with Europe. Japan controlled all Chinese seaports from Dairen to Hong Kong.

With this situation in mind, I clarified the government’s attitude. In a press and radio conference on May 23, I explained that the order behind Crowley’s action was intended to be not so much a cancellation of shipments, as a gradual readjustment to conditions following the collapse of Germany. I also made it clear that all allocations provided for by treaty or protocol would be delivered and that every commitment would be filled.

When Harry L. Hopkins conferred with Stalin in Moscow on May 27, the Russian leader brought up the subject of Lend-Lease and cited it as an example of the cooling-off attitude of America toward the Soviets after it became obvious that Germany was defeated. Stalin said that the manner in which Lend-Lease had been terminated was unfortunate. He said that if the refusal to continue Lend-Lease was intended as pressure on the Russians in order to soften them up, it was a fundamental mistake. Hopkins sought to reassure Stalin that this was not the case.

The Russians were always inclined to be suspicious of every action taken by either Great Britain or the United States. I had found examples of this earlier in reading through a great stack of telegrams which had passed between Churchill and Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, and Roosevelt and Stalin on the Polish question, on the situation in Yugoslavia, and on our effort to make peace negotiations with Italy before the defeat of Germany. Repeatedly, messages from Stalin indicated the suspicion that we and the British were determined to make bilateral arrangements, leaving the Russians out. The sudden stoppage of Lend-Lease gave the Russians another chance to accuse the United States of trying to interfere with a three-power approach to peace at their expense. Nevertheless, I continued to hope that we would be able to deal with the Russians in a friendly and co-operative way.

The British also showed immediate signs of anxiety over the prospect of diminishing assistance from the United States after V-E Day. The chief point in the British arguments for continuation of Lend-Lease was based on a conversation between Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt at their Quebec meeting on September 14, 1944. At that meeting, although President Roosevelt generalized on the willingness of the United States to give all possible aid to the British after Germany was overcome, he made no specific commitments other than those contained in the Lend-Lease Act. He and Churchill agreed, however, to set up an American committee consisting of Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Under Secretary of State (as he then was) Edward Stettinius, and Foreign Economic Administrator Leo Crowley to consult with a British committee on the international financial position of Great Britain and the Lend-Lease arrangements for the empire.

It was to this committee that the British now directed their appeal. After several months of discussion, the Quebec committee had submitted a recommendation to President Roosevelt and then considered itself dissolved. During the latter part of May 1945, Secretary Morgenthau, who had acted as chairman of the committee, notified me that he had received an urgent message from the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Anderson, and Mr. Oliver Lyttelton. In this message, the British expressed concern that forthcoming Lend-Lease appropriations would not be large enough to cover their needs. They based this on the fact that in preliminary discussions, War Department officials had indicated to the British that we did not consider ourselves bound by the principles of the Quebec agreement of the previous autumn.

On May 28, a second and more urgent appeal for continued Lend-Lease aid came from the British government - this one in the form of a personal telegram from Prime Minister Churchill.

“I am distressed,” this message read, “to have to bother you with this telegram when so many other graver matters are pending. But the machine has come to a standstill on the subject and it is felt on all sides here that the matter should be referred by me to you.

“When I met President Roosevelt at Quebec in September 1944 we both initialled an agreement about Lend-Lease after the defeat of Germany. In accordance with that agreement a detailed plan was worked out with your administration by the Keynes-Sinclair Mission. It is on this basis that our production plans have been laid.

“I now hear that your War Department has told our people in Washington that they are expecting so large a cut in their forthcoming appropriations for the U. S. Air Corps that supplies to us must be drastically curtailed below the schedule of our requirements as agreed last autumn. These requirements were, of course, subject to subsequent modification in the light of changes in the strategical situation. I am hopeful that our requirements as agreed last autumn can now be reduced, but the details of the reduction depend upon discussions between our respective Chiefs of Staff, which will not have been completed before 31 May. Meanwhile I hope that your people can be told that the principles your predecessor and I agreed on at Quebec will stand, and in particular that the appropriations given to your War Department will be enough to provide for our needs as finally worked out between us.”

