Heppner Gazette Times, April 2, 1942 3
MTfiflL
Washingon, D. C, April 2. From
every section of the country letters
are pouring in on congress to take
definite steps to remedy conditions
or else. The letters have rolled in
from Oregon, as elsewhere; hundreds
of them, thousands of letters and
telegrams. One senator received 20,
000; a house member received 13,
000. No one in the Oregon group
received such a number, but in pro
portion to the state's population they
had their average.
There are high" members of the
administration who consider this up
rising of the people as part of Axis
propaganda, but it stems from the
grassroots and nowhere else. People
are restless, dissatisfied. They have
just paid heavy income taxes, which
makes them conscious of appropria
tions for useless things; they have
seen their boys drafted into the ar
my at $21 a month, or go into the
navy, and they feel that they have
a personal interest in this war they
want everything that the boys need
to fight with. This makes produc
tion dominant.
Production is in the hands of la
bororganized labor and the peo
ple are losing patience with organ
ized labor for insisting on retention
of the 40-hour week, time and a half
for over-time and double time when
they work Sundays; and the people
are sour about the closed shop. They
cannot understand why the unions
are permitted to insist that no one
except a union member can work on
government construction or in a
war industry.
These are the major contributing
causes to the "prairie fire" which
has been sweeping the country. The
fact that office of civilian defense,
instead of educating the people in
what to do in a war raid, was more
interested in teaching square dances,
pingpong, tennis, bowling and other
sports was not aiding morale. Nor,
when congress expanded the civil
service regulations to give, under
certain conditions, pensions to con
gressmen did it make a hit with the
people.
Farm groups are angry because
the price control over farm pro
ducts has been misinterpreted and
called a grab. The farmers are an
gry, also, over what is happening to
the farm labor situation. Urged to
cultivate more, the farmer is at a
loss as to where he is to find help
in cultivating and harvesting his
crop. The draft is taking boys from
the farms; others are attracted by
the high wages in shipyards. Farm
machinery is most difficult to pur
chase; some implements are scarce;
tools for irrigation are scarce. There
will be no more milking machines
manufactured.
With administration officials try
ing to stem the rising tide by as
serting that there are no strikes,
that production is not being inter
fered with, that the 40-hour week
should be suspended, along comes
Truman Arnold, the trust-buster of
the department of justice, who ac
cuses unions of abusing power and
adds his. shovel of coal to the anti
union conflagration. According to
Arnold, the unions have been ex
ploiting the farmers, have impeded
transportation, forced businessmen
to employ useless labor, made it im
possible to get cheap mass produc
tion of housing, restricted the effi
cient use of men and machines, and
have independent businessmen and
farmers completely at their mercy.
With Arnold flying in the face of
administration policy, it is the be
lief that he will shortly be invited
to resign.
Secretary of Commerce Jesse
Jones, who has been under attack
and held responsible for the rubber
shortage, has struck back. Jones
makes a report saying that in 1940
the industrial defense board propos
ed financing the production of syn
thetic rubber at the rate of 100,000
tons a year, at a cost of $100,000,000.
Jones says that he took this rec
ommendation to President Roosevelt
and the president decided that $25,
000,000 was sufficient. Jones ex
presses the opinion that by the end
of 1943 synthetic rubber will be
produced in sufficient quantities to
make it available to the every-day
motorist provided the every-day
motorist still has a car at that time.
A county defense council in the
northwest has written to the public
health service requesting informa
tion concerning the possibility of
men contracting tuberculosis from
breathing aluminum dust. Dr. J. G.
Townsend, medical director of the
division of industrial hygiene, states
that aluminum dust alone has never
been incriminated either as causing
pulmonary fibrosis or as predispos
ing the worker to pulmonary tuber
culosis. An investigation of 50 wor
kers who had been exposed to the
dust from alumnia from five to 40
years in the furnaces of aluminum
works showed no ill effects. The
question was raised because of the
rapidly increasing aluminum indus
try in the northwest, with the pros
pect of additional plants in the near
future. '
A G-T want ad will do wonders
if you have anything to sell, trade
or exchange. Results every time.
Lamb Pelts With Short
Woo! Need of Airmen
America's air force is appealing
to sheep raisers of the country to
time the shearing of their spring
Jambs and yearlings so that the
pelts at slaughtering time will have
just the right amount of wool need
ed for manufacturing warm flying
suits for the airmen, says Dean
William A. Schoenfeld of Oregon
State college.
"This may sound like a peculiar
request, but it is made in dead ear
nest, according to the information
received at my office," said Dean
Schoenfeld. "It seems that wool on
skins used in manufacturing flying
suits must be between one-fourth
inch and one inch in length. If wool
is more than an inch long at slaugh
tering time, it is both difficult and
expensive to trim the wool to the
required length after the pelt is re
moved. "The entire output of these pelts,
known as 'shearlings,' has been re
servtd for military uses. The war
production board believes that more
than two million additional skins
suitable for flying suits can be ob
tained as a result of such a shear
ing program."
The best procedure to insure a
proper interval between shearing
and slaughtering is left to the judg
ment of the sheep raisers.
Ue've come a long vay in
Electric Rates, too!
15.38
A
5.10 N
PRICE OF 100 KWH
OF PP&L ELECTRICITY IN
HEPPNER HOMES
M.97
1926
1928
1931 1936
y :
1939
4.01
1942
J
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT made
these amazing reductions in your elec
tric rates without any help from the
public treasury! Pacific Power & Light
has put up all the money for its power
plants, transmission lines and sub
stations, and has taken all the risks of
pioneering and development.
Instead of receiving a tax subsidy,
PP&L has already paid over $10,000,000
in taxes. This year alone its rapidly in
creasing tax will exceed $1,000,000.
You get lower and lower electric rates
government gets more and more tax
money. Business management always
gives a better bargain!
AN AMERICAN BUSINESS ENTERPRISE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE
I