A*f PART
TAKE PART
Clip Charlotte labor Journal
Endorood by the N. C. State
Federation of Labor
STAMPS
AND DIXIE FARM NEWS
Official Organ of Control Labor Union; Standing
for the A. F. L.
VOL. XII—NO. 17
TOUI ASVIRTISIMCNT IN TNI JOUINM. IS A
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CHARLOTTE, N. C„ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1942
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PERTINENT
COMMENT
. Pegler Adds To Mental Confusion
THE OBSERVER used some great editorial matter during
the week backed by two of the best cartoons of the war. The
Sunday cartoon showing “MANHATTANS HERE”; two joyous
Americans drinking cocktails—and “MOLOTOFFS THERE,”
showing flesh and bone being crushed by armored steel monsters
against the defense of Stalingrad—was particularly effective.
But for every two persons impressed by this fine editorial
page, there must be at least one who “falls” for the line dished
out by Mr. Westbrook Pegler in his syndicated column in the
inside pages. Of course Mr. Pegler “is given wide latitude and
his opinions are not hecessarily the opinions of the paper,” but
there is nothing which warns the people that it may be part of a
“line” dangerous to our war effort.
To deliver a very bad discourse on Communism, Mr. Pegler
picked out the days on which Stalingrad was in its death throes
and with a light left jab to our enemies, “The nazi and fascist
are not different from the communist,” he really let go with both
barrels against our ally, “Red Russia.” We could write a much
better economic treatise showing how foreign Comftiunism is to
our American way of life, so it was not strictly as an economist
that Pegler writes—he just adds to the confusion of the mind.
How many American boys will eventually come home because
of the Russian slaughter of a million and a half Nazis in these
two years, we’ll have to leave to history—but right now, every
sensible person knows that Russians are not fighting for eco
nomics or for the third internationale—they are fighting to pro
tect their homes and their farms, and FORTUNATELY FOR US
THOSE HOMES AND FARMS HAPPEN TO BE IN THE
PATH OF THE AGGRESSION AGAINST US.
Without supplies no army is brave, and a great general who is hungry
is not a hero for long.
Understand that the foundation of an army is the belly.
The greatest secret of and the masterpiece of a skillful general is to
starve his enemy. Hunger exhausts men more surely than courage, and you
will succeed with less risk than by fighting.
One should know one’s enemies, their alliances, their resources, and the
nature of their country in order to plan a campaign. One should know what
to expect of one’s friends, what resources one has, and see the future effects
to determine what one has to fear or hope from political maneuvers.
Knowledge of the country is to a general what a rifle is to an infantry
man and what the rules of arithmetic are to a geometrician. If he does not
know the country he will do nothing but make gross mistakes. Without this
knowledge, his projects, be they otherwise admirable, become ridiculous and
often impractical. Therefore, study the country where you are going to act!
Petty geniuses attempt to hold everything; wise men hold fast to the
most important resort. They parry the great blows and scorn the little ac
cidents. There is an ancient apothegm: he who would preserve everything
preserves nothing. Therefore, always sacrifice the bagatelle and pursue
the essential is to be found where the big bodies of the enemy are.
A perfect general, like Plato’s Republic, is a figment of the imagination.
Either would be admirable, but it is not characteristic of human nature to
produce beings exempt from human weaknesses and defects. The finest
medallions have a reverse side.
Skpticism is the mother of security. Even though only fools trust
their enemies, prudent persons never do. The general is the principal
sentinel of his army. He should always be careful of its preservation and
that it, is never exposed to misfortune.
If you wish to be loved by your soldiers, husband their blood and do
not lea's them to slaughter.
The ant of war is divided between force and stratagem. What cannot
be done by force, must be done by stratagem.
The Moore Drydock Company, San Francisco, Calif., employs 2000
Negroes and it employed less than 100 a year ago.
Two copper door hinges yield enough metal for an anti-tank gun’s
ground mount.
In Canada no one enjoys a net income of more than $30,000, taxes take
the rest.
