America is a country that hasn't come easily. In our brief history, we have been tested by revolution and slavery, war and depression, and great movements for social, civil, and equal rights.
We have emerged from each challenge stronger, more prosperous, and ever closer to the ideals of liberty and opportunity that lay at the heart of the American experiment.
And yet, the price of our progress has always been borne by the struggle and sacrifice of our people - by leaders who have asked ordinary Americans to do extraordinary things; and by generations of men and women who've had the courage to answer that call.
It was the greatest of all generations that took up this charge in the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Almost overnight, they were asked to transform a peacetime economy that was still climbing out from the depths of depression into an Arsenal of Democracy that could wage war across three continents. If you weren't heading overseas, you were heading into the factories - factories that had to be immediately retooled and reorganized to produce the world's greatest fighting machine.
Many doubted whether this could be achieved in time, or even at all. President Franklin Roosevelt's own advisors told him that his goals for wartime production were unrealistic and impossible to meet. But the President simply waved them off, saying, believe me, "the production people can do it if they really try."
And so the nation turned here, to Detroit, with the hope that the Motor City could lead the way in using its assembly lines to mass produce arms instead of automobiles. At first, the industry was skeptical about whether this was technologically possible or even profitable in the long run. But after repeated assurances from Roosevelt and some help from the federal government, the arsenal began to churn.
In an astonishingly short period of time, the auto industry and its workers became one of the nation's most important contributors to the war effort, manufacturing more planes, tanks, bombs and weapons than the world had ever seen. The New York Times declared that the automakers had achieved a "production miracle," and it labeled Detroit "the Miraculous City."
It was a miracle that was distinctly American - the idea that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can rise to meet its greatest challenges.
It's the kind of American miracle we need today.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the country that faced down the tyranny of fascism and communism is now called to challenge the tyranny of oil. For the very resource that has fueled our way of life over the last hundred years now threatens to destroy it if our generation does not act now and act boldly.
We know what the dangers are here. We know that our oil addiction is jeopardizing our national security - that we fuel our energy needs by sending $800 million a day to countries that include some of the most despotic, volatile regimes in the world. We know that oil money funds everything from the madrassas that plant the seeds of terror in young minds to the Sunni insurgents that attack our troops in Iraq. It corrupts budding democracies, and gives dictators from Venezuela to Iran the power to freely defy and threaten the international community. It even presents a target for Osama bin Laden, who has told al Qaeda to, "focus your operations on oil, especially in Iraq and the Gulf area, since this will cause [the Americans] to die off on their own."
We know that our oil dependency is jeopardizing our planet as well - that the fossil fuels we burn are setting off a chain of dangerous weather patterns that could condemn future generations to global catastrophe. We see the effects of global climate change in our communities and around the world in record drought, famine, and forest fires. Hurricanes and typhoons are growing in intensity, and rapidly melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland could raise global sea levels high enough to swallow up large portions of every coastal city and town.
And this city knows better than any what our oil addiction is doing to our economy. We are held hostage to the spot oil market - forced to watch our fortunes rise and fall with the changing price of every barrel. Gas prices have risen to record levels, and could hit $4 a gallon in some cities this summer. Here in Detroit, three giants of American industry are hemorrhaging jobs and profits as foreign competitors answer the rising global demand for fuel-efficient cars.