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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (July 18, 1960)
10 A TheyTl Do It Every Time By Jimmy Hatlo "TT i ..r.enne TUiDfVRASE. COACH, ISTHETRItKlcsi aOT"1- - IM THE MAJOW LOOKA THE S.TEW to signal a Waitress M JtA?? M0 dash-he CANT 6CT ni.rrvflT IW HIV&T BASE ftlm&ftft PRACTtCALLV WON J LVHOC mmifiOll EfK Jk m OM miss ta Dignity of Human Being Reduced on German Farms rdltor's Not: John A. Cilicott of untced Presi International's Bonn aurean Just coninleted a three-day tour of Communist East Germany. AS me miest or uie communists, ne spoke lo party functionaries and law the official sites. As a report er. CaUeott Ulked to non-Darty members and departed the tour schedule whenever possible. Here if nts report on wnat ne saw ana neara. By JOHN CALLCOTT Leipzig, East Germany-flJPI) , -One work unit equals one three - day old calf equals eight marks-$2-plus three pounas or potatoes ana two pounds of grain. . The dignity of the human being has been reduced to this equation by this coun try's Communist regime. . There are 19,366 collective farms in East Germany. Of these, nearly 10,000 were es tablished by force in the first six months of this year. There are no independent farmers left. For one eight-hour day chopping sugar beets a work er receives 1.2 work units. A day spent spreading ma nure is worth 1.4 units. A day's ploughing is l.S units. For the person who cares for a cow giving birth, there is one unit when the calf is three-days old. For the per son who tends the cows there is 0.8 of a unit for every 25 gallons of milk with a 3.5 fat content. The average monthly sal ary for a male farm worker is 380 .marks (S95) and for a woman, 2S0 marks ($62). A man s sun costs zou marcs. Asked To Be Objective Gerhard Grueneburg, a candidate for East Germany's Communis', party politbureau, said, -to foreign newsmen at a press conference here: "We ask only one thing of you. We ask you to be ob- : jective and tell the world that no force was used here. Our farmers asked to join the co operative farms." Said one farmer,, in a pri vate conversation: "Oh yes, 1 joined. I had no fhoice. They limited my Income, prevented my buy- " lng machinery, .forced me to sell 70 tons of grain a year to . the state." . V 1 He received 11 marte a ton from the state. He would have I received 30 marks a ton on the free market. ' . His income is now limited 'to 800 marks a month. Had he been able to keep his 70 acre farm and free to trade - as he pleased, the farmer said, his income would have been more than 2,500 marks monthly. Sixty per cent of 900,000 .persons working on East Ger many's collective farms are women. . "If the women want equal ity, they have to be prepared to do a man's work," said one party official. Asked if he had notired that nearly every person seen working in the field was a ' woman, asked why the "com mittees" running collectives , are composed of men who get their "work units" with out having to put their hand to a hoe, he had no reply. Never theless, collective farms may succeed in East Germany. Production is gradually in ' creasing although there are . signs of scarcity, and such things as bananas, pineapples, ' lemons and oranges are never seen In the shops. But the regime may well succeed - at. the cost of the people. . . ' The cows are fed lo pro vide milk; and tractors are fueled to run, workers are fed such party slogans as ' socialism win oe victorious, to keep them working, and to prevent an explosion in which farm laborers would take up their pitchforks against the "people's army." y .. The f'Karl Marx" collective a few miles from Eisleden was established In 1S82. Until 1958, not one worker, man or woman, had a holiday, the farm's "chairman," a man of 32, admitted. "But last year," he said, his face brightening with pride, "two of our women comrades went on holiday to the Baltic sea." Officials acknowledged that only about 100 of East Ger many's more than 19,000 col lective farms can exist with out state aid - made in the form of "credits" carrying a three per cent interest rate. Yet one official said that all farms will soon be self-sup porting, perhaps in five years. The "Friedrich Engels" col lective is near the "Karl Marx" farm. "Engels" also was establish ed in 1952. Yet it is dingy, the buildings are old and smelly. I saw flies floating in the milk. Pointing to the skeleton of a cow shed being built, one of our guides said, "You see, we are building fast now." His face darkened when one farmer said: 'Yes, the state was good enough to sell us scrap iron cheaply to build it." Trained at College Men to head the collectives are