Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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PAGE FIVE The newbErry suh FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1942 _ EDITORIAL APPEARING IN THE COLUMBIA RECORD ON NOVEMBER 25, 1942 HAMPERED War manpower commission offi cials in Washington are disturbed by restrictions of one sort and another upon the United States Employment Service. It is claimed that effective functioning of the service has been hampered by lack of funds, bv crip pling legislation by congress and by lack of cooperation by the states. Last December President Roose velt sent telegrams to all the state governors asking them to permit in- corporaion of the state employment services in a national employment service. The governors unanimously complied but other states officials particularly uemployment compen sation administrators who were also administrators of the state employ ment agencies in many instances—j apparently did not like the idea.! Some of them at least are accused i of havig lobbied for three stipula-l tions in the appropriation bill pro viding for the United States employ I ment Service for 1943. These pro vide that the employment service is to be returned to the states after the war; that the salaries of federal service employees be frozen at levels, prevailing in the states; that certain' employees be transferred to state payrolls and be made subject only to state supervision and direction. A further handicap complained of is that the war manpower commis sion employees paid $4,500 a year or more must be approved by the senate —a well known patronage device. The senate practice is to refuse to approve appointments if the senator from the state in which the appointee , is to serve objects to him on the ground that the individual in ques- • tion is “personally obnoxious.” It is claimed that the lack of ade quate appropriations plus these re strictions have caused a large turn over of staff in the United States employment offices throughout the country. Moreover, old state laws known as “emigrant agent laws” have been used to prevent the shift ing of workers from areas of under employment to areas where there are critical labor shortages. Ten states have such laws: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, .South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Emigrant agent laws were enacted to prevent depletion of the labor forces within the states. They were directed in the first place against employment agencies endeavoring to recruit labor for transportation out of the state. The method of obstruc tion was to require such high license fees that no agent could afford to so licit labor in the state. In Georgia and in South Carolina representatives of the United States Employment Service were threatened with arrest for endeavoring to recruit farm laborers for service in Florida. In South Carolina the director of the United States employment service of the state resigned rather than vio late the state law when he was in structed to proceed despite the gov ernor’s opposition and recruit farm workers for Florida. Effots to keep labor forces at heme have been made by other states—especially those which require large numbers of sea- flonal workers. The war manpower program call ed for an efficiently working em ployment system, exchanging infor mation among the various localities as to the persons available for em ployment and directing such persons to spots were they were urgently needed. It was anticipated that some 1,500 full time employment of fices together with about 3,000 part time offices located in all sections of the country would be able to car ry out the program. About 23,000 men and women were employed in those offices. Nearly 1,000,000 men and women were placed in jobs in factories, shipyards and on farms by the United States employment ser vice during the month of October, despite the fact that local employ ment offices are “pitifully short- handed.” Among the jobs given the United States employment service was the handling of nearly 40,000,000 ques tionnaires of selective service regis trants. These piled up unsorted and unseen in local employment offices. The employment service contends that insufficient appropriations to employ adequate staffs is to blame for this situation and last month congress appropriated $5,000,000 to permit processing of the vast ac cumulation of questionnaires—now- more than six months old. , This may help but the employment service has a long way to go before it will effectively serve the country’s manpower needs, daily growing more and more acute. ifU ffij 1 me AUDITOR’S TAX NOTICE I, or an authorized agent, will be at the following places on the dates given below for the purpose of tak ing tax returns of all personal prop erty, new buildings and real estate transfers. Persons owning property in more than one district will make returns for each district. All able-bodied male citizens be- tw-een the ages of 21 and 60 are lia ble to $1 poll tax. All persons be tween the ages of twenty-one and fifty outside of incorporated towns and cities are liable to pay commuta tion tax of $1. All dogs are to be assessed at $1 each. Whitmire—City hall, Monday, Jan uary 4th, 1943. Whitmire— Aragon-Baldwin Mills Tuesday, January 5th, 1943. Longshores—Wednesday, January 6th, 1943; from 9 until 12. Silverstreet—Wednesday, January 6th, 1943; from 2 until 5. Chappells—Thursday, January 7th 1943. Hollingsworth’s Store — Friday, January 8th, 1043; from 9 until 12. 