Houston home journal. (Perry, Houston County, Ga.) 1924-1994, June 06, 1946, Image 3

Houston home journal., June 06, 1946, Image 3

About Houston home journal. (Perry, Houston County, Ga.) 1924-1994 | View Entire Issue (June 6, 1946)

Page of 8

Prev Issue Next Issue

Text PDF JP2 (4.5 MB) Clip/Print Image

Page of 8

Prev Issue Next Issue

Return to Top

Newspaper Page Text, WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS - Rail Strike Sets Back Nation; Shape Big Navy for Auto Prices Mount With Costs ,—Released by Western Newspaper nntnr. (FDITOK’S NOTE; When opinions are expressed In these niim.. (Western Newspaper Union’s news analyst, and not necessarily'tW^newspSper.) Despite undernourishment, these daughters of Chinese farmer in famine-ridden Hunan province pull implement in rice paddy. Japs killed their water buffalo and manpower has been depleted by war. HAIL STRIKE: Cripples Nation The greatest railroad strike in history laid a heavy hand on the na tion from one end to the other, curb ing traffic and stranding thousands, imperilling the food supply and fur ther disrupting industry and the staggering reconversion program. Though the government mobilized plane, water and truck traffic, and emergency crews ran some of the trains, the walkout of 225,000 mem bers of the Brotherhoods of Loco motive Engineers and Railway Trainmen over pay demands re duced normal traffic to a trickle. Freight shipments were reduced to minimum of essential commodties and only priority passengers were provided facilities. The stranding of thousands of travelers throughout the nation af forded the first dramatic effect of the walkout. While many passen gers frantically sought hotel accom modations and others curled up on benches in railroad terminals, many railroads permitted travelers to re main in cars on sidings. In the midst of the paralysis, gov ernment conciliators strove might ily to end the walkout after the brotherhood leaders had rejected President Truman’s compromise of fer of 18 Va cents an hour and sug gestion for further discussion of work rules changes. In turning down the presidential proposal, union chieftains said that it was even less favorable than a fact-finding board’s recommendations providing for a 16 cents an hour raise plus certain ad justments in work rules resulting in increased compensation. The dramatic rail walkout over shadowed developments in the soft ©coal dispute in which the govern ment strove to reach an agree ment with the Unit ed Mine Worker Chieftain John L. Lewis for continued operation of the Following the Secretary precedent set in Krug 1943 when the U. S. seized the mines to avert a prolonged stoppage, Secre tary of the Interior Krug entered into negotiations with Lewis for a contract, consulting with the oper ators over terms to be offered. It was understood that the owners were assured of price increases to cover higher production costs re sulting from concessions when prop erties were returned to them under* the new contract. The dispute over a health and welfare fund found the government favoring such a proposal under joint management rather than sole union control as originally demanded by Lewis. FOREIGN POLICY: Bi-P artisan Backing Minority leader of the senate for eign relations committee and chair man of the Republican senatorial conference, Senator Vandenberg (Rep., Mich.) pledged his support of Secretary of State Byrnes’ campaign to win the peace by push ing for recognition of U. S. princi ples in treaty making. While admitting the failure of the Paris conference of foreign minis ters, Vandenberg, who attended as an adviser to the U. S. delegation, LIFE INSURANCE: More than $8,000,000 was paid out each day of 1945 by life insur ance companies in the United States and Canada, according to a survey of the National Underwriter. Payments in the U. S. and Can ada in 1945 were $3,116,979,219, an increase of $200,258,530 over 1944, with death benefits of $1,462,271,941, the largest ever paid in one year and 46.9 per cent of total pay ments. declared the proceedings had solidi fied American determination to write a peace “for keeps” based on justice and not vengeance. Though based upon the moralities of the Atlantic and San Francisco char ters, the new foreign policy also recognized the practical necessities of postwar rehabilitation, he said. Besides calling for the establish ment of permanent governments to assure resumption of normal activi ties, Vandenberg said the U. S. aimed to settle the Germanic prob lem affecting all of continental Eu rope. While advocating maximum protection against future aggression, he condemned repressive demili tarization. Touching