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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 1943)
Social Security Program, Labor Laws Face Congress Proposed Legislation to Bring Unions Under Definite Restrictions; New Insurance Plan To ‘Out-Beveridge’ England’s Program. By BAUKHAGE New* Analyst and Commentator. WNU Service, 1343 H Street, N.W., Washington, D. C. As the ship of state pulls out of the holiday doldrums, skipper and crew are setting their jaws for rough weather. There are cross currents ahead in the new congress which are going to set the old ship rocking. Symbolic of conflicting move ments, the debate of which will soon be filling the Congressional Record, are these two; A proposed bill to bring labor unions into the restrict ing pale .of legislation such as busi ness has to contend with under the anti-trust laws, and a social security program which some say will out Beveridge England’s new Beveridge plan. That program, its author, Sir William Beveridge says, is "in some ways a revolution.” The "holiday doldrums” I men tioned were not entirely a seasonal affair this year. There was the usu al letdown while congress went home and the nation turned to festal thoughts. There was also a pre meditated lull which was necessi tated by the turnover in the last election. The administration knew that no matter what was done in the interim between November and January, it would, in some measure, be undone when anti-administration Democrats and the increased Re publican minority got together in the new congress. Stop-Gap Arranged Since manpower is the prime con sideration of the moment, a stop-gap was arranged. With much fanfare Manpower Commissioner McNutt was given new powers and a far flung program was ballyhooed. But it was mostly ballyhoo and just be fore Christmas wide publicity was given to a document which was ob viously the forewarning that much stricter regimentation of labor was in the wind. The long-postponed, but inevitable, national service act raised its head again. me aocunieru was a arait oi a bill made by Grenville Clark, an at torney who suddenly emerged as a presidential advisor. It was an nounced that he made a special trip to England to study the British man power setup. Clark remained silent until just before Christmas and after congress had gone home, but every congressman received a copy of the proposed legislation. About two weeks earlier, shortly after the Beveridge report was made public, a cabinet officer was heard to remark: “We’ve got to get busy and draw up a program that fits America's needs a little better than the Beveridge plan would.” But the lull was still lulling then and when the President was asked at a press and radio conference if he were preparing a message for congress on the subject—that was about the time of the remark of the cabinet member—he said “no." The Beveridge plan was the nat ural result of the Battle of Britain. Then a common danger brought the British people closer together. The underfed, underclothed and under boused had to be taken care of. Class lines don’t exist in the sham bles. A bombed-out duchess can be as cold and hungry as a waif. The poor suddenly realized that if they could be taken care of as well or better in an emergency, they ought to have a little better distribu tion of the ordinary decencies of life in prosperous peace times. Wise leaders didn’t wait until the war was over to face angry demands which might turn into real revolution. Sir William Beveridge’s committee drew up the blueprint for what they called “a British revolution” in the coun try’s economic setup under which, as one spokesman described it. “the people would contribute by their own preference, to a national insur ance fund rather than take a hand out from the state.” *Assurance’ The goal of the Beveridge plan Is to lay the ghost of insecurity by means of “assurance." Assurance is the British word for what we call “insurance” and which really defines the commodity better than our word—assurance that men and women would have a subsistence through sickness and unemployment and old age; would have money to take the baby through its difficult early stages; enough for a decent burial without burdening friends or relatives; would provide a working woman with a bonus when she mar ried so she wouldn’t be penalized for enjoying connubial bliss. All this would be done on the principle of ordinary commercial insurance except that the government would run the machinery, both labor and capital would contribute as such and the people as a whole, in accordance with their income, would pay a share through taxes. The plan is not new. But it is a considerable extension of the present security laws such as Britain has had for a long time and such as the New Deal brought to America. No sane American politician, no matter how far he leaned to the conservative side, would suggest re pealing America’s social security laws. It couldn’t be done. But the controversy will arise in congress when attempts are made, as they will be, to extend the benefits, both as to amounts paid and to new categories of workers. Such exten sions are contemplated in the plan now cooking in Washington. Labor Regulation That is one trend we can look for. Running counter to it on the surface, but really also shooting at the "greatest good for the greatest num ber” is the trend toward regulation of organized labor. Probably a dozen bills have been drawn up, all of which tend to put the screws on labor unions. Many liberals feel that the unions have it coming. The