Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 February 1943 — Page 12

PAGE 12 . E_. : * The Indianapolis Times)

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1943 .

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Y STARVING A WAR INDUSTRY N page one today you will find the first of two articles by Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard in reply to charges made last week by Louis Bromfield, novelist and operator of a big Ohio farm, who charged that the government had failed to take effective steps to avert a “catastrophic” wartime food crisis. We can’t pretend to know as much about food produc- ~ tion as either of these distinguished practical farmers who disagree so vehemently, but we are certain of two things: FIRST, that Mr. Bromfield stated pretty accurately the feeling of a great many other farmers, from whom we've heard before and since his articles were printed. SECOND, that Mr. Wickard has not been asleep on his job, but has been and is making a sincere effort to help farmers increase food production. » ” ” : ” 8 8 T is not altogether Mr. Wickard’s fault, but we think it may be the country’s great misfortune that what he is trying to do is not giving American agriculture as a whcle the means and the assurance it needs for a tremendous task. Food production is a war industry—perhaps the most fundamentally important of them all. On it depend our hopes for winning the war quickly and keeping it won. . But agriculture has never been and is not now treated as a war industry. The plane factories, the arsenals, the shipyards are not being starved of skilled workers, machines and materials. Agriculture is. Irreplacable skilled labor has been drafted from the farms without much evidence of plan or forethought. Other skilled labor has been tempted away from the farms by high wages, short hours and overtime pay in war plants under government Bolicies which farmers feel are unfair to them. : The 8,369,000 persons snlsyad on farms at the beginning of this month—only 1,731,000 of them being hired hands—represented the lowest February total on the agriculture department’s records. Yet the farmers are being urged to grow more food than ever before.

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os ” # ” ” 2 a HEY have high crop prices, but their costs also are high and rising, and many of them feel that their only hope of doing their job under present conditions is in still higher prices. That would mean higher food costs, higher industrial wages, a non-stop inflationary spiral and home-front disaster to everybody. The government’s past mistakes are water over the dam. Correcting their consequences will be difficult now, but it is not quite too iate to begin treating agriculture as the basic war industry it is. That demands more than planning by Mr. Wickard. It demands over-all planning at the top of the war government, with the armed forces, the war production board, the selective service, the manpower commission and other agencies co-operating effectively with Mr. Wickard, and with President Roosevelt giving the necessary orders and making the necessary decisions to insure that they do. We“ think that is the only sure way to avoid a food crisis, and the only way to prevent a disastrous inflation.

FOR FREER TRADE (GUESS who said this: “Diplomatic peace and economic warfare cannot live side by side; if we want a market in China, Russia, India ‘and other nations for the goods we can produce the best, obviously we must not bar those nations from our own market. If we are going to fight as a world nation, we must trade like one as well.” ~ Secretary Hull, author of the reciprocal trade treaty? No. . : Some professional tariff’ reformer? No. The president of the National Association of Manufacturers, Frederick O. Crawford, speaking before the Detroit Economic club.

ARMY SECRETS

RECENTLY the war department invited one of our Washington correspondents to visit three big army posts. He saw dozens of secret devices—one so secret that the newspapermen were cautioned not even to mention its name. The army showed these devices with candor and pride, confident that the reporters would not betray confidence. And . they won’t. They also have a stake in the keeping of necessary secrets. It’s their country, too. More recently the same correspondent asked permission to go with the senate’s Truman committee to see the huge Ford bomber plant at Willow Run. The army isn’t very proud of that plant’s record, and the committee intends to find out what's wrong, believing that no necessary secret. But the army wouldn't ‘let the correspondent go through the plant with the senators, “principally because Willow Run has been under rather strict restrictions in some instances, and because we do not know what the committee may see or be shown.” Same reporter in both cases. But in the first case the army was showing off secrets of which it is proud.