upon the age-old prob lem of national minorities, Vanden berg declared that the new U. S. policy also favored their incorpora tion into their native countries or oth er suitable recognition to prevent them from becoming sources of con flict or expansion. NAVY: Taking No Chances Calling for a navy adequate to meet any emergency of the future, the house appropriations committee recommended congressional ap proval of naval expenditures of over 4% billion dollars during the next fiscal year ending June 30, 1947, for fleet maintenance. To be manned by 500,000 enlisted men and 58,000 officers, the postwar navy would include 4 battleships, 8 heavy cruisers, 21 light cruisers, 3 big aircraft carriers, 9 carriers, 10 escort carriers, 126 destroyers, 30 destroyer escorts and 80 subma rines. In addition, 2 battleships would be held in reserve along with 5 heavy cruisers, 5 light cruisers, 3 carriers, 1 light carrier, 22 destroyers and 4 destroyer escorts. A total of 632 other warships would be placed on the inactive list. Besides regular personnel, the navy plans creation of an organized reserve of 55,000 men and 3,000 officers. Backing up the regular marine enlistment of 100,000 men and 7,000 officers would be a re serve of 60,000. Recognizing the need for keeping abreast of latest scientific advances in postwar years, the committee provided 250 million dollars for com bined research and developments in the 1947 fiscal period. NEW CARS: Boost Prices Reflecting administration policy of seeking to assure manufacturers of fair profit returns by granting increased prices to offset higher production costs, OPA authorized a boost of from 4 to 8 per cent in ceil ings on new automobiles. Principal factor determining OPA action was the $5 per ton increase in the cost of steel, allowed by the government to cover the Indus try’s 1814 cent an hour wage boost. Higher costs of other materials and parts figured in the OPA grant, how ever, with Packard and Studebaker afforded relief for wage adjust ments. With OPA hinting of additional price boosts to come, the latest in creases averaged about $75 per car, and ranged from $42 for Chevrolets to $167 for Lincolns. Because re tailers’ margins already have been trimmed 414 per cent under prewar levels, the public will pay the latest price hike in full. Production Lags Even with the prompt ending of the coal strike ahd the absence of other difficulties such as labor trou bles and shortages of supplies, the automobile industry will not be able to produce more than 60 per cent of the 1941 output of new cars during the entire period of 1946. Trade cir cles said. A survey of the steel situation In dicates that with full capacity pro duction from now on, not enough cold rolled steel can be turned out for more than 2,500,000 cars. THE HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL, PERRY, GEORGIA FAMINE RELIEF: V. S. Share Government expectations of ship ping 400 million bushels of grain to needy areas during the year ending June 30 prompted the U. S.’s deputy member of the combined Allied food board to tell congress that “this country need not feel ashamed of the job that has been done” in aiding the distressed. Indirectly slapping at foreign crit ics of the U. S. relief effort, D. A. Fitzgerald pointed up the extent of America’s overseas contribution by revealing that this country will have a reserve of only eight-tenths of a bushel of wheat per person at the end of this crop season compared with Canada’s three bushels, Ar gentina’s two, and Australia’s one and one-half. In addition to shipments under the relief program, the U. S. has fur nished 72 per cent of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation funds and 83 per cent of the wheat UNRRA has purchased, Fitzgerald said. While the grain trade expected an extension of the government’s bonus payment for delivery of wheat, de partment of agriculture officials de clared there was no thought of car rying over the premium except in cases of farmers unable to make immediate shipment because of crowded elevators. BIG BUSINESS: Ford Balance Sheet The Ford Motor company fell from the ranks of billion dollar con cerns in 1945 but still possessed over 800 million dollars in assets, a study of the firm’s annual balance sheet filed with the Massachusetts tax commissioner showed. In the absence of yearly Ford dis closures of sales and earnings, the Massachusetts report constitutes the only indication of the company’s financial position. The Ford family holds the major bulk of the 3,452,900 shares of capital stock of $5 par value. A breakdown of the Ford assets of $815,515,214 as of December 31, 