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About Vernonia eagle. (Vernonia, Or.) 1922-1974 | View Entire Issue (April 2, 1942)
4 Thursday, April 2, 1942, Vernonia Eagle, Vernonia, Oregon Comments thfe Week THE POCKETBOOK of KNOWLEDGE THE CCC AND FOREST PROTECTION The protection of forest resources in the Pacific Coast states in summer months when the danger from fire is greatest will continue to be enhanced by the CCC units which have dona much in that respect in past years. CCC camps probably would be a thing of the past were it not for the great need for the men in those camps during the fire season, but in the northwest they are to remain for that one reason. Officials recently have often expressed the thought that danger from fire this year would be far greater due to the war and that discontinuance of the CCC would seriously hamper means of fighting forest fires. The decision to maintain the CCC for that purpose was a wise one. AIRCRAFT OBSERVERS NEEDED An appeal is issued this week by George Nelson. County Aircraft Warning Service chairman, for additional observers to stand watch at observation posts. The observers, as a group, was the first unit of civilian defense to be organized and is one of the most important for protection. Since the beginning, dif ficulty has been experienced in obtaining watchers. Those people who have some free time can be of much assistance by volun teering their services for the work. COLUMBIA RIVER PUD PLANS ELECTION DRAFT BOARD GETS MASTER LIST A master list containing order numbers for the 1359 Columbia county men who registered Febru ary 16 for the draft was receivea last Wednesday by the selective ser vice board. The board, which had previously assigned serial numbers to these registrants, will make up an alphabetical list of all those who signed up last month and will post this lirt so that men may determine their order numbers. It is expected that the necessary work involved in this task will take at least two weeks and information relative to order numbers wil. not be released before this list is com pleted. It is not anticipated that any of the men who were signed up last month will be called for military service before May or .Tune, but this will depend on quotas assigned here. The last draft contingent, sent about three weeks ago, numbered nearly 60 and was the largest ever to be dispatched from Columbia county. Clatskanie PASSENGER TRAIN TO STOP The passenger train service from Portland to Seaside will be discon tinued and will be effective on Sun- nay, April lWh, according to an nouncements made by the Spokane, Portland and Seattle railway offic ials. The action was taken, it is un derstood. by the admonition from the national transportation co-ord inator that all un-necessiry trains be eliminated to conserve fuel, man power and rolling stock. In view of the fact that the train carries mail in addition to passen gers. some other arrangements will The Vernonia Eagle MARVIN KAM HOLZ Editor and Publisher Entered as second class mail matter. August 4. 1922. at the post office in Vernonia. Oregon, under the act of March 3, 1879. Official newspaper of Vernonia, Ore 0 » E cjoO CW $ í¡> EI P U B 11 S If E IS 44$ A TI 0 N Portland, Ore., April 1—There will be no shortage of candidates this election. If you had seen the last minute deluge of filings last Monday, which was the deadline foi the boys and girs to toss their hats into the ring, you would have been surprised. Candidates galore trot ted down to Salem in order to per sonally file their declaration of candidacy for every office on the ticket and Monday's mail bi-ough in many more. So, Mr. and Mrs. Oregon voter will have quite a list to pick from come May 15. The kingmakers of both parties will now concentrate their entire efforts for the next few weeks on registration of voters, April 14 being the last day. * * A Into the CCC camps of the Doug las fir and pine region of the north west. extending from the coast acitoss the mountains into Idaho and western Montana, will won be thousands of lads whose principal occupation will be guarding against forest fires—incendiary, lightning or campers. Aside front the forest fire work and some labor on mili tary reservations, the once great army of CCC enrollees which was more than a half million a few years ago, is a thing of the past. Throughout the country there arc now 600 camps and these will be reduced on July 1 when the fiscal year begins. But for the hazard of forest fire, practically every camp in the fai wrest would be closed and boards battened over the windows. Tintbei owners, the forest service and mili tary officials stepped in to save th? CCC out in the timber lands. All recognise that the greatest menace to the region is forest fire. This niralifies CCC as doing war work. No new camps will be established, for there are in existence sufficient for the purpose, located wherte they can do the most good. Approximate ly 150 camps will be maintained Industry is working hand-in-hand with Secretary of the Treasury Mor- gent ha u on the voluntary payroll allotment plan for selling war sav ings bonds. Of the employers who have more than 500 workers, ap- proximately 70 per cent have al- le-ady signed up. The plan provides for purchase by employees of sav ings bonds on a weekly basis. Congress is waiting to see how this plan works out before i..