The need for clarification of Lend-Lease policy on both sides was becoming more evident. On May 31, I received a letter signed by five congressmen - Robert B. Chiperfield, John M. Vorys, Karl E. Mundt, Bartel J. Jonkman, and Lawrence H. Smith - stating that the President’s policy on Lend-Lease after V-E Day had been obscured rather than explained by the combined effect of my statement and those of Under Secretary Grew and Leo Crowley. I replied to the congressmen on June 15 and referred them to the following paragraphs from a letter I had sent to the Speaker of the House of Representatives on June 4 concerning Lend-Lease appropriations:

“The war against Japan, like the war against Germany, is a cooperative allied effort. Through Lend-Lease and reverse Lend-Lease we shall continue to pool our resources with those of our allies so that the crushing weight of our combined might may be thrown against our remaining enemy. Where Lend-Lease funds will make the efforts of our allies more effective, we shall use them. Where the redeployment of our troops from Europe or our control over enemy areas requires aid from other nations, Lend-Lease will be available to enable their maximum participation. Similarly, through reverse Lend-Lease we can expect our allies to give us all the assistance possible.

“In the light of changed war conditions, a preliminary review of Lend-Lease assistance to individual nations has been made. Further review will be necessary from time to time in the coming year as the war progresses and the needs and the wartime roles of our allies vary. For this reason any programs proposed must be considered as most tentative.

“Our recent Lend-Lease agreements with France, Belgium and the Netherlands will be carried out by Lend-Lease funds to the fullest extent consistent with changed war conditions and the basic wartime purposes of Lend-Lease aid. Beyond this I propose that these allies be assisted in financing necessary equipment and supplies by the Export-Import Bank.”

One of the difficulties was the fact that we could never get Congress to authorize Lend-Lease for the duration of hostilities. Congress would put a time limit on each Lend-Lease appropriation, and the whole process of debate and hearings would have to be repeated every year. Then, invariably, there would be some bloc either on the floor of the House or the floor of the Senate which would hamper the operation or bring about some readjustment in the administration of Lend-Lease. I could never get Congress to see that by their method they were crippling the war effort.

I had seen it from both ends - as a senator and as President. I discussed this problem with Speaker Sam Rayburn in a language we both understood. I could also talk to the chairman of the Finance Committee, through which the Lend-Lease legislation went, and because of my experience in the Senate I was able to keep out some amendments that would have made the law of no use whatever. In fact, it was the intention of some congressmen to make it of no use.

A great many of the war powers that are delegated to the President when a war is actually going on are made effective for the duration of the war. But Congress is very jealous of its authority to keep the purse strings tight, as in the case of appropriations for Lend-Lease. That is all right in a republic when the republic is not in danger, but it always seemed to me that matters such as Lend-Lease should have been authorized for the duration of hostilities. Nor was this something that I had learned as President. Long before, I had once made such an observation on the floor of the Senate as a result of my investigations with the Truman Committee. It is just common sense, but sometimes common sense doesn’t win in legislation.

The Speaker of the House knew what I was driving at, but with 435 congressmen on his hands he had to maneuver all the time to get what was necessary to carry on the government in all its functions. Every Speaker always gets interference from some fellow who wants to make a headline in his home-town paper. Now and then, these moves may actually cripple the national welfare, but they may look good to the folks at home, where the situation may not be understood in its entirety.

“I am, of course, in full agreement with you,” I said in my answer to the five congressmen, “that the Lend-Lease Act does not authorize aid for purposes of postwar relief, postwar rehabilitation, or postwar reconstruction, and that in the liquidation of any Lend-Lease war supply agreements, articles transferred after they are no longer necessary for the prosecution of the war should be disposed of only on terms of payment.”

The matter did not end there, however. At a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on June 7, the British had been informed that there was no legal authority for further assignment of any Lend-Lease materials, except for use in the war against Japan. Admiral William D. Leahy reported to me that the question had come up again in a talk he had with Crowley on June 29 and that the latter was in full agreement with the Joint Chiefs and wanted a positive directive to that effect from the President.