growing number of strikes in wartime, when maximum production is a matter of patriotism as well as necessity, the existing union rules which tend to interfere with maximum produc tion, the various ‘‘restraints” con sidered as evil as the "restraint of trade” resulting from monopolies, all have been highlighted by war conditions. Bills will be presented to root out these ills. Much of the restriction of unions could be avoid ed if the unions cleaned their own house. In America, as in England, when a nation is called upon to make the sacrifices demanded by this war, it can be expected that the people will insist on a democratic distribu tion of opportunity and reward of effort when peace comes. The war will also have taught that maximum production means maximum pros perity. There are plenty of people to consume peacetime products; there are plenty of natural resources whose development can furnish the jobs for the consumers and provide the pay which makes it possible for them to buy what is produced. Any group or institution—farm, la bor, management—which stands in the way of this maximum production is bound to have its wings clipped. Meanwhile, the people will demand and get greater “assurance" against rainy days, which come even when prosperity is with us. And in pro viding it, if Britain comes along, America cannot be far behind. Sightless Workers Lockheed officials report that 13 blind workers who are helping build fighting and bombing planes in the California plant are in some re spects better than average and turn out more work than their fellows because of higher concentration. In cluding two women, these sightless workers passed a month's placement test in the Lockheed factory and are now working as tubing assem blers, burring-roll operators and as semblers of switch boxes. One is a parts handler on a conveyor in the paint shop. Guide dogs bring the blind em ployees to the plant each morning and doze all day beneath their mas ters’ benches. Miss Haze) Hurst, sightless president of a foundation for training blind persons, worked at every job before selecting the blind worker to be placed in it. However, the number of jobs they can perform with safety will always be limited, she said. Lockheed hopes to find jobs for more sightless work ers. • • • It s Uniforms Now! The importance of Harry Hopkins’ bathrobe conferences with the Pres ident are on the wane as far as their importance goes. The President is paying more attention to advisors in uniform. BRIEFS • •. by Baukhage The use of aerial bombs as air raid warning devices are frowned upon by the war department in a statement to OCD officials. Not only is the sound of aerial bombs easily confused with that of antiaircraft fire, but "they have doubtful value for warning purposes,” Communi ties now using aerial bombs should discontinue the practice. —Buy War Bonds— A houseboat on the Nile has been opened as a club for warrant and noncommissioned officers serving with American army forces In Egypt. • • • At Camp Livingston, La., Sergt. Robert Sullivan, grandson of John L. Sullivan, gives rifle instruction to Pvt. John W. York, cousin of Sergt. Alvin C. York. WHO'S NEWS This Week By Lemuel F. Parton Consolidated Features.—WNU Release. NEW YORK.—Scouting optimists in the news around the New Year, one finds Dr. Thomas Midgley Jr. becoming president of the Ameri Hold. Science Will Clear the Way for after years Peace, Abundance dotted-line achievement. Among his prophecies have been his forecast of about three quadrillion dollars’ worth of gold to be taken from sea water, inter-planetary travel, age control and the end of indigestion by the use of hormones. His achieve | ments, which are many, include his discovery of tetraethyl lead as a gasoline anti-knock compound, his development of non-toxic and non inflammable refrigerants and his many contributions to basic re search in synthetic rubber proc esses. As to the mundane outlook In general, Dr. Midgley takes the cheerful view that the potential creativeness and productiveness of science, with its command of new energies and processes, will clear the way for peace and abundance in spite of our col lective stupidities and villainies. These alluring, if remote, hori sons, Dr. Midgley sees from his wheel chair in Worthington, Ohio, having been stricken with infantile paralysis in 1940. Thus afflicted, he has continued his research, with no slackening of either work or fervor, and a pos sibly heightened belief in some kind of happy ending, or rather fulfillment for the comedie hu maine. His story would be a case in point for Thomas Mann, who says the calmest faith and truest personal integrity is at tained through suffering. In Cornell university, where he was graduated in 1911, it was said that young Midgley would coast along through routine work, but was always busy on something out of the groove—some idea of his own. This inclined him quickly to research and before he had been out of college a year he was threading the sub atomic maze of synthetic rubber. It was in the year3 from 1922 to 1926 that he brought through his knock less gasoline, which bloomed into the impressive ethyl gasoline indus try, with headquarters at Detroit, of which industry he is vice president. In his wheel chair, he is a big busi ness executive, with special tele phone rigs to make his inter-offlee communication around the country easy and casual—like everything else about him. Speaking of attainment through frustration, he worked with telluri um when he was bringing through his non-toxic refrigerants