Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 18, 1963)
MEDFOKD MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFOKD. OREGON WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18. 19tt A 5 Albania EDITOR'S NOTE Alba nia is a tiny, backward, im ! poverished and strongly Stal inist maverick among East European Communist coun tries. In the great ideological debate shaking the Communist world, Albania follows the Chinese rather than Russian lead. Its borders are rarely Birth Rate High, Food Supply Low, Churches Ignored crossed by Westerners. L'PI correspondent Rolf Breiten stein was one of the few West ern newsmen to visit Albania in recent months. His report follows. By ROLF BREITENSTEIN United Press International Albania is the poor backyard ADRIATIC AiPlHK TV ! ss. SEA. iL A tnwt YUGOSLAVIA KUKEJ . PESHKOPI TIN0 IALBANIAI FIER KMCfW GREECE THIS IS ALBANIA Communist Chinese tractors till the stonv soil of this country in the poor backyard ot Europe. Towering Stalin monuments still cast their shadows across the land. The Albanian Communists refused to dismantle them when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev launched his anti-Stalin drive. (UPI) Gardner Appointed To Vice President Of World Congress International honors have come again to Wilbur L. Gard ner, Medford shoe repairman, recognized as "father of shoe .labeling in the United States." The fourth world honor to come to him is appointment as an honorary vice president of the Third. World Congress to be held at Blackpool, England, in October, 1963. Gardner, who operates Gard ner Shoe Service on East Main St., was informed of the ap pointment by L. W. Impey, chairman of the Third Interna- - tional Shoe Repairers' Congress. The letter from England also reported Gardner's nomination -as delegate and representative of United Shoe Servicemen of American, Inc., to the congress. To Consider Committee Honorary vice presidents will be invited to consider forming an International Standing Com- . mittee which could meet at Blackpool during the Congress. The object of the committee would be to insure the con tinuity of the congresses. . Gardner's first world honor came in the form of the Gold en Heel award, which was pre sented in 1961 at the first in ternational congress of shoe re pairers held in Hanover, Ger many. The second was his appoint ment as one of four speakers to appear at the International Congress in Paris in 1962. -Repairman of Year He was named Shoe Repair man of the year and received a plaque from the United Shoe Servicemen of America for his distinguished service to the in dustry. Gardner was successful in establishing the Fourth Interna tional Congress to be held in New York City in 1964 by mak ing contacts with England and countries on the European con tinent. It was by working through the Shoe Service In stitute in Chicago, Gardner said, that he was able to make the necessary contacts. Rites Arranged tor Oregon FHA Director PORTLAND (UPI) - Funeral was to be held today for Howard C. Heydlauff, 50, deputy director for Oregon of the Fed eral Housing Administration who died Sunday at his home here. Heydlauff had been with the FHA since 1962 in Oregon. He was a member of the Oregon State Bar and Multnomah Bar association. DEFENSE BILL APPROVED WASHINGTON (UPI) The Senate Appropriations Commit tee approved Tuesday a $47.4 bil lion defense spending bill. It represented nearly half of the entire federal budget for the current fiscal year which ends next June 30. There's a MONOGRAM OIL HEATER in your Future! ind it can save you up to 40 on fuel bills Magic Miier Burner pives mnrr clean heat from every drop of oil . . . no soot or smoke, ever. Powerful Furnace-Type Blower ''optional cxlra) sprrads a blanket of warm air over the floors ( , it s amazingly quiet, too. 3-Way Heat Circulation givca "Living Level Comfort." Twin-Tube Heat Exchanger squeezes the maximum warmth from every drop of oil buriu d cut fuel costs. FREE! Indoor-Outdoor Thermometer Set When you nun-hat mmi any mod! Mooofram Hct. You will ha proud lo own thta iH ldokine matched pair of accural !; Huo-iywrll IhermomeUra. 25 models . . . priced as low as $93.75 BURNER SERVICE BUDGET PAYMENTS WESTERN OIL & BURNER CO. 5 South Stage Rd. Phone 772-5266 of Europe. Communist Chinese i tractors till its stony soil in the shadow ot towering Malm mon uments which the Albanian Com unists stubbornly refuse to dis mantle after Soviet Premier Ni kita Khrushchev launched his anti-Stalin campaign. j Albania hit the headlines when ' its strongman Enver Hoxha re-; fused to fall in line with Khru shchev and made the tiny south-1 east European country Peking's only ally outside Asia in its , ideological warfare with Khru shchev, j Otherwise outsiders see and hear little about the mountain- j ous, highly underdeveloped coun try of 10,b29 square miles, about the size of the state of Mary land. Few