'Kinards—Friday, January 8, 1943, from 2 until 5. Prosperity—Monday, January 11, 1943. Little Mountain—Tuesday, Janu ary 12, 1943. Glymph’s Store—Wednesday, Jan uary 13, 1943; from 9 until 12. F. L. Ruff & Bros Store—Wednes day, January 13th, 1943; from 2 until 5. Peak—Thursday, January 14, 1943. Pomaria—Friday, January 15, 1943 St. Luke’s—Monday, January 18, 1943; from 9 until 12. O’Neal, L. C. Fellers’ Store -Mon day, January 18, 1943; from 2 to 5 Maybinton, F. B. Hardy’s Home.- Tuesday, January 19, 1943; from 9 until 12. Reese Brothers’ Store— Tuesday, January 19, 1943; from 2 until 5. At Auditor’s office to March 1st, after which a penalty of 10 per cent will be added. PINCKNEY N. ABRAMS, Auditor Newberry County Betiif. The little girl tugged gently at her mother’s sleeve “Now, Mother?” she asked. “Now can’t we w-rite my letter?” “Why, of course, Betsy,” Mrs. Car- son grinned. “Are you going to write it or am I?” “Well,” Betsy said. “Maybe you’d better kind of say it to me. Only I’d love to write it.” “All right, then. Miss Carson, take a letter,” her mother said, walking slowly up and down the room. “Ready? ‘Dear Mr. Morgenthau: The way I save money for War Stamp buying is to steer all the small household jobs toward my daughter, who is eight years old. She is so keen about buying War Stamps that I know all the money I might have paid to someone else for doing the jobs will go toward Vic tory when paid to her.’ “Now make a list, Betsy. ‘Win dows washed, 60 cents. Apples picked from under the tree, 25 cents. Emptied trash cans, 4 cents. Sold string beans from the garden, 15 cents. Sold strips of spoiled film to children for sungazing, at one cent a yard. 20 cents. Total, $1.24. Yours helpfully, I hope,’—and then I’ll sign it at the bottom.” Betsy was puffing like a grampus from her labors. The tall, painstak ing letters tottered bravely across the sheet of paper. Gravely Mrs. Carson took the pen to sign. ‘Mother, would it be the proper etiquette if I signed it too?” “Perfectly proper, I think,” Mrs. Carson said without a smile, and handed the pen back to Betsy. (Letter from an actual commu nication in the files of the Treasury Department.) * * * Every member of the family should invest in America’s future. Make certain at least 10 percent of the family’s total income is pledged to victory no later than New Year’s Day. U. S. Trta.s*ry Dtpartmta! Judge Flays Politics Treatment Of Southern States Also Criticized By Jurist In Grand Jury Charge A burning criticism of politics in the war effort was voiced here by Circuit Judge J. Henry Johnson of Allendale, in his address to the Cherokee county grand jury on open ing a term of general sessions court, says a Gaffney dispatch. “South Carolinians, think for yourselves,” Judge Johnson urged as he laid the responsibility for political maneuvering “while our nation ’ is fighting for its existence” upon the government in Washington. “And we are responsible for the men we send into our capital to rep resent us in times of war and peacg,” he stated. He flayed the anti-poll tax bill, the setting of ceiling prices on farm products, the inequalitar of freight rates in the North and the South, the governments policy of issuing what he termed “misleading com muniques” regarding the 'war in the Pacific and the “general discrimi nation against the Southern states that we have been treated since the civil war as a conquered province.” Warning Americans to calmly di gest all news of the war’s progress “back in their own homes at night,” Judge Johnson urged: “Whatever happens, whatever sacrifices you are called upon to undergo, don’t you ever let anybody talk you out of standing up for freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of re ligion.” “If the day ever comes in South Carolina or America, when any of those things are abridged in any material degree, we are going to be on the verge of some kind of ism, either communism, fascism or naz- ism,” he declared. Touching again on the conduct of the war. Judge Johnson said every man “whether he is working in a munitions plant or is fighting on the battlefront should be paid alike.” The selective service system is the only right way to conduct the hand ling of manpower, he added, “it is all right to say a man can best serve his country in an aiijilane plant or in the army; but put both of these men in a uniform, let him do the job for which he is best fitted—and pay them alike.” He condemned national farm lead ers for fighting to keep agricultural prices down. “Sometimes I see Southern news papers,” he continued, “sometimes I see South Carolina newspapers criti cizing what we have become pleased to call the ‘agricultural bloc’ in the House and in the Senate; I have been amazed at some South Carolina edi tors who have joined with high peo ple in _th e Democratic party to put the farmers of this nation in a nut cracker. “I have been amazed to see the secretary of agriculture and other high officials rave and rant about the high cost of living and over the fact that inflation was' going to be caused by the farmer’s wanting about a dollar and a half a day for his labor. “Men in the highest places of America, to my utter amazement, have insisted that if a farmer makes $1.50 a day it will cause inflation; but if a nian makes $1 .50 an hour for eight hours a day in munitions plant, it will not cause inflation.” Judge Johnson declared farmers have gone to other cities to engage in industrial work and have made the “most outrageous wages com pared to the agriculturists back home.” "I have been amazed at that kind of politics,” he said. “Farm leaders who oppose that kind of thing are vilified and abused and are told that that kind of conduct bv the farmer might cause America to lose the war. “At the same time,” he went on, “that same cabinet official or head of one of those innumerable bureaus that we have in Washington, never cracked his teeth when men engaged i in munitions plants, making the I highest wages they ever made in their lives went on strike; not be- cause they wanted more money, not because of working conditions, but simply because they wanted to be the bargaining agent, rather t£an have some other bargaining agent for that plant. “This is the kind of politics that is going on in Washington today, during the life and death struggle in which this country is engaged,” he asserted. Condemning the anti-poll tax bill as “one of the social reforms the Yankee politicians are trying to jam through to help control the balance of power at the ballot,” Judge John son said this campaign “has eman ated from the White House for the past seven or eight years—not from the President himself, but from Mrs. President. “For eight years, there has been waged in this nation a campaign to abolish the poll tax as a prerequisite for voting in the generl election,” Judge Johnson said. And it has been waged for only one purpose; it is to enable a certain bloc of the popu lation to be able to vote in general elections and carry the ballots. I will tell you how I feel about it; I have long since been of the opinion that if a man who doesn’t contribute one dollar a year to the state from all the things he gets from them— his schools, his peace officers, his roads, his license to live in a Great Democracy, to think as he pleases, so long as his thoughts and words are not subversive; I doubt if he has a right to it or not. He can get the dollar for everything else.” If the anti-poll tax bill passes, however, Judge Johnson said, in his opinion, it would be unconstitutional. “I don’t know what the Supreme Court will hold on anything, how ever,” he added. “The truth is, I haven’t too much respect for them.” In attacking what he called dis crimination against the South, Judge Johnson said: “You may call me an unrecon structed Rebel.” He strongly condemned unions for strikes during the war and paid tri bute to Southern labor which has certainly set an example to the erst of the nation on how to behave when a war is going on.” “I am for labor unions,” he con tinued, “I believe in them and I be lieve a man has a right to join one, to strike and to picket if he wants to. On the other hand, he shouldn’t strike during war time and other men should have the privilege of not joining a union if they don’t want to.” “I want somebody to tell me,” he said, ‘what sacrifice has labor made in this war. They are making the highest wages they ever made in their lives—when men in Africa and other places out there are giving their lives for fifty dollars a month. Labor unions are all right, but they haven’t been hurt in the last fifteen or twenty years.” “The National Democratic Party sold its soul to ike CIO union of America when in that campaign in 1932, I believe it was, it accepted a gift of $50,000 from the CIO and borrowed $450,000 more.” Judge Johnson added that he “didn’t think any corporation should donate to a political party, either.” He blamed dll talk of race trou bles in the South upon the “Yankee politicians.” “If this sort of trouble ever comes, it will be the Yankee politicians, Democratic and Republi cans, who are trying to ram through social reforms while this war is go ing on,” he asserted. When the war is won, “let us also win the peace,” Judge Johnson de clared. He urged every citizen to write to his congressman and the two senators to ask that Germany, Japan and Italy be reduced to sec ondary power in he world. “If we don’t insist on peace terms that will be severe enough so that Japan can never arise again above a tenth rate power, the children of these boys who are marrying girls now, just before they go to war, are going to have to fight the same war over again, twenty or twenty five years from now,” he declared. The judge criticied excessive spending in the war. Not on our boys in service,” he explained; “I think we ought to buy them every- thing we can, but we are just paying too much to everybody else.” (Continued on page 6) 1942 Tax Notice After the close