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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 29, 1942)
; PAGE FOUR MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFORD. OREGON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1942 " ' -- - - -n iriiiniMHiiin i in 1111 -irn- '-tJi-iiifiif -itiitj.r TTn i rnti Mni'iiintnMAiiifM A STORY EVERY AMERICAN CAN BE PROUD OF This is the Story of peopU'i trkmph...tht story of an ' aroused American public marching as to war. Marching wish "scrap. Millions oj tons of it...jrm homes, offices, "stores, public buildings and farms...frm cities, villages and hamlets. Millions of tons of "scrap for the steel mills... to enable then to produce the ships and tanks and planes and guns which our armed forces must hate to win the war. I t wat a major crisis that faced the nation early in September. If the steel mills didn't get more scrap metal soon, they would be forced to shut down. If the mills shut down...if our Army and Navy didnt get the arms and equipment they needed... how could we be sure of Victory? It was, said Donald Kelson, one of the nation's gravest war problems. . The War Production Board knew that only by arousing the people In every community, only by making them scrapping mad, could the problem be solved. It had to be a peopte's job, a people's crv ade. Nelson asked the newspapers of the country to lead it It was a big assignment Gladly and quickly the newspapers accepted It Almost overnight they set up national, sectional, state, and local committees. Almost overnight nearly every newspaper in the country was In action. ..and had enlisted the aid of local officials and the cooperation of civic, welfare, and religious organizations. The drive was launched by advertisements...large, small and medium. Prepared by the National Com mittee of Newspapers and adjusted for local use by local newspapers, they appeared almost overnight and continued almost every day in hundreds of newspapers throughout the country. They furnished the motivating power. They started the people go ing. And when the people got going, the newspapers gave the drive further momentum with news stories, pictures, cartoons and editorials. ..urging the public to get out more scrap, to fet oirf more scrap. Each community handled the drive in its own way... adopted, under the leadership of local news papers, special plans to fit its own local conditions. In thousands of communities there were local con tests, prizes, public meetings, special events. ..to speed the job along. Within a few days, the whole nation was scrap-conscious. When the drive was only 16 days old, a Gallup Poll showed that 94 per cent of the people knew about the great crusade, had read about the scrap campaign in their newspapers. The newspa pers, with their ads and their stories, had taken the drive into every home in the country. And within a few days, mountains of scrap began to pile up in thousands of dties, towns and villages. By truckload and bargeload and trainload the metal began to flow across the land to the mills. ..enabling the furnaces where Victory is being forged to glow again with the white heat of peak production. The war on the scrap front must go on, of course. The steel mills will need scrap metal as long as the war lasts. But this, the first great battle, is won. Donald Nelson wanted 4,000,000 tons of scrap in eight weeks. The people gave him more than 5,000,000 tons in three weeks. And that; said Vie Admiral S. M. Robinson, Chief of the Navy's Bureau of Procurement and Material; is enough scrap to build several times more battleships than there are In all the fleets of the world combined. That's the story, briefly. It's the story of 4 national triumph made up of thousands of local successes, in which local pride, local energy, and local leadership of newspapers went to work. It's a story fa which millions of Americans had 4 part. ..a story every American can be proud of. And k demonstrates once again the power of the press, its capacity to serve the public. ..and its ability not only to sell the people an idea, but to get them to do something about it. A s'a'emenf from nsu. ft murt U .p, 0Qhg 7 '"9 ft. W fA . ,rpo.rf my feflrfwf f TH t B V R EAU OF ADVE RTI S IN O AMERICAN N EW SPARER .PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION o I)
