Messersmith, G.S. Address at the "Feria de la Victoria" (Victory celebration) in Tampico, Mexico., 1942 December 20

In Spanish. Appreciates invitation and generous welcome; has been in Mexico since February and has wanted to visit Tampico and other Mexican cities earlier, but many duties and responsibilities in Mexico City have made it impossible; now engaged in greatest war in history; Mexican people as well as those of U.S. understand what is at stake; complacent, the Allied nations were forced into war for which they were unprepared, while Germany, Italy, and Japan had spent years building up mighty military machines; faced with the actuality of war, U.S. lost no time in converting her factories to the making of implements of war and in the training and equipping of her armed forces; Mexican people too doing their part in fields, mines, and forests to supply the vitally needed materials and resources to carry on war; sees Mexico, while maintaining her cultural traditions, emerging as industrial and economic power; has never known Mexican people to be more unified, nor conditions more stable.