Having Seen the Quality of the Work (1942), Roosevelt on production, OWI Poster No. 13

OWI Poster No. 13, printed in 1942, sets a photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt in an open car, looking at a large sheet held by a general, over a signed quotation: "we are getting ahead of our enemies in the battle of production" (NAID 515208).

What the sheet prints

President Roosevelt sits in an open car in the photograph, looking at a large sheet held by a general. Military and naval officers and a civilian stand behind. Below the picture is one quoted sentence, signed.

“Having seen the quality of the work and of the workers on our production lines – and coupling these first-hand observations with the reports of actual performance of our weapons on the fighting fronts – I can say to you that we are getting ahead of our enemies in the battle of production.”

[signature: Franklin D. Roosevelt]

Office of War Information

Washington, D. C.

Poster No. 13

[imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1942—O—491103]

Who issued it

The sheet is numbered 13 in the Office of War Information's poster series, and the Government Printing Office number dates it to 1942. The record lists the audience as the domestic public and the purpose as reassurance. The record does not say when or where Roosevelt spoke the sentence. The quotation is printed with no date, occasion or audience. The archive's web address for the record reads "presidents report to the press," but nothing in the transcription says so, and this page does not rely on it.

How to read it

The archive tags testimonial and transfer: the head of state's words and image vouch for the claim. That is accurate, and it is also the whole structure of the sheet. Roosevelt says he has seen the plants and read the reports, and on that basis tells the reader the country is ahead. The reader is not shown the reports.

A president reporting to the public on the war is doing his job. The question is what the reader can do with the report. Here, the evidence is the speaker's own observation, summarized by the speaker, printed by an office that answered to him. That does not make the sentence false. The record does not show whether it was right, and this page does not guess. It does mean the poster asks for trust rather than offering proof.

Roosevelt's facsimile signature also appears on the 1942 war-planes poster, which prints production targets. The 1943 OWI Poster No. 40 quotes him too, and names its source: his message to Congress of January 7, 1943. The Office of War Information hub and the domestic branch case study cover the office that printed it.