1945, showed a cash account of $421, 712,270, including notes, receivables, patent rights and trademarks; ma chinery and equipment valued at $168,267,325; real estate, $115,160,- 512; inventory, $101,926,042, and re serves, $22,720,090. Though under the one billion dollar mark of 1944, total assets increased approximate ly 125 million over 1939. Mother Love Wins Out Feeling that she would be unable to show her new-born baby to peo ple because he was not “sweet and pretty,” Mrs. Marjorie Ashe of Chi cago, 111., left the infant behind and vanished from Illinois Central hos pital on the day she was to return home. After her broken-hearted husband, James, 27, took the gur gling 10-day-old child home, Mrs. Ashe was found wandering in a dazed condition in the Union depot in Burlington, lowa. Quick to for give, her husband flew to bring her back and after they embraced each other and enjoyed a good cry, he exclaimed: “Am 1 happy now! She’s been sick, but she’s all right now. And we both think we got the most beautiful baby in the world!” TEXAS HAIL: Extensive Damage A record number of insurance claims piled up in Texas following recent violent hail and wind storms which swept through the state for 10 days and caused millions of dol lars of damage to buildings and field crops. With the National Board of Un derwriters setting up a special of fice in San Antonio to handle the mounting claims, insurance loss in that city was set at about $2,500,000. Hail-stones hitting San Antonio ranged in size from golf balls to large stones, measuring 9 Jo 15 inches in circumference. Wind ve locity was reported at 82 miles per hour. Lumber yards averred that there was not enough stock on hand to repair the damaged roofs already reported. In Fredericksburg, roofs were so badly battered that 1,000 homes were made untenable. Crop damage in East Texas alone was estimated at $1,000,000. EMPLOY VETS: More than a hundred thousand World War II veterans have been added to war department civilian rolls throughout the nation and overseas since V-J Day and the fig ure is increasing at a rate of more than 15,000 per month. Including those hired before V-J Day, the to tal number of World War II veter ans is around 165,000, a majority being former employees. In the nine months since the end of hostilities, the number of vet erans of World War II and other wars has jumped to 235,000. Atomic War Could Force Return to Primitive Life By BAUKHAGE Notes Analyst and Commentator. Mid-June welcomes a gathering to Washington which will deal with a subject more im- meeting too. At the “institute” in Washington, authorities will explain just what effect atomic energy can have on your life if you are one of those who aren’t going to be destroyed by it. I was going to say “ohe of the lucky ones,” but you won’t be lucky, if atomic warfare starts, even if you are among those whose lives are spared. We have all heard a lot of dire prophecies about what the atom bomb can do, if it once gets on the loose. Also, what wonders atomic energy can perform in building a better world, if it is confined to peaceful and productive activity. But by far the most impressive footnote on the subject came to me in the repeated words of a scientist speaking not scientifically, or for quotation, but very intimately of his own private thoughts, and his own personal plans. He has lectured a great deal on the subject of atomic energy, and is one of those intimately concerned with its development. Suddenly, one day he realized that he had better make sojme personal plans to pre pare for the future in this atomic age of which he had spoken so much. His work is near one of the several prime targets of any enemy bombs that would be dropped. No Refuge From A-Bomb So he began to consider. Should he try to get transferred to some smaller institution, located in a lit tle town? That, he considered, would not help much. He has a farm, but he is not a farmer. Should he move onto the farm immediately, learn as much as he could about farming, and plan to live there where he would be comparatively safe? The farm is far from any large city, tucked in the hills. Then he started planning. He would have to learn a lot more than farming. He would have to learn to card wool, for in stance; his wife would have to learn to spin, to weave, to make soap, to fabricate all the things you buy in stores. He would have to lay in tools, and enough other supplies to last him the rest of his lifetime. Well, perhaps all that could be done. Then he realized that even at that, he wouldn’t be safe. He would have to build barbed wire en tanglements, and obtain machine guns and other weapons with which to