-k''n? up its mind about compulsory sav ings for ail wage earners. by^jAMES P reston have to be made for this service. The train at the present time makes but one round trip a day, where un til about a year ago it had made two round trips daily. The board of directors Of the Co DEFENSE CLASSES HAVE lumbia river peoples' utility district SENT OUT 114 MEN The local national defense train at a meeting held last Saturday at the Columbia county fairgrounds un ing schools have, after ten months animously approved a resolution of operation, placed 114 men in the providing for holding a revenue various shipyards and aircraft fac -bond election May 15. Voters will tories. Sixty-two have received employ decide whether the district may or may not issue up to $1,250,000 in ment in the aircraft factories from revenue bonds to acquire or con- the sheet metal class; 30 have gone sbitict an electric distribution sys to the shipyards from the welding tem and make necessary improve class; and 22 from the machinist ments and extension of su-ch a sys class have gene into defense indus tries. tem when it is acquired. Owing to the steady demand for Although only voters in the PUD itself, which embraces territory out men, arrangements are being made side of incorporated towns from the to handle a larger class in sheet Rainier area to the Scappoose dis work which will begin Monday, trict, may ballot on the question of March 30th. The age limits now in issuing bonds, residents of St. Hel clude all from 18 to 50 inclusive. All of the local classes are spon ens, Rainier, Columbia City, Goble and ScappoO.se likewise have a stake sored and paid for by the federal in the matter. Directors of the PUD government under the national de pointed out that the distribution sys fense program. tem which might be purchased in cluded lines in areas adjacent to the present boundaries of the dis trict and in the towns mentioned here. reports that farmers are using their current larger incomes to reduce «heir farm mortgage debts. The statement is based on payment» on principal to Federal land banks. ($a¿liinqton ■ ^nupshets County News St. Helens operatives suggests making ware houses of wood or of concrete, but nails, iron, roofing and pipe aire tn the hard-ito-get category. Says A. C. Adams of the Spokane bank: “Wheat stands relatively low on the ladder of necessity for war pur pose« at the present time, and there fore no matter what the priority rating may be, it must be expected that actual' supplies of critical ma terials will not be enough to go around.” N. E. Dodd, director of western division of Triple A, says that bulk facilities are contemplated in Ore gon, Washington and Idaho and that he is trying to convince WPB ot the importance of these storage bins. If, explains the Triple A man, the WPB can issue a directive re quiring manufacturers of nails to divert their facilities to that pro duction the situation will be eased for the wheat growers. Out of the Woods War in the Backwoods , . , The old spruce was so tall that it seemed to poke its crown right mto the low-riding rain clouds from the Pacific. The high boughs were shag gy with moss. John Lund peered up at them, and remarked: “When I was a boy my dad used to tell me the old man of the woods lived in the top of this spruce and that he’d shed his whiskers every spring for a thousand years on its limbs. I can still half-way believe he’ll sail down, hollering his head off, when we drop the tree.” Ca.1 Skjallgson, the gyppo logger, let the fancy slide by him. A mat of fact, he went on talking about bow much airplane lumber the big sltick probably had under its bark. I sat apart, on a hemlock wind fall. Carl had offered me a Sunday morning ride to the Lund place, up a 'back-timber creek where the spruce grows tall. The last dozen miles had been tough going, and trucking John Lund’s bunch of spruce out would be a rugged chore. But it had to be done. We were in a war. It was going to take the build ing of 185,000 planes in a couple of years. That meant spruce, slews of spruce. It was war, even in the back- woods now, in every nook and cran ny that a stick of airplane stock was to be had. The Forest Sector ... b+evens guns; and into hangars, warehouses, embarkation depots, boxcars, crates, for the storage and shipment of ar maments. New