Our 1942 airplane production and tank production fell short, numerically—­stress the word numerically of the goals set a year ago.  Nevertheless, we have plenty of reason to be proud of our record for 1942.  We produced 48,000 military planes—­more than the airplane production of Germany, Italy, and Japan put together.  Last month, in December, we produced 5,500 military planes and the rate is rapidly rising.  Furthermore, we must remember that as each month passes by, the averages of our types weigh more, take more man-hours to make, and have more striking power.

In tank production, we revised our schedule—­and for good and sufficient reasons.  As a result of hard experience in battle, we have diverted a portion of our tank-producing capacity to a stepped-up production of new, deadly field weapons, especially self-propelled artillery.

Here are some other production figures: 

In 1942, we produced 56,000 combat vehicles, such as tanks and self-propelled artillery.

In 1942, we produced 670,000 machine guns, six times greater than our production in 1941 and three times greater than our total production during the year and a half of our participation in the first World War.

We produced 21,000 anti-tank guns, six times greater than our 1941 production.

We produced ten and a quarter billion rounds of small-arms ammunition, five times greater than our 1941 production and three times greater than our total production in the first World War.

We produced 181 million rounds of artillery ammunition, twelve times greater than our 1941 production and ten times greater than our total production in the first World War.

I think the arsenal of democracy is making good.

These facts and figures that I have given will give no great aid and comfort to the enemy.  On the contrary, I can imagine that they will give him considerable discomfort.  I suspect that Hitler and Tojo will find it difficult to explain to the German and Japanese people just why it is that “decadent, inefficient democracy” can produce such phenomenal quantities of weapons and munitions—­and fighting men.

We have given the lie to certain misconceptions—­which is an extremely polite word—­especially the one which holds that the various blocs or groups within a free country cannot forego their political and economic differences in time of crisis and work together toward a common goal.

While we have been achieving this miracle of production, during the past year our armed forces have grown from a little over 2,000,000 to 7,000,000.  In other words, we have withdrawn from the labor force and the farms some 5,000,000 of our younger workers.  And in spite of this, our farmers have contributed their share to the common effort by producing the greatest quantity of food ever made available during a single year in all our history.

I wonder is there any person among us so simple as to believe that all this could have been done without creating some dislocations in our normal national life, some inconveniences, and even some hardships?