defend himself . . . for with the refugees who escaped, starving, from the cities, the few who had food would be at the mercy of the hungry mobs. If I had heard those statements from a lecture platform, or read them in a magazine, I might have passed them by as sensationalism. But the statements weren’t in a magazine, or spoken from a plat form. They were said over the luncheon table in the quiet corner of a club. The speaker wasn’t trying to “sell” his ideas to any body. He wasn’t trying to persuade anybody to do anything, or to get publicity. He was thinking out loud about what he considered an acute personal problem. In the end it left him baffled. There is no defense. The only hope is to make the United Nations work. I heard this story, and was moved by it. I was already pretty well stirred up, because I had just learned of v/hat deep concern this question is to more than three thous and people who wrote me, asking for a pamphlet I had mentioned in one of my broadcasts. That is an interesting story, too, that I want to pass on. One day, I received a little pam phlet among the several bushels of handout material which is the grist of the publicity mills dumped on press and radio desks all over the country every day. BARBS . • • by Baukhage As long as America has the heart to attend spelling bees and county “sings,” we can’t be quite as badly off as some of our neighbors seem to think. * ♦ • I never attended enough spelling bees myself. But a radio commen tator has an advantage—his audi ence can’t tell whether he can spell the words he uses or not. 1 This pamphlet caught my eye and held It. It was a reprint from Look magazine entitled “Your Last Chance.” You may have seen it. It moved me so much that 1 just couldn’t help talking about it on the air, and offering to pay for the first 500 pamphlets requested, providing a stamp was enclosed. I limited the requests to people in the following categories: insur ance men, salesmen, real estate men, teachers, clergymen, mechan ics, utilities workers, scientists and merchants. I did this, first, because I wanted to limit the number of applicants, and second, because the article con tained specific instructions as to what the people in the groups named could do to help prevent a cataclys mic war. I blandly overlooked the fact that somebody had to address envelopes, insert the pamphlets, mail them out. Public Interested In Prevention Requests began to arrive, so 1 called up the National Committee on Atomic Information which is near the Washington office of the West ern Newspaper Union; ordered the pamphlets; and had the nerve to ask the committee to mail them out. I didn’t know it then, but it costs the committee, which is, of course, a non-profit organization and skimps along on a handful of small cash, donations, four cents for the pam phlet, a cent and a half for the stamp, two cents to address the en velope, another cent to insert, seal and maill Eight and a half cents, altogether. My generous gesture toward preserving civilization had turned out to be rather lame. But that was only the beginning. An avalanche began to descend on me. At last count the requests reached over three thousand. The committee didn’t know what to do. The letters came from such an in telligent and earnest set of peopla who were so anxious to do some thing that the committee hated ta disappoint them. Twice, I begged the public to hold off, but the committee is still filling the requests while its funds hold out, or more donations come in. Which is what happens when you get an atom by the tail. « • • Questions Popularity Of Rail Nationalization Just after the bulletin carrte in over the nev/s ticker in my office announcing that the government in tended to take over the railroads, a railroad man happened to call me up about another matter. I congratulated him on his new job with Uncle Sam. He wasn’t very enthusiastic. He speculated on whether or not the men would go back to work if the government ordered them to do so. The miners, you recall, refused to obey govern ment orders when the government took over the soft coal mines dur ing the war, “Everybody ought to go on strike in the country,” he said. “If it gets bad enough, it may get better.” We mentioned the possibility ( of permanent government own ership of the railroads. My friend reminisced a little on the days when he was an employee of Uncle Sam once before, in World War I, when the govern ment did (to its sorrow) take over the railways. He said what happened then was that a man would come up to the ticket window and demand a draw ing room. Sorry, there were no more drawing rooms. Well, do you know who you’re working