human
Then, Potter said,
gpt
With every man and every machine and every dollar,
human
If you want to help, Dad--if you want to do the biggest thing there is to do--make aeroplanes.
gpt
Eh?
human
You know what I've been doing. You know how important the War Department realizes the aeroplane to be.... And we've got to have thousands of them.... The authorities are slow and they muddle, but events will force them to do something.... No plant in the world can so quickly and readily be converted to the manufacture of aeroplane engines as yours.... And I believe I have the motor....
gpt
Son, if the government backs what you say, my plant is yours. Aeroplanes--we'll show 'em how to make aeroplanes.... You get busy. Find out what they want. Get definite orders, and we'll take care of 'em if it costs me five million dollars to do it.
human
Do you feel like these fellows, Dad, who say all we can do in this war, anyhow, is to dig up money and manufacture munitions?
gpt
No, he said.
human
If we go in we go in. Don't let anybody fool you about that. We go in up to the hilt. We fought Spain with a pop-gun. This time Uncle Sam will go to war with a man's-size six-shooter in each hand and a knife in his boot. Getting into this thing doesn't mean sending an army to do the fighting for us. It means sending the whole nation to war.... Every one of us. We'll have to mobilize the biggest army we ever dreamed of, but we'll have to mobilize everything else, too--and until we get used to this new thing there's going to be the devil to pay--the very devil to pay. There'll be a mess. Everybody will be running around in circles.... Just like expanding a ten-thousand-dollar business overnight to take care of a million-dollar order.
gpt
I've got plans ready, Dad, for changing over part of the plant to make my motor--if the government adopts it.
human
Get 'em out. Take it up with the engineers. Go as far as you can, so that the moment the powers in Washington press the button we'll be ready.
gpt
I've figured the cost of the change at about half a million.
human
Whatever you need I'll raise.
gpt
Guess I better run down to Washington.
human
Good idea, and stick to 'em till you get something definite.... You're after an order. You're a salesman. Come back with something.