and that permeated his genial person with a powerful odor of garlic. He took scientific measures—something like protective coloring. When he trav eled, he found in the smoking car the closest possible concentration of bad cigars. The fragrance of garlic | was just a .harmless added starter here, and nobody noticed him. He is resourceful, diligent, optimistic. | DERSONS who have been a bit * jittery about the government tell ing us where to work and what to do may be assured by the public record u >n c and attitudes Hell Square Our of Grenville War Manpower Clark, the With Blackstone f*ew Yo[k lawyer who drafts the quite unprecedented and drastic manpower bill for Paul Mc Nutt. A stanch advocate of com pulsory military service, and of any and all methods necessary for na tional survival, Mr. Clark has been at the same time an alert and out spoken defender of civil liberties. He is a pioneer of the Plattsburg system and chairman of the Na tional Emergency Committee of the Military Training Camps, and an active advocate of a big and strong army, but he is a wary opponent of anything suggesting a military caste. In May, 1931, he said: •‘My experience in the war de partment has led me to distrust the participation of army or navy ex perts in affairs of national policy.’’ Similarly, he has opposed any encroachment on Constitutional safeguards by bureaucrats, or excessive centralization of gov ernment which might endanger individual liberties. He may be cited as a conspicuous holdout against both the weakness of a peace-loving democracy and the aggression of militarists and war-planners who might save the country but leave it no long er a democracy. He thinks we can keep both the Bill of Rights and a strong wallop. That seems to be the nub of the ar gument, as military urgency closes in on manpower—our most free and footloose zone of casual and migra tory tradition. Maybe we never wanted to move to Perth Amboy, but it’s tough if anybody says we can’t. Mr. Clark knows all about that. He drafted the original se lective service act, and kept it le gally in bounds. Mr. Clark was born in New York in 1882, was graduated from Harvard in 1903 and practiced law in New York. Released by Western Newspaper Union. Famous Mule Dies /^\NE of the most famous mules in American history died the oth er day. Myrtle was her name and when her service of more than a third of a century to the United States army ended at Fort Hua chuca, Ariz., she was cremated with full military honors. Not only was Myrtle the oldest mule in the army at the time of her death, but she had another distinc tion. She was once the subject of a special order issued by Gen. John J. Pershing that when her days of usefulness were over, she v/as not to be destroyed (as is usually the case with army mules) but was to be permitted to die a natural death. That was because Myrtle was the last survivor of the pack train which accompanied "Black Jack” into northern Mexico back in 1917 when he was engaged in his chase of Pancho Villa after that Mexican leader had led the raid on Colum bus, N. M. Two years ago, when Myrtle was 33 years old, she became dangerously ill and a veterinarian suggested shooting her. But Col. Lee Davis, then post commander at Fort Huachuca, remembered General Pershing’s order and the mule was spared to enjoy two more years of ease on the "retired list.’’ However, the honors heaped upon Myrtle are not the first that have been bestowed upon one of the long eared, and highly important, "ad juncts" of Uncle Sam’s fighting forces. On October 8, 1937, Jack, another veteran of the Mexican bor der troubles, was officially retired from service at the age of 29 and on that occasion the 62nd coast ar tillery (anti-aircraft) regiment staged a full-dress review at Fort Totten, N. Y., in his honor. At that time the Chicago Daily News commented editorially: "The review is said to be the first tendered to a mule as guest of honor in the New York area. That may be so, but it is not the first official honor given the army mule. "History and tradition are full of such honors, beginning, perhaps, with the brevet awarded the leader of the Civil war herd that stam peded and routed a Confederate at “Cinching up” a pack mule—from a drawing by Frederic Remington, illustrating "On Frontier Service,” ; by Lieut. G. VV. Van Deusen in the Outing Magazine, December, 1895. tack in the vicinity of Chattanooga. Then there was the mule that tum bled off a cliff while packed with a loaded Gatling gun, the fire from which frightened off a band of In dians in ambush. “There was Arizona, wounded in the Meuse-Argonne, who was deco rated by the 30th infantry, and Whis- i key, purchased by the 28th infantry when its service company was mo torized, who was turned out to graze in a mule Valhalla at Fort Niagara. "A more wholesale honor was paid at Washington, where a tablet commemorates the 243,135 mules of the American expeditionary forces. “The army mule's endurance has been the subject of many encomi ums. A first cavalry mule who somersaulted down an Idaho moun tain and was left for dead, turned up | in camp that night unharmed. “Perhaps we should not mention the mule that hospitalized most of a national guard machine gun com- } pany on the border some years ago, and the mule whose kick cost the government a $10,000 insurance pay ment, except that it reminds us that, even in these days of motorization and mechanization, there is still many a kick left in the old army mule." That there is “many a kick left in the old army mule" yet is proved by