cantonments, more detense housing— A Letter from England . . . D'own on the coast the night be fore I’d run into something else that made a human highlight on lumber in this fight for freedom. The previous fall a lumber-worker in the spruce mill had lost his dri ver’s license. Around Christmas timj he got a letter from a wood-worker in a small shop in England wnete spruce parts were built up for the fighting ships of the R. A. F. His driver's license was inside. It hao been 'found in a spruce unit from the local mill. A little human touch that brought the men of a place tn Oregon and of a place in England into fellowship, though a continent and an ocean lay between them. John Lund, one of the 35,00b timber-owners in Oregon and Wash ington. Carl Skjallgsop, one of 2,- 000 logging operators in the two states. The local man who was or.e of a hundred thousand and more loggers and lumber workers. The ■one among millions of war-industry workers in England. Four men ot the forest and ns products. Trees and work a bond between them. Beat ’em with Timber . . , John and Carl closed their dea . There was no big patriotic talk on it, though there might well have been. The hillside above the Luna home was going to I'ook tough for a few years, with nothing left but stumps fix>m the king spruce ana its 20-odd mates, until young trees l.ad greened over them. Carl was making a gamMe he’d never have made ordinarily. Whatever money each man might make would run off mainly in war taxes, soon or late. And the lumber-workers here and in England certainly were not Suing to get rich from their jobs. The real thing with all four was to knock out the Enemy nations. Thetr particular common purpose was to Try to get the picture of all the Pacific Northwest forest sector tn this war, and you will soon be lost. The tree's are marching out of the woods from a thousand operations ■to a thousand mills. Beyond the loading docks lumber goes over sea lanes and railroads to a thousano centers of the war effort. The march of the trees is into the new shipways in which more mil lions of ships will be built, and into the forests of scaffolding about the keels. The trees will march into Umber trusses and other construc tion lumber for new factories and shops for production of tens of thousands more planes, tanks and beat ’em with timber . . . and as each camp has a capaity of 200 men this makes a force of some 30,000 watching for the red wolf of the forest. In money it will repre sent $30,000,000 for one year’s maintenance, a small sum compared with the damage that could be vC- asioned by a forest conflagration. • • • By seven votes the lower house of congress, in the committee of the whole house, rejected an amend ment which would prevent any funds for Bonneville-Grand Coulee administration from being used di rectly or indirectly to influence pu bic utility eletions. The author was Representatives Jones of Ohio, who was opposed by Representatives Leavy and Hill of Washington and Pierce of Oregon. In offering his amendment Jones said: “I am in terested in seeing that the federal government does not spend money to thimblerig elections in Washing ton and Oregon. I believe the fig ures of the bureau of the budget show some 265 part-time employees of Bonneville power administration for this kind of wo-k. It is damn able that money should be spent in that way when it is claimed in be half of these appropriations that they are ali for national defense." Jones said the payroll of the field men was $67,698 and with other expenses made a total of $103,000 for thimblerigging elections.” » « » Office of price administration is writing to the canneries of the northwest asking for infoitnation that is net available. OPA wants to know what the canneries will pay for the raw product from the farms this year, and what they expect to charge for the finished product. Canners come back with the explan ation that no one, at this time, knows what it will cost to harvest the fruit, berries and vegetable», for it is impossible to forecast what wages will be paid. There is a ,abor shortage and this will play a part in prices. Then there is the matter of tin for containers, etc. The can ners are as anxious as OPA to know the answers. a a a Wheat fa Triers are writing from the three northwestern states to Washington for assistance. They re quire storage for their grain. The galvanized iron which was made available to farmers last year is now off the list. The prin-inal dif ficulty is in obtaining priorty rat ings. The Spokane Bank for Co- A couple of the Washington newspaper correspondents were talk ing about the war'the other day . . . nothing specific . . . just “the mess we’re in,” as one of them put it. After some lamenting, some drag ging over the coals, and lots of theo ries about what’s wrong, one Cf the boys with his ear to