; PAGE FOUR
MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFORD. OREGON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1942
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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.
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TH t B V R EAU OF ADVE RTI S IN O AMERICAN N EW SPARER .PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
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