22
D Q O REGONIANS CARE?
In the February 1947 issue of
Harper’s Magazine there appears an ar
ticle by Richard L. Neuberger pf Port
land, entitled “ I R un for Office.’’ .
Apparently people have a tendency
to »be either far-sighted or near-sighted
and too infrequently geared for dual-
distance sight.
"Indeed, two campaigns for a seat
in, the Oregon Legislature,” says Mt.
Neuberger, "have made me wonder
whether people really care much at all
about local government. Have we
thought about the atomic bomb to the
exclusion; of the schoolhouse on the
corner?”
"I spoke at mote than five hundred
meetings during the 1946 campaign
and found no genuine interest in the
problems of our home tqwn. People
wanted England to do something about
India und Palestine, but would ”dio noth
ing themselves to clean up the pollution
choking the salmon in the fiver which
flowed thrOUgh the center of our city
(Portland). The atomic bomb and our
relations w ith Russia were exciting;
sewage disposaKih the Willamette river
was hufndrum— and, even more de
pressing, it required the assessment of
local taxes. In fact, when I mentioned
pollution at one or two meetings, peo
ple dismissed the topic w ith a single
comment:
" 'W e’ll get a federal grant ^to take
care of'-it « a z :
A fter discussing the incompatibility
of a political and a writing career, Mr.
Neuberger concludes, "The case'against
making politics my career is strong . . .
Yet the argument is only 99 44-100
percent pure. The other fraction dis
turbs me occasionally. When I see Ore
gon’s teachers paid -the lowest salaries
on the .Coast, when I . see a private
utility Company selling the power from
the dam at Bonneville w h ich 1 the peo
ple built and paid for, when I see a
Japanese-American soldier w ith forty-
dne blood transfusions denied; a hotel
room on a rainy night;, when I see a
million-dollar race track rising while
veterans cannot construct homes-—-then
my blood pressure rises, too, and I won
der if any cáse is strong enough to im
pel abdication in favor o f those who
tolerate these things.”
Neuberger has more to say in his
article, which many Oregonians might
like to read.
TEACH ER SALARY PROBLEM
| FOR 1947-48
(Ekcerpt from Sierra Education News,
California Teachers Association)
California Teachers Association in
1946 made a thorough survey of the
cost-of-living as it affects the economic
status of teachers. The CTA report, is
sued in March 1946, revealed th at the
cost-of-living, based on, the reliable
data of the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
was; up 33% , using the average for
1935.-1939 as
It is of stark significance, in the
light of this increase, that, only a few
salary schedules prevailing' this year,
1946-4^%show the same percentage of
increase over prewar salaries. Since the
study was made the picture has become
still more' gloomy, because salaries set
iii the spring of 1946 naturally took
no account of the sharp increase in the
cost-of-living during,- the past six
months. The cost-of-living index at the
close of 1946 was 153, or 20 points
higher than , that of last spring..
As'¿he result of the wide difference
between increases in the cost-of-living
and the increase , in their salaries* teach
ers during this school year have experi
enced ' the most difficult financial
stringency of any year since . the war
began. ,
A recent study, reported in United
States News of December
1946,
states that fulj-time earnings of indus
trial) employees have increased 7 ^ S .
since 1939, while those pf teachers in
creased only 31%.
T h rift is the greàtest of all virtues,;—
especially if 'i t was practiced by our
immediate ancestors.
— Highways of Happiness