the ground picked up a well-known Washington daily. News was depressing . . . hard to be a Pollyanna about, everyone had to admit. But there were bright sports .... “straws in the wind,” our friend called them. Here are a few he found in that one paper. An expanded program of alumi num production was announced by William L. Batt, head of the mate rials division of the War Production Board. The program is scheduled to reach an annual production of more than 2,500,000,000 pounds—enough aluminum to build 60,000 airplane» this year and 125,000 planes next year. . . . Within a single year one of the nation’s small-arms manufacturers is scheduling production so that it can turn out more small-arms ammuni tion than was p.uduced by all man ufacturers in the United States throughout the four years of the World War. . . . A large automobile company, con verted to the production of war ma terials, built three new plants to make aircraft engines. The number of workers in these new plants will exceed the total employment of the company’s entire peacetime staft. . . Another well-known manufactur er announced a plan for giving em ployees defense bonds and stamps for workable suggestions. Any sug gestions dealing with increasing pro duction on the employee’s own job, or for improving quality, saving ma terial, reducing waste, or improving working conditions generally are welcome. Another huppy side to the news —Congressmen report that the home folks ara coming through in the pre sent crisis. For example, one representative reported that a whole city was re arranging its life to cut down trans portation waste. In order to con serve tires and to ease bus trans portation, which is absolutely es sential for war workers, schools and stores will vary opening and closing hours, factories will stagger their shifts, and pay days will be spread through ‘at the week. Another member of Congress lauds the resourcefulness of manage ment as evidenced by the tough pro blems they tackled and solved in changing over from peacetime to war production.. He comes from an industrial region which until recent ly housed an essentially light metal working industry, and is now work ing on the production of heavy goods. Speed too great for conditions is a factor in at least one out of every three traffic accidents, figures com piled at the office of the state traf fic safety drvision indicate. Speed is an element in virtually every accident because in many cas es it contributes to the situation which leads directly to the disaster, it w. s declared. Under present con ditions, with roads carrying heavy traffic loads and with thousands ot vehicles concentrated in centers of dense population, drivers must hold their speed down as an accident-pre ventative measure. Drivers are urged to regulato tlie'r speed so that they can ston safely within the distance aho»d they can see to be clear and unob structed. Lodges Vernonia Lodge No. 246 I.O.O.F. Meets Every Tuesday 8 P. M. Harry George, N. G. Dwight Strong, Secretary 4-42 Vernonia F. O. E. Order of Eagles) I.O.O.F. Hall Vernonia 2nd and 4th Friday Nights 8 o'clock Arthur Kirk, W. P. Willis Johnson, W. Sev’y. 7-41 Knights of Pythias Harding Lodge No. 116 Vernonia, Oregon Meetings:—I. O. O. F. Hall, Second and Fourth Mondays Each . Month. Pythian Sisters Vernonia Temple No. 61 Vernonia, Oregon Meeting»:— I. O. O F. Hall Second and Fourth Wednesdays Each Month 2-41 Order of Eastern Star 153, O. E. S. Regular Communi cation first and third Wednesdays of each month, at Masonic Temple. All visiting sisters and brothers wel- Odds and Ends: An unpublicized enme. ruling of the Treasury Department Verla Porterfield, Worthy Matron unobtrusively upset 150 years of in Mona Gordon, Secretary 1-42 ternational law. Diplomats must now pay U. S. taxes, like the excises on A. F. & A. M. liquor, jewelry, etc., and the-income Vernonia Lodge No. 184 tax on income derived within this A. F. & A. M. meets at Masonic Temple, Stat- country. Salaries from home are ed Communication First not touched. Thursday of each month. Special called meetings Public interest in the men who other Thursday nights. 7:30 make our laws led to an unofficial Visitors most cordially wel- survey of who did what for a living tome. Special meetings Friday night». before coming to the Capitol. Elmore Knight, W. M. Results show that among the Glenn F. Hawkins/Sec. 1-4s members of Congress 310 are at torneys, 50 are busines-men, 34 are VERNONIA farmers, 34 are editors. 27 are real POST 11» estate and insurance men, 17 are AMERICAN professors and teachers, 14 are doc LEGION tors and dentists. 10 are investment Meet» First Wed. and banking men. 5 are engineers Third Mon. and 14 have devoted their careers and °f Each Month. to public service. The Department ot Agriculture Nehalem Chapter AUXILIARY First and Third Mondays 1-41
