The command is forward : selections from addresses on the motion picture industry in war and peace (1944)

NICKELS AND BILLIONS 33 A few years ago I visited a Russian collective farm located in the black earth region not far from the Volga river. When our party entered the schoolroom, a group of little boys and girls sang for us in Russian. I did not understand a word they were saying, but one line kept recurring so finally I asked for a translation. Those youngsters were singing about the Five Year Plan. That song described how roads were being built across the steppes, factories constructed in the cities, and an entire nation transformed. The words which those little Russian children kept repeating were these: "We have iron spines on which to carry the machinery." How prophetically they spoke! With unsurpassed courage and unbelievable endurance, the Russian people — soldiers and civilians alike — have absorbed every cruel blow from a relentless enemy and now the Russian counter-offensive is sweeping westward with growing intensity and success. Our Russian allies have iron spines on which to carry their titanic war machine. We, too, have what it takes to win. Justice Byrnes told us the other evening in his radio speech that "the roads to Berlin and Tokyo are long, hard, and bloody." So they are. Well then, we will travel those roads with our fighting men to the very end, for we, too, have iron wills and are resolved to pay whatever price is necessary in money and in blood to insure complete victory and to establish a just peace among the nations.