THE SAFEST PLACE

TATISTICS show that General Motors employees ar safer on the’job than anywhere else. The time they’ lost last year because of plant accidents was only a quarter as much as was lost because of accidents outside the plant ~ —at home, on the streets, elsewhere. Significantly enough, time lost through plant accidents amounted to only one-fiftieth of that lost through absentee-

ism, the practice of staying away from work for peraonal. laziness, di

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

NEW YORK, Feb. 23.—Like the man who didn’t know whether he could play a violin because he had never tried, the American people are attempting something new in the rationing of canned goods and may not do very well at first. Spoiled we may be, if anyone wants to say so, but nevertheless we have been living out of cans more and more these last 25 years or so and the can-opener is one of our most important tools. In some great production areas whole Crops were canned right on the ground and as the factory took ‘over the job of cleaning, cooking and preserving food, there occurred a corresponding decline of

- the tricks, which, to a frontier people, were mere

cabin routine. The development of the canned goods industry and of the capsule city apartment occurred together, each promoting the other.

Life Was Simplified

THE IDEA of the little apartment was that the little woman would not bother to preserve food during the canning season and the idea of the canners was to simplify life for her and give her more time to spend at the beauty parlor or the cocktail den or make it easy for her to whip up something when she came home tired from her job. The canners spent millions of dollars advertising the merits of their goods and we believed them. Their soups and beans were tasty and apparently as wholesome as they said they were and as, from year to year they added hams and jellied chickens, asparagus and a variety of fruits to their lines, always under competitive pressure, economy. and convenience were strong selling points. The rationing plan seems to assume that canned food is just a household iron ration or, supplement to the kitchen-cooked meal and of course it is true none of us has lived entirely on canned stuff. :

Cartoon Tells Story

YET, CONSIDERING the enormous gross pack of food that the Americans have bought in cans every year and the proportion of canned and fresh food that is visible to the naked eye in any store, it must be that canned food is more than a convenience or a luxury. Jay Darling, the Iowa- cartoonist who, without consciously knowing as much is a veteran of a frontier day in the Midwest, has drawn another of his superb pictures dealing with this ration order. He shows a plainsman squatting by his frying pan, his wife and child peering from their covered wagon parked close by, remarking brightly to a modern city man who is yowling about his cannedfood ration, “Don’t take on so, sonny, your pa and ma never heard of canned vegetables till long after you were born.” : That is true enough, but the plainsman’s wife knew how to put things down in brine and had a lot of other kitchen processes that have been forgotten or never learned by most women of today.

They'll Try to Play Violin

IF THINGS are as bad as these rationing orders indicate, the people will make a mighty effort to play that violin, and we never can tell till we try. There are many who in normal times customarily have kept net just a few cans, but whole cases of canned food as a normal reserve with no thought of hoarding. People in the country areas even now would do better and save gasoline hy buying in quantity and only recently Mr. Wickard was quoted as advising the public to put in stores of canned food as there was plenty of it. One ‘pleasant possibility suggests itself at once. It is an offense to make a false declaration of canned foods on hand in a home, but the constitution forbids unreasonable search of a home. This means that in accordance with Mrs. Roosevelt’s remark, “it is wonderful what your neighbors know about you,” a new crew of intruders, informed by snoops, jealous neighbors or faithless friends, will now have the right to invade the American home and make arrests for the illegal possession of an undeclared can of beans.

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In Washington

By Peter Edson

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23. — In spite of the fact that a house of representatives subcommittee killed President Roosevelt’s request for “an additional $100,000,000” for farm incentive payments, Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard has indicated that the administration will go ahead with its farm goal program of food production for 1943 and will make an attempt in some way to reach a compromise with congress which will permit cash incentives to be paid to farmers who grow more war crops. The plan is admittedly complicated. Begin with the story of Farmer Jones of the midwestern, great plains states Joneses. Farmer Jones has 480 acres. It has been previously determined by the county’s triple A committee that Farmer Jones in 1943 will be allowed to plant no more than 200 acres of his land in wheat. Now, under the department of agriculture’s conservation program, it has been determined that for the 1943 crop, farmers shall be paid 9.2 cents a bushel for every bushel of wheat grown on every farmer’s allotted acres, provided he doesn’t plant more than the allotted acreage in wheat. Say the 10-year average yield of wheat on this land is 10 bushels to the agre. That would be 2000 bushels for Farmer Jones’ 200 acres. Two thousand bushels of wheat at 9.2 cents per bushel multiplies to $184, which would be paid to the farmer out of the federal treasury and would be over and above whatever he could get’on the market for the actual sale of his wheat. .