Visitors Only about two dozen foreign ers from Western countries crossed Albanian borders in re-1 cent months, this correspondent, among them. I The 1,625,000 shqipetars, "sons of the eagle," as they proudly call themselves, live surrounded by the Adriatic Sea and high 1 mountains. I Albania shares a long border with Yugoslavia, ruled by Presi dent Hoxha's arch-enemy, Mar shal Broz Tito. Albania lost 28,000 guerrilla fighters in World War II, and the population in 1945 stood be low one million. About 16,000 more sons of the eagle died be fore firing squads and in prison cells, according to Western sta tistics, when Hoxha brought the Communist cadres under h i s thumb. Birth Kate High Albanians, however, quickly made up for it. The birth rate is 31 per 1,000 a year, one of the highest in the world. In the United States the birth rate is about 23 per 1,000. The 55-year-old Albanian dic tator Hoxha contributed two sons to the baby boom and encouraged it by a monthly al lowance of 400 lcke for the first and 200 leke for any further baby. Four hundred leke is a lot of money in Albania. It is just over $3 according to the latest, but highly misleading, tourist exchange rate. An unskilled Albanian worker earns up to 5,000 lcke a month, working seven-hour shifts six days a week. Five thousand leke will buy two pairs of high-priced poor quality shoes. Eggs sell for 7 to 9 leke dur ing the season. A pack of 20 cigarettes costs 20 leke. Shortages Exist Manufactured goods and even foodstuffs are short in supply. Albania's exports of chrome, nickel, asphalt, copper, tobacco and olives are not buying much in return, and the country s mineral resources in the north are not yet fully exploited. State - distributed apartments j are inexpensive, as in most j Communist countries. A young man playing the hautboy in the ! Tirana theater orchestra said he , is navine 100 leke per montn i for a one-bedroom apartment for his family of three in Ai-1 bania's capital. The hautbov player manes , 8,000 leke a month, which puts him in the top income bracket. I An elementary school teacher earns about 6,000 leke per month ; and scholarships for students at the Tirana University amount to 3,000 leke per month. Lack Religions Youngsters spend much time with the Communist youth or ganization "Young Pioneers." j Hardly any ever go to church, i Every second Albanian citizen is Moslem, the rest are Roman Catholics or members of the unique Albanian Orthodox church. The official party line is a complete separation between state and churches with no in terference from either side. But state workers took away . the lead from the previously ! lead-roofed Dschamija Plumit ; Mosque near Shkodra in south ern Albania, the most beautiful mosque in the country, and con verted it into a cow shed. Chapel Is Pub An Albanian-Orthodox chapel, sharing a hillside near Tirana with old King Zog's castle and a cemetery (or guerrilla fighters, serves as a pub. The bar counter replaced the altar and bottles of raki and sweet Albanian cognac took the place of the ikons be hind it. About two dozen faithful at tend Mass in Tirana's only Ro man Catholic church on a Sun day morning. "My children and I do not believe in God any longer," a party official said very firmly. Were his children christened? After some hesitation he an swered affirmatively. When night falls, the sons of the eagle and the girls, loo seem to forget about the daily toil and hardships and try their wings when the hands nlav it ud in the "people's parks." Sixth Potato festival At Redmond Saturday REDMOND (I'Pn-Thc sixth annual Potato Festival will be held here Saturday. Lloyd Wanswer of Caldwell, Idaho, national old-time fid dling champion, Is scheduled to appear during the event. VA tail . . i wnai a reception! Never nave we shown a new product that caused such a stir, Imagine ... a sleek 12-pounder with an 11 -inch screen and priced under a hundred dollars! General Electric's new "Personal Portable" is a triumph of American engineering. Come in and see it . . . heft it . . . and resist owning it, if you can. Seldom do you get a quality improvement and a price reduction at the same time. In this case, technical ingenuity did just that. . . . Better performance, greater dependability, and the clearest, brightest picture of all! So good it has a lifetime guarantee on the precision-etched circuit board, a one year warranty on the picture tube, and a 90-day warranty on all other parts. V 4f k .... ' SEE COLOR TV OPEN MON. & WED. PilTES TILL 9 p.m. Drop in Monday or Wednesday night and watch color TV in the comfort of our TV viewing room. On Mondays watch "Monday Night at the Movies"; Wednesdays watch "The Virginian". We'll stay open these nights so you can watch TV as it should be in brilliant G.E. COLOR. Join the fun . . . at HAPCO Tonight! " 'v" COLOR TV BY G.E. IS BETTER TV HOME APPLIANCE COMPANY 115 EAST MAIN-MEDFORD
