The sun. [volume] (Newberry, S.C.) 1937-1972, February 18, 1944, Image 4
THE NEWBERRV SUti
r-AOt, FOUR
lit ..r.iaoifjrr n
Friday, h ebruary 18, 1944
1218 College Street
NEWBERRY, SOUTH CAROLINA
O. F. ARMFIELD, Editor & Publieher
Published Every Friday In The Year
Entered
as second-class matter December 6,
1937, at the postoffice at NerwberCy t S. ^ u^p-.y
der the Act ^>f ^r^gijess of March 3, ^1 879^.
The Byrd Committee finds that the Federal
Bureaucrats are increasing. For the month of
November the War department released 14,260
persons. Thirty-one agencies reduced tl}e number
of employees by 27,617, while thirty one in
creased, thei^ wprkers. (payrollers, rather) by 28,-
.886. There was a net increase of 5,069.
The President of the United States is Chief
of the Administration. His method is usually to
ask for more money and appoint more bureau-'
crats. Is that efficient administration?
1 Recerttly the President' appointed a commiss
ion to find out how much the cost of living had
advanced. A member of the commission, repre
senting Labor, declares that the rise in the cost
of living is greater than the other members think.
I can understand this gentleman and sympathize
with him. He may be right, so far as his exper
ience and observation are considered. Undoubt
edly, .including skyrocketing rents in some places,
the cost of living may be much higher in X-town
than in Y-ville. General averages may indicate
one thing and a thousand or a million individual
cases may be different. ,
As to the deceptiveness of statistics, 1 fall back
on my illustrations of the condition of the farm
ers. , The President thinks the farmers are pros
perous and he advocates doing away with parity
payipppta. Hp does, not aflypcate a reduction in
tariff duties, however; which would put our.
Northern industries on a parity with farmers.
How well off are the farmers? Here ih South
Car6lina the dairy farmers are in a sad condition,
selling, their milk at a loss. Would you say that
thiy are prosperous? And there are cotton pro
ducers who received less for the 1943 crop than
they received for the 1942 crop: Are they pros
perous? Regardless for the price per pound, the
farmer must have sufficient pounds in order to
make a good showing. Those tobaccp, apd cot
ton-producers with short poundage, or light
crops, ai;e less prosperous than the pripe per
pound might suggest.
I do not have to rely on statistics when I, see
and know farmers whose condition today is far
less'favorable 1 'than it was' last year. But jf the (
prjicp tells most, what do you say when cotton is
today worth less per pound than it was last year?
And in spite of that, every item of cost, ex
cept'property taxes, is higher.
I did 'not know William Allen White, the illus
trious son of Kansas; who recendy died; but
because of him I once enjoyed an opportunity
which occasioned lots of work and served me
well; •! ’
, 1 was in Pair is waiting for an assignment. A
Pennsylvanian-named Haskell, in'charge. of. an|
entertainment service, asked, me to talk (cl the
‘‘detail” at a veterinary station near the Marne
River. Several days later 1 was assigned to
Paffis because
William Allen White couldn’t leave his duties
at thp Peace Conference to keep his engagement
to talk about the conference.
As ,1 planned to diacusp the proposed League
of Nations, with an exposition of the Covenant,
Mr. White's indisposition cost me some days of
hard work. Fortunately 1 “boned up f \ for aftir
the ‘talk 1 was questioned for an hour and five
minutes.
Knowing the national respect for William
Allen White I felt highly honored to be assigned
to speak during the time allotted him. 1 did pot
substitute for Mr. White; and certainly 1 did not
pinch-hit, for a pinch-hitter is a player thrust
into the game only because the regular player
cannot "deliver”; I spoke in his time—that’s all.
Williapr Allen White was a national figure
because he was a great patriot, a sound mem, a
courageous editor, an engaging publicist. Amer
ica has lost one of her most useful sons, but the
public'owes him a debt'for his fine service. Be-
, cause I rushed in where angels might have feared
to tread, I was put in charge of the citizenship
field service—a very happy work, growing out
of Mr. White’s inability to make his talk.
" The ohly Way for dairymen to get a fair price
for milk is to adopt the methods which have
won all the'victories for labdr.' On the very face
of it, that condition of. affairs is ridiculous-- To
tell the dairymen that the OPA does not fix
THEIR price, while fixing th^girice ^^vhich can
be paid TO THE FARMERS » an ^>surbity
bordering on being a mockery, *
bet usbe practical and-look at this question,
tj\e whole question, intelligently. The Roose
velt administration pilays for votes all the time.