Incentive NOT to Grow Wheat

NOW THIS $184 is a kind of incentive payment, but it is not the incentive payment we started to talk about in the beginning, This $184 is an incentive for Farmer Jones NOT to grow more than his quota of wheat. There is already too much wheat in storage. The 9.2 cents per bushel wheat payment is intended to make sure there won’t be more than too much, and the new, wartime incentive payment supposed to encourage the farmer to grow more things the country hasn’t enough of is something else again, which will ‘be considered in its proper place. Before going on to that, consider what happens to Farmer Jones if he plants more than 200 acres, For every acre above his allotted 200 that Farmer Jones plants in wheat, he may be penalized—yes, penalized —10 times the amount of the payment he gets if he doesn’t plant more than 200. The payment is 9.2 cents per bushel. Ten times. that is 92 cents a bushel, and with a yield of 10 bushels to the acre, Farmer Jones could be penalized $9.20 for every acre above 200 planted in wheat. A farmer. cannot be penalized more than the amount of payment to which he would otherwise be entitled.

Now that you understand all this basic stuff, you're |

ready to take up the matter of real, wartime incentive

payments to increase production of food crops, which |

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

\AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE”

TUESDAY, FEB. 23, 1

In Darkest Africa

” : The Hoosier Forum I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

“LOVED ONES DYING FOR (Times readers are invited

to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Because of the volume received, let- ~ ters must be limited to 250 words. Letters must be signed.)

By R. L. Clarke, Indianapolis To Mrs. Rubio, who states in your column, “I regret if this is a war merely to preserve the American way of life.” Mrs. Rubio, just what do .4ou think this war is being fought for? What way of life would you prefer— Russian, for instance? Do you think the imperfections you point out in the American way of life would be missing in Russia? | If, by inference, you are criticizing Pegler for upholding the American way of life, then he deserves all the more: gratitude from loyal Americans whose loved ones are dying for the American way of life. The Russians have proven to be a brave people—but their form of government is not ours, and never will be. The very foundation of our government is based on freedom, which allows you to make the statements you. do. ... 2 8 8 “REAL COUNTY PLANNING AGENCY NEEDED” By Clifford McMillin, Bridgeport It had been so long since we heard anything from the county planning commission that we thought it was dead, but we note

that after two long years of hibernating it has come to life and decided to do what should have been its first act after it was created, namely, to make a comprehensive land use survey preparatory to writ-|about getting two quarts just now. ing a new zoning ordinance and|Perhaps Mr. Wickard can make probuilding code. ~~ | visions. : (Some, however, think that en-| After all, we must share and share forcement of the present laws is all|alike in the good things of life; in that is needed.) a mythical age somebody wrote a Then there will probably be an-|book about a lamp that you would other long interim of inactivity|rub and your fondest wish would while said survey, codes and ordi-|materialize. That fellow was gropnances are being completed. . ing toward the modern ration book. eal county planning agency| I sometimes gaze in awe upon has been needed here for years and what those little tickets contain in much ‘permanent damage has re-|that sugar ration book No. 1. Just sulted from a lack of it. In addition|pull out a stamp and you have cofto a strict and specific code it should |fee, and ‘then you have sugar, and have as its acting head a well-|now you get shoes. trained and, if possible, experienced,] Mr. Wallace knew what he was engineer, selected in such manner|talking about; the dear lady is too that he can be held responsible io) material minded, she has not the people of the county for results.!reached that degree of spiritual in-