The State Department and the Army, according to Leahy, wanted to continue giving Lend-Lease aid to Europe, particularly to France, for use by French occupation forces in Germany. Fred M. Vinson, as Director of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, sided with the State Department and the Army.

For the year following V-E Day, the Lend-Lease budget submitted to Congress included a contingency sum of $935 million for a possible Russian Lend-Lease program. If Russia declined to enter the war against Japan, only a small part of that amount would be necessary to complete our commitments. If Russia entered the war very soon, the amount probably would not be sufficient to meet her requirements for the coming year. I directed the FEA to work very closely with, and under, the direction of the military authorities in dealing with Russia.

Up to this time, we had provided very little in the way of Lend-Lease aid to China because of transportation difficulties. Current requirements were for very large amounts, and it was felt that a substantial part of the supplies requested by China could be effectively used in the war effort. However, because of the difficulties of making deliveries, the amount for the coming year was tentatively limited to $500 million. If the war developments proved to be such that greater deliveries could be made, the way was left clear to increase China’s program substantially.

No direct provision was made in the budget for making Lend-Lease aid available to Italy, but pursuant to arrangements with the Army, Congress approved the transfer of $10 million from Lend-Lease appropriations to the Army to permit the continuation of its program for the prevention of disease and unrest for a period of four months beyond August 31, the date to which the Army was financing its own program.

Outside of the $50 million which had meanwhile been authorized for relief in Italy by UNRRA, no funds were available beyond the amount transferred to the Army for its use in dealing with the situation in Italy. This called for a rehabilitation program outside the scope of the Lend-Lease Act.

In Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Greece there were no provisions for Lend-Lease because none of these countries was either participating in the war with Japan or aiding in the redeployment of American troops. UNRRA was operating in those countries, and partial immediate relief was being furnished, but no method existed by which these countries might finance the materials and supplies which they needed to restore their industry and transportation facilities.

To meet these conditions, I recommended an expansion of the Export-Import Bank. I suggested an increase of the Bank’s lending power to $3.5 billion, which would make available an additional $2.8 billion that could be loaned during the coming year. This amount, I believed, was sufficient for the needs that could reasonably be met during that period. Once we had some experience in lending this money in postwar Europe, I felt that we would be in a much better position to make an intelligent presentation to the Congress as to the needs of various European countries for financial aid.

It was my plan to go to Congress with a request for funds that would be necessary to meet each year’s needs rather than to make long-term commitments that would involve this country in obligations to finance a foreign country by making disbursements over a long period of time.

I made a fundamental distinction between powers that I requested during wartime and those that I expected during peacetime. As I mentioned before in connection with Lend-Lease appropriations, I felt all along that Congress should have given the President authority there for the duration of hostilities instead of renewing the legislation periodically.

When a nation is at war, its leader, who has the responsibility of winning the war, ought to have all the tools available for that purpose. I felt that it was imperative, in dealing with the postwar requirements of Europe, that the United States develop a well-rounded coordinated policy rather than attempt to do an unintegrated job through a misuse of Lend-Lease.

When the conflict was all over, and we had reached the point where the emergency war powers expired, we would be faced with the problems of rehabilitation of many areas of the world. But a European recovery program would be an entirely different matter from wartime Lend-Lease. I thought at the time that this could be handled on the basis of the information which could be sent to the Congress and reviewed year by year as economic conditions improved.

The story of Lend-Lease is a monument to the genius of Franklin Roosevelt. A President could no more get the Congress to make an outright loan of $42 billion to foreign countries, even to win a war, than he could fly to the moon, but Roosevelt accomplished the same thing through the idea of Lend-Lease. The money spent for Lend-Lease unquestionably meant the saving of a great many American lives. Every soldier of Russia, England, and Australia, who had been equipped by Lend-Lease means to go into that war reduced by that much the dangers that faced our young men in the winning of it. We may never get the money back, but the lives we saved are right here in America.