for, and who I am? I’m Senator Claghorn, and you’ll (something-something)— well, get the passenger out of that drawing room, and put me in it! My friend said he didn’t think the people would like it if the govern ment took over. Of course, we don’t like the black-berth-market now, ei ther. Time and again, every Pull man seat or berth will be reserved by the blackmarketeers. They hold them up to the last minute, and if they can’t sell at a premium, they cancel, just before the train leaves, half empty. The Chesapeake and Ohio ran an advertisement recently, begging the public to refuse to pay the premium, and help get a regu lation through which will provide for cancellation of reservations with in a reasonable time. The Twentieth Century fund finds that 80 per cent of the fur goods in dustry is located in New York. Is the rest of the country good-fur nothing? • ♦ ♦ There is no one so poor in self re spect, no one so truly inferior, as he who feels he must try to prove someone else is inferior to him. KKK, please note. Released by Western Newspaper Union. By VIRGINIA VALE JINX FALKENBERG and her husband, Tex McCrary, are doing such an outstanding job on their husband-and-wife radio program that it’s too bad they’re not on a coast-to-coast hookup. Maybe NBC will so something about it; now they’re just on the New York station, WEAF. Re cently they did their broadcast from a plane that hovered over New Jersey and Connecticut while they talked. Jinx, who’s forsaken the movies at least until the stork ar- JINX FALKENBERG rives, looked lovely in a coral-col ored coat, with a twist of colored stuff in her hair. McCrary’s news paper experience, plus his work during the war, add tremendously to the value of their program, of course. If NBC doesn’t have Fred Allen repeat the broadcast he and Talul lah Bankhead did on May 5, there’ll be a lot of disconsolate people wail ing for months because they missed it. It was hilarious. Those who did hear it are still talking about it, and repeating bits of dialogue for those who didn’t. It was one of Fred Al len’s best, which is saying plenty. —* Bob Hawk, CBS quipmaster, not only pinch-hit for ailing Arthur Godfrey on the latter’s morning broadcasts, he’s also substituted for Godfrey in the Broadway revue, “Three to Make Ready” mark ing his debut on the New York stage. —* For his starring role In RKO’s “Nocturne” George Raft will have the benefit of advice from one of Broadway’s most famous detec tives, Barny Ruditsky. Producer loan Harrison, a stickler for real ism, wants Raft to be an authentic replica of a real detective, not one of those unbelievable creatures we often see on the screen. Ruditsky Worked on cases involving famous gangsters for 20 years. —* The National Barn Dance orig inates from McLeansboro, 111., Saturday, June 8, when the gang joins the American Legion in a na tional homecoming celebration for National Comdr. John Stelle, which will end with an old-fashioned bar becue at midnight. W-. Bob Burns had to turn down an invitation to head the Hoboes’ Asso -1 ciation of America, but he does hold a life membership card in the association, having fulfilled the two big requirements —hoboing in ev ery state of the union and totaling 100,000 miles. —m Barbara Jo Allen, who created the man-chasing “Vera Vague” and then turned “Vera” into a dramatic star on a recent CBS “This Is My Best” broadcast, creates still an other character in the picture, “Earl Carroll’s Sketchbook,” now in production. In the movie she por trays a wise-cracking designer, but one who has no designs on any man! —* Parks Johnson and Warren Hull will return from vacation with a new sponsor, broadcasting “Vox Pop” at a new time they’ll re place the CBS “Inner Sanctum.” Meanwhile Parks is resting on his Texas ranch, and Hull’s doing some experimental television shows. * That Hollywood smallpox scare sort of wrecked Alan Hale. His vac cination not only took hold of his left arm, it took a bit of the arm with it, leaving quite a wound. Hale was temporarily out of the “Chey enne” cast. * ODDS AND ENDS—Producer Seymour Nebenzal discovered, in searching for a fat Chinaman to play a heavy in 44 The Chase," that there’s a shortage of them, so — he’s changed the script and is testing obese Chinese women. . . . Reese Taylor, of “ Young Dr. Malone," has been in radio 14 years, but he still suffers badly from mike fright. ... Tex lleneke and the Glenn Miller band have ten network wires weekly now; they’re featured on “Matinee at Meadowbrook” Saturdays, in addition to night-time programs. . . . Dick Nelson (“Life Can Re Beautiful”) has his epitaph ready—“ Here Lies an Actor. It that un usual?”