“GLOBALONEY FLOWS ON LIKE THE BROOK” By Walter C. Reese Sr., Shelbyville In Bible times it was forbidden women to speak in public, but the American people were treated to the sight of a woman speaking in congress. Right when we had settled down to live in that post-war world with Mr. Wallace and his promise of two quarts of milk where one grew before, we were jarred out of our easy chair by a woman who called his speech “globaloney.” Mr. Wallace did not reckon with the fact that the farmer was selling the cows off the farm when he made that speech, but he was not without friends ang resources. Mr. Wickard, the lively secretary of agriculture, saw to it that pints of milk were banished to the dreams of yesterday, and now we have Mr. Wallace to thank for the fact that it was not a foolish speech that was

made—we did get that quart of milk —but I have my private doubts

Side Glances—By Galbraith

Soin PR. 1943 BY NEA SERVICE, INC. E.20.0.3, PAT OFF.

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sight and has very little knowledge of things to be. All that we have to do is to turn our radio on and we can get a full supply of globaloney; you do not need even a gas stamp—it flows like the proverbial brook, on and on forever,

” 8 ” “0, HUM, WE DO HAVE SOME FUNNY THINGS”

By News Boys’ Friend, Indianapolis Rev. George A. Kimsey wrote of the treatment (by some of the customers) of newsboys. felt sorry for the little fellows for the way some people treat them about paying for their papers, for several of the boys have told me of

people who don’t pay. ... When . , . they owe the boy 40 or 50 cents or more, they start an argument . /. that they do not owe that much, etc., or hide or put the boy off for three or four weeks; then move and the poor kid doesn’t know where they have gone. , . . .How can anyone that has a conscience cheat those little fellows? But they do, and I see newsboys going back four and five times to collect. Why not lay your 18 cents to one side so when he comes the first time you can pay him? O, hum, we do have some funny things we call people.

a “HOOKS NOT USED ON STRAY DOGS”

By Leona Frankfort, supervisor, Municipal Pound, Indianapolis

On Feb. 8, your paper printed a letter written by Virginia Hunter, 418 E. 30th st., in which she alleged that the driver of the dog pound truck picked up a dog by the use of hooks. This particular dog was a stray that was covered with mange and its body was covered with bleeding sores. A stray dog, especially one that is in pain, becomes wild and it is very difficult to catch it. A rope is dropped around the dog’s neck and it is led to the truck. The drivers are never squipped with any cther device. I have been at the pound since last August and this is the first complaint that I have received. Miss Hunter called me and said she would write another letter to The Times and retract her statement. Later

|when I talked with her she said

she was willing to write the letter but her mother would not permit her to do so. ; I am glad she has taken this interest in what she thought to be an act of cruelty but in this case it happens to be a school girl's imagination greatly stretched.

eT Din) “PLEASE RETRACT STATEMENT ON DOG”

By Mr. and Mrs. John Lavelle, "25 N. Tremont ave. Please retract the statement Cea regarding the dog pound was said to have used hooks on. The article was taken from a school girl’s letter. As the dog welfare department is much wrought up over the article please retract the statement as untrue in the first issue in The Times after this letter

{ |is received.

DAILY THOUGHT

And in that day shall ye say, Prajse the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings among the people, make mention that His name is exalted.—Isaiah 12:4.

JOIN voices, all ye living souls: ye - Uncle Sam. * ES 3

“Anyway, I'm glad George i is serving on the African fron stand those Moslem d hard

I have long] ~

‘Work or Fight’

By E. A. Evans

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23. —Hav= ing heard much, pro and con, about drafting workers, there still seems to be no reason to disagree with what Bernard M. Baruch wrote. in 1931: : “The attempt to draft labor is . . . impossible and dangerous. A soldier serves the nation directly. He serves to profit no one but the country as a whole. “Industry is in the hands of millions of private employers. It is operated for profit to them. Enforced and involuntary service for a private master is and repeatedly has been defined by our supreme court as slavery. “All this does not say, however, that men not under military discipline are free agents in war. The government cannot say, ‘Work here. Work there,’ or ‘work for Mr. A’ But it can say—as it did say in 1918— ‘Work or fight!’ “The government can . . . specify whole classes of employment which are not considered essential at all. It can say that if a man be found unfit for military service but fit for other work in the essential lists, he must so employ himself or be cut off from rations, transportation, fuel and supplies. “The 'work-or-fight method is compatible with our institutions and far more effective than any chain-

| | gang or impressment that could be invented.”