There are'more milk £ consumers than ^thafi b are
milk producers; there are more consumers of
most farm products than there are producers. A
lower price for milk imay offend a' few dktrymen,
but it will please thousands of consumers. On
f\thte cJofdtd/yf a higher b^ici fdr Wiilk mkj^ gfatify
a few dairyman, biit/will offend thousands of
consumers. What has Mr. Roosevelt usually
done? Played fdr’the Votes. Mr. Rooievelt sur
rendered to Labor on all occasions because he
was more concerned about the politics—the
votes—than the issue. If all the disgusted pub
lic had been organized as a mass voting unit,
Mr. Roosevelt would have turned Labor down.
While the dairymen are trying to get a meas
ure of justice, I find a dispatch reusing the wages
of 175,000 workers because they are entitled to
a floor, a minimum wage, by law. But a farmer is
not even entitled to a price above his cost. No
body guarantees to the INDIVIDUAL farmer
a profit for his year’s work. Nobody guarantees
him a bare living. But Labor, individually, is
guaranteed a minimum by law, with an army of
Labor Union members as inspectors, miming
over the land like locusts. >
Why not guarantee td every farmer, every in
dividual farmer, a net profit of $25 per acre?
Why not? Is it foolish because some farmers
may not produce enough to justify that? Well,
isn’t Labor pafd a uniform minimum wage in a
mill, regardless of the individual effiency or the
individual production? Isn’t that a grave defect
in the law—that it levels off everybody, good and
bad, efficient and inefficient, productive and un
productive? Wouldn’t it be just as appropriate
to level off the farmers? And the retail mer-
that the VOTES are at stake.
1 say Mr. Roosevelt, because this is no Dem
ocratic Administration; furthermore, Mr., Roose
velt is the man who has stepped in to make con
cessions to Labor.
Why doesn’t he stand up for the dairymen?
Why?
Does cotton need advertising? 1 went to a
restaurant in Memphis, greatest cotton center in
the wdrld, and saw a sign telling the public this;
"We serve the best butter when it is available;
when we can't get butter we use uncolored oleo
margarine. That sounds like an apology. Oleo
margarine is made from cotton seed oil. It is a
product which should, ^ppe^l to us as coltqn, peo
ple. But it need not depend on that; it is the
poor man's spread and the rich man is now glqd
to get it. ..
Chemists, food expefts, tell us that margarine
is highly nutritious. There is a prejudice against
it. Why? Well, the Western dairy interests con
stantly wage a war to keep out any product
which can be used instead of butter. Even
though we are epgulfed i> n war, and buttet.is,
scarce, the Western dairymen show their narrow
spirit in prejudice by defeating Senator. May-
^bank s .bill to take off the tax from Margarine '
during thb war. That tax is ten cents a pound.
So active and persistent and intolerant are
the Western dairymen that they have tied on to
National Appropriation bills prohibitions against
using Margarine in Government hospitals and in
some Government fighting services. . I believe
there is a law in South Carolina that requires
tha,t a restaurant serving Margarine must post
a sign telling that to the public.
There is a bill pending in our Legislature to
ftfrbid the sale of filled milk. Again we have the
Western dairy interests at work.
Filled milk is milk from which the cream has
been removed, but a wholesome, nutritious pro
duct of cotton seed oil has been added. It does
not deceive the public, because it is labelled ex
actly what it is. Strangely enough I have not
found anybody that has seen "Filled Milk”,
though I’ve made diligent inquiry of food men,
druggists,and others. I should like to see “Filled
Milk” and I should like to buy a can of it.
Doesn’t it impress you as odd, that South Car
olina should be asked to prohibit the properly
labelled product product of cotton? Tbe ans
wer is that the Western dairymen are so aggres
sive 1 that they are trying to turn the world
against a derivative of our cotton, even coming
here in the heart of the cotton belt. They
might just as well propose that no clothing or
doth'should be sold if containing cotton.
We must make up and gird our loins to sell
cotton, cotton goods, cotton oil. meal, and
their. derivatives frorp Dpn to Beersheba, giving
■ die 'intolerant competing interests a stiff dose of
their own medicine.
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''4-'' ft -Anac*
• l .w ' O ~t- M
The following Grocery Stores
have agreed to close their bus- '
u - ' - • : i. * ir
inesses Wednesday afternoons,
beginning Wednesday, March 1 .
and CONTINUING THRU
The MONTH Of AUGUST.
*<!
f’jjj
# «l .) IT I ! I . I
G. V. CLAMP Y
U< vi A / r »* f'*I * U ■" f »M i
J. W. YOUNG (Fruit Store)
DIXIE HOME STORE
. A & P FOOD STORE
EDENS’ SUPER MARKET
SQUARE GROCERY
LAYTON BROS.
JAS. F. LONG
F. P. DEVORE
J. L. LONG
G. E. HUTCHINSON
J. L. SNELGROVE
GARRYTERIA (W. O. Wilson)
LITTLE STAR FOOD STORE
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