--- title: William G. McAdoo url: https://propagandaarchive.org/quotes/william-mcadoo/ description: 3 verified quotes from William G. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (1913-1918); Director General of Railroads (1917-1919), with… section: FRAME --- ![Illustration: a First World War field-intelligence collage of trench maps, wireless transmission logs and aerial reconnaissance photographs.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-wwi.jpg) [Quotes](https://propagandaarchive.org/quotes/) · United States # William G. McAdoo ![William G. McAdoo in 1914](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/wilson-administration/william-mcadoo.jpg) [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Gibbs_McAdoo,_formal_photo_portrait,_1914.jpg): Harris & Ewing, Public domain (published in the United States before 1931; Library of Congress: no known restrictions on publication) Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (1913-1918); Director General of Railroads (1917-1919) · United States On the regime page: [Wilson administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/wilson-administration/#william-mcadoo) 3 quotes, oldest first. [Filter with other speakers](https://propagandaarchive.org/quotes/#speaker=william-mcadoo). 1. **Content note:** Calls non-subscribers friends of the enemy. The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “If the thousands of patriotic citizens of this country want to win this war now is the time for them to show it. If they don't subscribe for this loan and lend their money to the Government, they are helping the enemy. Every person who refused to subscribe or who takes the attitude of 'let the other fellow do it' is a friend of Germany, and I would like nothing better than to tell it to him to his face.” — October 1917 · Speech · San Francisco Verified (secondary source) — McAdoo was touring the country in the campaign for the Second Liberty Loan, a bond issue of at least $3 billion that opened on 1 October 1917 and closed on 27 October. Government and volunteer publicity for the loans described buying bonds as a duty of citizens. — Speeches at San Francisco, October 1917, as reported in a Los Angeles dispatch of 12 October 1917, in The New York Times, 13 October 1917, front page (the same sentence is quoted, with McAdoo named, in Forbes, 16 March 1918, and in a Liberty Loan advertisement in The New York Times of 24 October 1917) [Source](https://archive.org/details/NYTimes_oct1_15_1917) 2. > “Let us meet that challenge by a subscription to our second Liberty Loan, on the 27th day of October, nine days after the close of the German loan, which will make clear to the German military despotism that America marshals not alone her brave soldiers upon the field, her invincible navy upon the high seas, her industries throughout the length and breadth of this land, but as well her financial resources, and that she is determined to use them all, without stint and regardless of sacrifice to vindicate American rights, outraged too frequently by German infamies.” — October 1, 1917 · Speech · Toledo, Ohio Verified (secondary source) — McAdoo was touring the country in the campaign for the Second Liberty Loan, a bond issue of at least $3 billion that opened on 1 October 1917 and closed on 27 October. Government and volunteer publicity for the loans described buying bonds as a duty of citizens. The "challenge" was a manifesto he read out, issued in Berlin by the League of German Municipalities, which said the proceeds of a German war loan would drown out the protests of the American President. — Speech opening the Liberty Loan campaign, Memorial Hall, Toledo, 1 October 1917, as reported in The New York Times in a dispatch of the same date [Source](https://archive.org/details/NYTimes_oct1_15_1917) 3. > “every American dollar is back of them, and that lines of communication and supplies would be kept open. We must be just as willing to sacrifice all our money as they are willing to sacrifice their lives for us.” — October 2, 1917 · Speech · Indianapolis Verified (secondary source) — McAdoo was touring the country in the campaign for the Second Liberty Loan, a bond issue of at least $3 billion that opened on 1 October 1917 and closed on 27 October. Government and volunteer publicity for the loans described buying bonds as a duty of citizens. He was speaking about what the soldiers and sailors at the front should be told. — Speech to a mass meeting for the Second Liberty Loan, Indianapolis, 2 October 1917, as reported in The New York Times in a dispatch of the same date [Source](https://archive.org/details/NYTimes_oct1_15_1917)