No Compulsion Except as Slaves

A LABOR DRAFT probably wouldn’t serve its purpose. The government might drive men and women into essential industries. It couldn't compel them to work there except as slaves, reluctant,

resentful, determined to produce as little as possible.

“Work or fight” would leave them a choice. A hard choice, to be sure. They could work on jobs the government thinks essential, or they could risk hunger and cold. But in either case they wouldn't be slaves, involuntarily serving private masters. “Work or fight” might have to apply to women,

and to men without the draft limits as well as to those within. The government is not now prepared to enforce either policy. ‘The United States employment service, which would be the chief enforcing agency, isdemoralized, ineffective, unequal even to its present job. And so long as government continues to compel

waste of manpower—so long as hundreds of thousands

of unnecessary employees remain on the federal payroll, and private employers are penalized for adopting a work ‘week longer than 40 hours, and union rules require men to be paid for not working—neither policy

can receive enthusiastic public acceptance,

The Left-Handed Approach

YET “WORK OR FIGHT” is presently the govern ment’s policy. Mr. McNutt is starting on it by the left-handed approach, the “directive,” the adminise trative order issued without specific authority in law and, many contend, despite a contrary intent of congress. “Work or fight” should be legalized. Congress should write the general rules and provide effective mae. chinery to enforce them. Congress should specify—as Mr. McNutt has not done—that those told to work or fight will not be compelled to join unions if they choose to work, Congress should not leave it for bureaucrats to say that American citizens should be deprived of

food and fuel and transportation if they disobey bureaucratic orders. We ought to try a “work or fight” law before ‘Wwe talk about a “draft labor” law. But before we resort

to either, we should get rid of present manpower wastes.

We the Women

By Ruth Millett

JUST TO SEEM like polite, polished people, many of us let hoarders and those who buy on black markets go around thinking they are smart. A woman announces to a rooms ful of people that she hasn't yet. suffered from the coffee shortage and won’t for a long time because. she was “smart” enough to put in a good supply before rationing. And nobody is impolite enough to say what he thinks about that kind of thing until her back is turned. ; Another person tells how he managed to buy somes thing on a black market, and there is no protest. Aren't we doing wrong to be so afraid of offende ing someone whose opinion we can’t really respect. that we don’t take a stand on behavior and attitudes we know are harmful and potentially disastrous to the war effort?

Some Are Impossible

OF COURSE, it is true that nothing we could pose sibly say would influence some people of the “I'm going to get mine” type. But there are people who could be influenced by our opinion—if we spoke up and said what we think instead of waiting until they are out of earshot and then cutting loose. As long as we let those people believe we condone their acts and go along with them in thinking they are smart, we are really abetting their crimes. 1f we protest, we have at least gone on record as being horrified at the idea of hoarding, buying on the black market, or in any other way putting personal greed above the country’s welfare.

To the Poini—

JUST THINKING you are Sick | tells on you quicker than a kid brother.

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* A WOMAN was arrested for smashing a shop wine dow. Probably saw a hat Just like hers for loss money. ] BETWEEN LIQUOR and leather diotiegs; a lot of heels are going to be low. * * A DOCTOR tells us a new baby makes the days brighter. Not to mention the nights during the teethe ing period.

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FOOLS RUSH in where signs say, “Stop, Look and Listen.”

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» ® A LITTLE PRESENT often smooths over a terrible past. 2 8 2

AMERICAN - OFFICERS said sheer bluff. hela a large area on the Tunisian front. It’s no you have all aces. i

8s = 8 : THE RUSSIANS took Oboyan and Labotin 8 storm troops while Mme. Chiang was wing Was ington by storm! » 3 2

FLORIDA : COLD spell damaged the fresh Vegetable crop. We suggest all the freezing be left to

Se . e