of business on December 31, 1942, a 1 per ct. penalty will be added to all unpaid | 1942 State & County taxes* I J. RAY DAWKINS V By ETHEL L. COUNTS Holly is one of our most beautiful native trees. It is especially asso ciated with the Christmas season. Many people will soon be going into the woods to get holly for thier own pleasure or for sale. Holly is not as abundant as it was, and should be-protected and cared for wherever found. Holly tres are valuable, and no holly should be cut anywhere without consent of the owner. Holly trees grow very slowly; therefore, it would be well to set out some small berry-bearing trees each year. Properly cut and cared for. holly trees will yield profit for many seasons. Holly is a valuable asset, and should be treated as a perma nent crop on the farm. So in cutting holly, remember next year’s crop of berries. Trim the ber ried branches. If these are cut, not torn or damaged, the tree will not be injured. New branches will grow out, supplying berries year after year. The ends of branches only should be taken, or small branches trimmed out. Small berried sprays, not over three feet long, have a more ready sale for Christmas decorations than large branches or whole trees. We all love the holly. Its beauty adds to the joy of the Christmas sea son. Let us use it and enjoy it, and at the same time conserve it for the future. There seems to be a great deal of confusion in the minds of people about meat rationing. Probably the following questions and answers will help clarify the matter. Q. Does the Share-the-Meat program call foi 2 1-2 pounds weekly of each kind of meat or of all meats? A. All beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton taken from the dressed carcass. Q. Can one buy a large amount of meat from farmers and keep it? A. Yes, but they are expected to limit them selves to their fair weekly share of 2 1-2 pounds. Q. Are those who raise their own meat supply also ex pected to “Share the Meat”? A. Yes. Q. Will families consisting of only two adults be able to buy large sized roasts? A. Yes, but if its weight is 5 pounds or more they will not be able to eat any other kind of meat during the week. Q. How much will invalids get? A. Whatever the doc tor has prescribed, whether the amount is above or below 2 1-2 pounds weekly. Q. Does the 2 1-2 pounds include fats and bones? A. Yes. Bathless Grog gins says— COUNTY TREASURER :( t. x Yep! I'm back at work agin. I bgger on buy in’ lots of War Bonds to help our boys. Don’t forget—we’re all sup posed to be signed up for 10% by New Year’s! The Most Important Announcement ever made by the U. S. Treasury Dept 9 Billion DoHar Victory! Loan Drive Is On/ liH This week the United States Government begins the task of borrowing nine billion dollars from accumulated savings and idle funds in the next several weeks as an essential part of winning the war more quickly and more completely. During these critical weeks you prob ably will be visited by a representative of one of the securities firms or bank which are contributing their time and effort—without compensation of any kind—to the Victory Fund Committee. He will explain to you, for instance, the benefits that you can obtain from the new Victory 2%s—available for the first time. Welcome him as a war worker when he calls. If you miss him ask your banker or securities dealer for full particulars. There is no limit to the amount you can purchase. Today many American families are torn apart. Millions have left their homes or their jobs; thousands have given their lives and many more are prepared to do so. But the government.your government, is not asking you to give anything to this Nine Billion Dollar Drive. It is asking you to lend it all of the money you can possibly invest in what is the safest in vestment in the world—at a good rate of interest. When the Victory Fund representative calls, please remember this: it is in your own interest, as well as that of your country, to listen to him—and to invest. BUY THESE VICTORY 2 l-2s NOW Twenty-six year 2 1-2 per cent bonds due December 16, 1968, callable Dec ember 16, 1963. Issued in coupon or registered form at the option of the buyer. Commercial banks will not be permitted to hold these bonds un til ten years after the date of issue. There is no limit on the amount any eligible investor may purchase. In terest is paid semi-annually, June 15 and Dec. 15. The bonds will be sold in denominations from $506 to $100,- 000. In the event of the death of a holder, the bonds may be redeemed at 100 per cent and accrued interest for the purpose of satisfying federal estate taxes. Two series of shorter term obliga tions; (a) 1 3-4 per cent bonds due June 15, 1948, and (b) 7-8 per cent certificates of indebtedness due one year after issuance. These securities ere open for subscription by banks, sund also by all other classes of in vestors, whether private, corporate or institutional. Other Treasury Securities offered to investors through the Victory Fund Committee are Treasury Tax Savings Notes A and C and U. S. Savings Bonds, series F and G South Carolina National Bank NEWBERRY, SOUTH CAROLINA A fl' ^ «*’ Ifck. zHfc.--: