Excerpt from "The President Proclaims That an Unlimited National Emergency Confronts the Country, Proclamation No. 2487," delivered on May 27, 1941

Reprinted from The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941 Volume.

Published in 1950.

"I call upon all the loyal citizens engaged in production for defense to give precedence to the needs of the Nation …."

In the spring of 1941 German dictator Adolf Hitler continued his aggression in Europe. By mid-April Yugoslavia had fallen under German occupation. By the end of April German and Italian forces had subdued Greece. Meanwhile Japanese military forces threatened to expand into the Southeast Asian nations of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and appeared to cast an eye upon the U.S. territories of Guam and the Philippines. The United States became concerned about its economic interests in those regions.