NOVEMBER 21, 1974
THE TWIG
PAGE 3
Sojourner Truth was early spokesperson
for equal rights for womon and blacks
by AUyn Vogel
On Tuesday, November 19,
1797, a slave Isabella Baumfree
was bom. Tuesday was the
anniversary of the birth of this
woman who under the assumed
name “Sojourner Truth” made
herself famous as one of the
early vocal advocates of
women’s rights.
As a young slave, she was
brutally beaten, raped, and
s^arated from her family. In
1817 when her home state New
York, abolished slavery for
adults, she was freed. She
worked for the freedom of her
children; however, one of her
sons remained enslaved con
trary to a promise of the owner.
She sued for and won his
freedom in the New York
courts.
She worked as a domestic
worker and later as a preacher
mystic to support her five
children. She joined for a while
a utopian colony but departed to
campaign for freedom.
In 1851, Sojourner Truth
asked to address the Woman’s
Rights Convention in Akron,
Ohio. She followed a male
minister who had argued
against equal rights for women
because of feminine
weaknesses.
She reproached this
clergyman retorting boldly,
“The man over there says
women need to be helped in
carriages and lifted over dit
ches, and to have the best place
everywhere. Nobody ever helps
me into carriages or over
puddles, or ^ves me the best
place-and ain’t I a woman?
Look at my arm! I have plowed
and plant^ and gather^ into
bams, and no man could head
me: -and ain’t I a woman? I
could work as much and eat as
much as a man-when I could get
it-and bare the lash as well!
And ain’t I a woman? I have
borne thirteen children and seen
most of them sold into slavery,
and when I cried out with my
mother’s grief, none but Jesus
heard me-and ain’t I a woman?
JACK ANDERSON’S
Weekly Special
WASHINGTON-Candy may
still be dandy, but its cost may
soon make it a luxury only the
rich can afford.
Sugar, the prime con
fectionary ingredient is now
rivaling oil as the fastest rising
commodity on the world price
index. A five-pound bag of
sugar cost 88 cents last year.
Today, it runs nearly $2.50.
The reasons are complex,
but a large share of the price
rise can be laid to unscrapiilous
brokers and greedy sugar
refiners.
The brokers set themselves
up as middlemen, contracting
d^perate customers and of
fering them sugar. Once they
get an offer, they get the sugar
from a supplier they have
worked a great deal with. The
increased costs go into the
broker’s pocket.
Many legitimate sugar
refiners are also taking ad
vantage of the short sugar
supply to raise prices well
above their costs. Sugar in
dustry profits have ballooned
by as much as 500 per cent.
Of course, market
pressures have played the most
significant role in the price
boost. World wide, sugar
comsumption has simply
outpaced sugar production. The
oil-rich Arab nations have
helped inflate demand, bidding
up prices on the international
market to satisfy a newly
developed sweet tooth. And
poor cr(^s forecasts around the
world mean further increases in
the future.
In America, Sugar’s
outrageous price has con
sumers either boycotting or
hoarding the product. Only
dentists and nutritionists, it
seems, are heralding the sugar
pinch. The food experts have
found that sugar is the only food
without nutritional value. And
the dentists, of course, h^
that less sugar will mean fewer
cavities.
Women’s Year
(Continued from Page 1)
sumption of valuable foodstuffs
through fasting at least one
meal a week and then backing
this action by donating the
money normally spent for that
meal to the World Food Bank.
Such actions are necessary.
Dr. ’Thomas emphasized as we
“access ourselves in light of the
world situation.” •
SLOGANS U.S.A.: In times
past, Americans have been able
to distill the cause of the hour
into a phrase, a rallying cry, a
stirring slogan to reaffirm our
faith in America. A slogan is
needed to capture the spirit of
America’s past, present and
future. It ou^t not to be the
forced effort of an advertising
executive, but rather it should
be the spontaneous outpouring
from an average citizen.
Therefore, the Copernicus
Society of America, in con
junction with the Bicentennial
Commission, is sponsoring
“Slogans, U.S.A.” So far, the
response has been heavy and
heartwarming. Slogans have
poured in from around the
nation. But more ideas are
needed, so send your slogan
suggestion to: “Slogans,
U.S.A.”, Box 1976, Washington,
D.C.
It’s time to reaffirm the
dream/ •
and black rights, she was
appointed to the post-Civil War
Freedman’s Bureau to train
black women for jobs. She
fought the Jim Crow policys of
the Washington, D.C. tran
sportation system, forcing
conductors to publically expel
her from the white com
partments of the trains. Her
aim was to shock the white
passengers.
forceful opposite mHe learned
debaters she acquired the
respect of her audiences. When
once degraded in a debate by an
opponent who cared for her
arguments “no more than for a
fleabite”, she quickly retorted,
“I’ll keep you scratching.”
Throughout her life, she
battled against prejudice and
discrimination. Fearless and
The informaticHi for this
article is taken from G^-da
Lerner, THE WOMAN IN
AMERICAN HISTORY.
Reading, Massachusetts;
Addison-Wesley Publishing
Inc., 1971.
Due to
Thanks
giving
holidays
the next
TWIG
Issue
will be
on
Dec. 5.
Illiterate, yet coursely and
almost poetically articulate,
she followed this public con
frontation with many more. She
stood often before audiences
which were initially an
tagonistic and prejudiced
against her. With her wit and
sound arguments she made
herself and often her opponents
better.
An advocate of women’s
Administration takes steps
toward conserving more energy
by Meredith McGill
Good news! The Meredith
College administration is ac
tively concerned with the
problem of fuel consumption on
campus. This concern is ob
viously justified, considering
our annual fuel bill of $200,(K)0.
Immediate measures have
been taken in the past two
weeks to curb electricity ex
penditure; all except three
floodlights surrounding
Weatherspoon Gymnasium
have been doused, and security
guards have been instructed to
turn off all classroom lights in
the academic buildings at night.
Lighting affects security ef
fectiveness, and drastic cuts in
outside lighting are not
feasible; however, practical
distribution of electricity is
being exercised in the plans to
add lights in the parking lots
near Ridgewood Shopping
Center.
The heating and cooling
situation is not dealt with as
easily. The four older dor
mitories in the quadrangle are
forty-eight years old and are
climate-controlled by sensors,
devices which are not as ac
curate as thermostats, and
which control the temperature
in areas instead of individual
rooms.
A major problem lies in the
distribution of heat to the upper
dormitory floors;since the heat
is pushed upwards through
pipes, all floors are heated
when the fourth floor needs
heat, and so on. For the present,
these sensors have been turned
back to 68 degrees in an effort to
control the temperature as
much as possible. Our ad
ministration has hired
engineers to examine the
problem and develop more
efficient ways to b^t air
throughout the dorms.
buildings are regulated entirely
by artificial mean. The library
lights provide twenty-five
percent of the total heat needed
in the building, and fans pull in
fresh air and distribute air to
prevent staleness.
Fountain use has been
limited to the hours between 6
a.m. and 10 p.m. A certain
amount of use is required to
keep valves and pumps in or
der.
Building construction has
hindered energy conservation
in some instances. For
example, both the library and
the Cate Center were designed
in the modernistic, pre-fuel
shortage era, and these
Mr. Baker has plans for
future conservation, including
forbidding freshmen and
sophomore vehicle registration
next year, and possibly hiring a
full-time person to regulate
thermostats and adjust them on
a daily basis. We as students
can help by turning off in-
candescant li^ts when not in
use and avoiding the raising of
dorm windows.
Mr. Baker advises students
to be conscious of energy
conservation and to feel free to
advise him of any energy waste
that they observe.
Charlie Smith v. Ralph Nader
You’ve heard of Ralph
Nader, the consumer advocate.
But have you heard at
Charlie Smith, consumer ad
vocate?
Charlie Smith is a leading
U.S. businessman who pointed
out in a speech the other day
how consumers pay through the
nose when government sub
sidies are used to help finance
strikes, which is what happens
when federal food stamps are
doled out to strikers.
The stamps, originally
intended to help needy families
supplement their food
allowances, enable union
members to remain out on
strike, longer than ordinarily
would be the case, in suf^ort (rf
pay or other demands.
Employers, realizing the
battle is unequal, simply give in
and add the cost of settling the
strike to the cost of doing
business.
Commenting on this
situation, Charles H. Smith, Jr.,
chairman of the board of
directors of the Chamber of
Commerce of the United States,
said:
“’The consumer winds up
payii^ twice: Once through his
taxes to subsidize the stivers,
and once more through a higher
bill for the things he buys in the
marketplace.”
The Chamber leader,
chairman of the board of SIFCO
Industries, Inc., Cleveland,
explained:
in opposite directions. The
union and its members see the
strike costing them less; the
employer, on the other hand,
realizes that while he is losing
sales and substantial sum s
money, he is getting no closer to
“The possibility of public
assistance to strikers affects
both labor and management but
settlement because the strikers
are not feeling similar
pressure.”
Mr. Smith recognizes that
barely 20 percent all U.S.
workers belong to labor unions
but that all of us must foot the
bill as consumers when lopsided
wage contracts are n^otiated.
: RIDGEWOOD
IBEAUTY SHOP
Ridgewood Shopping Center
833-4632