trained at Bernburg, an agriculture college, where farmers are trained to run large farms and receive eight hours of "political education" a week. Next to the college is a "seed research station," which is doing much to improve the quality of farm produce. - The .research station has 22 scientists, 50 assistants and 380 people working in fields in which new seed strains are tested. The head of the station said privately he and his staff are far removed from the con stant blare, of Communist propaganda. ' "" , "If we weren't,' we would n't be able to concentrate as we do," he said. But the conversation came to an abrupt end when an un obstrusive man came up, a man who had accompanied us on the entire journey without talking to anyone. "He's one of those, well, you know," a bus driver told me. No Hop in Facts While the official touring party visited a nearby castle, I slipped away to the little town of Bernburg and spent two hours walking the streets, talking to people' and sitting on a bench in the market place.' The square is domi' nated by a giant picture of Ernst Thaelmann, pre - war leader of the German Com munist party, who was killed by the Naz's at Buchenwald. This town has 16,000 in habitants and for them, the war has not ended. It might well be 1944. There is no hope in the faces of the people. Their clothes are of the poorest quality. The men still wear the black "muetze" or peaked caps which was the symbol of a German working' man during the war. : i With the very dinginess of tneir shops, their complete lack of interest in business, they are fightinj! a silent, oili- ful battle against the regime which is now putting small shopkeepers - butchers, bak ers, grocers, shoemakers, even hairdressers - out of business and their concerns under state control. One grocer had cherries on display. Eleven women were lined up to buy from a stand outside the shop. Inside, there were more cherries. I asked for half-a-pound. The shopkeeper's wife said I should buy them outside. Told that would take too long, she simply shrugged her shoulders, and continued do ing nothing. In one store bars of choco late had been lying for so long they were black with dirt. A packet of nylons in another window" was thick with dust. They cost 12 marks more than half a day's work. Packets of film in the window of a camera store was crinkel- ed and black with age. Storekeepers haven't put a touch of paint to their shops since Before the war. "Why should I," a fish monger said, "when the shop belongs to me on paper only?" , . A mother told me she had complained to her child about the political education he was receiving. The child, an 11- year-old boy, said: "If you say that again I'll tell my teacher, who told us to report that sort of thing." Her boy, the mother said, was thrashed by his father. But how could that bring back his mind and heart? Vegetables Not Fresh In the market place a wom an went by, carrying a shop ping bag in which there was one cauliflower. It was brown, because by the time a farm has been told where to send its produce, but the time transport is arranged, by the time a shop is told where to get its supplies, vegetables are no longer fresh. This woman was about 30. Her eyes were sunken. When a truck of Russian soldiers went by, she looked straight ahead. A pre-war automobile drove up to the rusty gasoline pump. For each gallon the driver paid six marks ($1.50). The town idiot joined me down on the bench. Two small children, a brother and sister about five years old, began asking him questions. He said his name was "Peepi," he wasn't married, had no girl friend and was not an officer in the army,' I asked him if he knew the man on the picture above us, the picture of Ernst Thael man. "Who? Who?" he replied. "Peepi" Is, I believe, the happiest man In Bernburg. MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD, ORE. MONDAY. JULY II, 1110 jAksUasW4SjsdaViJ WMaaaMBSsfeeaask dWJHMaValllaLrts mmmmmmmtmwm saaaiaaaass awaeVasssaiaiavs easeesassBBe .BIG, 'J- '. )' t: H 1 1 M I anaaaassii em a. I III -saw ' (! vr .f TV. 7ws 8,000 HJUWn sports nmt txonemy Site 69c Ura 31m 60c 59 Cksmi 49,i Menlhel OlanlSn 79 1 .. ... u.:, ..hU-n dan to halo vou oel the most from your r 1 1 1 . ,- . : J . J mmI ufftaklv mjrchaiM that l.'vj i : rood uuagOT. " ibhii 7 w r" -t 1 . ip-v f ;? c ' result in substantial sayings for you. Everyday prie ore as low . . I - jT ,(r m Dossibl at all times. Step m and let M help you o Ire. ' U f J, , better for lew. ROGUE DISTRIBUTORS CAMPBELL'S TOMATOJUICE VAN CAMPS PORK BEANS 46 cn. can No. 2'i can O tod , ; i t 7 r. 1 vaar 7: ! 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