the fact that, even in the “stream lined” and mechanized modern American army, there is still a place for the mule. Visit Camp Carson near Colorado Springs, Colo., and there you will see the 98th field artil lery with its guns mounted on mule back. That is, you'll see it unless it’s off on a hike such as the outfit took recently when its 793 men and 790 mules climbed to the top of Pikes peak, thereby providing such a sight as that mountain has not seen in all the years since it was “discovered” by Lieut. Zebulon Pike away back in 1806! No list cf famous mules would be complete without mention of Mademoiselle Verdun, mascot of the 15th United States field artillery, who was born on April 16, 1918, in France, in the Troyon sector while the Second division, of which the 15th artillery was then a part, was holding the lines near the site of the historic battle of Verdun. Mademoiselle Verdun went through the Belleau Woods, Vaux, St. Mihiel, Mont Blanc and Meuse-Argonne of fensives with the regiment and ac companied it when it marched into Germany after the Armistice. f^TTERNS ) SEWQNG CDD3CILE ~ 8256 12*20 8283 12-42 Young Charmer. with this smoothest, slickest of princess frocks which fits like a sheath and discloses every curve! Gay and young, this is a style for soft, downy velveteen, for a crisp faille or for one of the knock out rayon crepes. • • • Pattern No. 8256 Is for sizes 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. Size 14, with short sleeves, 3>/a yards 39-lnch material; V* yard to trim. Two-Piece Suit. I“\RESS. up for winter in this smooth, smart, two piece dress. Change its appearance whenever you wish by wearing dif (V. (V. ^ (V. (V. (V. fV. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (\. (V. \ ASK ME *) l l ANOTHER t \ ? A General Quiz * ? (V. (V. (V. (V. {V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. (V. The Questions 1. How many countries have a larger population than the United States? 2. Why does an owl stare? 3. What gives the color to the so-called “red” snow? 4. What is the average life of a dollar bill? 5. What is the oldest living thing in Florida? The Answers 1. Three (China, India and So viet Russia). 2. Because its eyes are immov able in their sockets. 3. Microscopic plants. 4. The average dollar bill is in circulation but nine months. 5. “The Senator,” a cypress tree near Orlando, 3,500 years old. ferent sets of accessories with it. The soft rolling collar forms an attractive background for pins, clips—flowers, scarfs or contrast ing collars. • • • Pattern No. 8283 is in sizes 12, 14, 16, 18, 20; 40 and 42. Size 14, with short sleeves, requires 4 yards 39-inch material. Send your order to: SEWING CIRCLE PATTERN DEPT. 530 South Wells St. Chicago. Enclose 20 cents in coins for each pattern desired. Pattern No. Size. Name ... Address . Those Khaki Uniforms British soldiers in India during their war with the Sikhs, 1848-49, felt too conspicuous in their white campaign uniforms. By dipping them in muddy water they changed them from white to—the Sikhs had a word for it—khaki. The United States quartermaster general, now buying scores of millions of yards of khaki cloth for uniforms, speci fies a khaki dye that results from blending many dye shades. Puncher Smith Was an Optimist to the Bitter End In the first round of the heavy* weight contest, Puncher Smith Rif the floor hard four times, and just before the bell, went down for thi full count. The winner was rushed to th* microphone, where he said a few modest words. By this time, Puncher had come to, and man aged to stagger to his feet. Where upon the announcer came over. “Come on,” he coaxed, “say a few words to the millions listen ing.” Puncher tried to keep his kneea steady; then he said: “Ladies and gentlemen; this is the greatest fight of my career. May the best man win!” r\Tdl° SKIN^y \\t£p? OVemenl)yj Soothing Resinol allay* irritation of externally caused pimple*. thus hastening healing. Try it today I RESINOUS —.-, Caesar’s Shorthand There have been more than 1,00| systems of shorthand, the first dat ing to the days of Julius Caesar. SNAPPY FACTS ABOUT RUBBER ; I In Calcutta wealthy native* with care Invariably paint their tire* red because el the superstition that this will obviate motor troubla. The rubber tapper, or seringuero, in Brazil lives partly oif the forest he ranges in search of wild rubber. A shotgun and machete are his tradi tional equipment Superstitious negroes of Georgia believe that the best cure far rheumatism Is to sleep with an old tire around the waist. When dual tires are mla-mated, the larger tire carries most of the load, wears off its tread abnormally and fails early due to the generation of excess heat in its cord carcass. It Is estimated that the average tire loses 12 per cent of Its weight In use and yields about 3$ of It* original weight in reclaimed rubber. . SING A SONG OF ‘ KITCHEN THRIFT SINK YOUR 1 DIMES IN WAH SAVINGS STAMPS TRADERS When a cough due to a cold drives you mad, Smith Brothers Cough Drops give soothing, pleasant relief Smith Brothers’ contain a spe cial blend of medicinal ingredients, blended with prescription care. Still cost only 51:— yes, a nickel checks that ticklel SMITH BROS. COUGH DROPS BLACK OR MENTHOL—-5* l W' MARK BIRO" '.io» » karn e ft for polishing "BUTZIHG brass buuon, "COWTRAC^;.,^ «<~***%2? r/RST/H THE SERVICE With men in the Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard, the favorite cigarette is Camel. (Based on actual sales records in Post Exchanges and Canteens.) CAMEL COSTLIER TOBACCOS J