Nazi Germany fixes women’s pay at from 20 to 25 per cent less than
men’s.
The Rheem ship yard, Providence, R. I., already employs 300 Negro
employees and will take others for any occupations.
British Workers Have Been Magnificent
The annual conference of the British trades union congress was held
recently in Blackpool and was attended by 700 delegates representing
5,500.00 trade union members.
The president of the TUC, Frank Wolstencroft, began his address with
a warm tribute to Churchill’s leadership. “Well played, Churchill.” He
said, “Well played, in spite of hard knocks from, some of our so-called home
supporters as well as from our opponents.”
“On our industrial front” Wolstencroft said, “the response of the work
ers has been magnificent. They have carried the country on their backs
and complaints that they are not pulling their weight is a poor reward for
all they^are doing.”
Wolstencroft hoped that when the war was over or even before, the
trades Union Conference would find it possible to work in closer touch with
the trade union movements of Australia, Canada, South Africa, India
and hte U. S. He said the General Council of the TUC wa.s already seeing
what could be done to convene a conference of the trade unions of the British
commonwealth.
Looking to the post-war, Wolstencroft insisted that the peace terms
should make it impossible for Germany or any other power ever again to
attempt the conquest of Europe.
“It is far, far better for the world,” he declared, “that 80,000,000 or
90,000,000 people should be held under bond, if necessary, then that count
less millions yet unborn should be called upon to undergo what so many
of us have gonf through twice in our lifetime.’”
USE THE PAYROLL PLAN—
10% EACH WEEK FOR WAR BONDS
Okay/boys, yon asked for it!
Plane Worker Gets
$500 For Suggestion
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Howard
P. Watkins, a leadman at the Con
solidated Aircraft plant, has received
the highest prize yet given to em
ployes for making suggestions that
will speed up aircraft construction.
The prize was $500 and the sug
gestion, quickly put in effect, was
for increasing greatly the heat treat
ing capacity of rivet furnaces.
Cramerton Mills Earns Award
The Cramerton Mills of Cram
erton, N. C. is the first in the
combed yarn industry to win the
ARMY-NAVY E award for ex
cellence in the production of es
sential materials for our armed
forces. The award will be made
in a special ceremony on Sep
tember 18th at the mill. It will
be accepted on behalf of the com
pany by MAJOR S. W. CRAM
ER, JR.
Help Fight The War With
The Money You Save
Here’s how your savings put
iato War Bonds and Stamps help
our armed forces get the fight
ing euqipment they need!
10c will pay for 5 cartridges.
50c will buy enough fuel oil
to run a destroyer one mile.
$8 will buy two steel helmets.
$150 will buy one parachute.
$370 will buy 17 surgical beds.
$5400 will buy one barrage
balloon
$15,000 will buy one pontoon
bridge.
$50,000 will buy one fighter
plane.
INVENTED BAYONET
The bayonet is said to have been
invented at Bayonne, France, in the
Seventeenth Century.
J. A. SCOGGINS
President of the Charlotte Central Labor Union, received the
appointment' this week of MECKLENBURG COUNTY
RATIONING ADMINISTRATOR.
The appointment was made by Chairman Martin L. Can
non, of the MECKLENBURG CIVILIAN DEFENSE COM
MITTEE, to fill the vacancy made by the resignation of Mr.
George O. Fulenwider who had acted in this capacity since last
June.
Mr. Scoggins had been a member of the original three-man
rationing board and recently he had been in charge of the sugar
rationing. His devotion to his country and his passion for fair
play on all sides, will stand Mr. Scoggins in good stead in this
highly important work for our community.
THE HOME FRONT
“We are not doing enough,” said the President, and he added,
“in this war it is kill or be killed.” In this “toughest war of all
time” we are going to have to get down to brass tacks—and turn
the brass tacks into bombs and bullets.
To an extent we have been doing this, but now the need is
terribly urgent and materials scarce. Now we must have war
goods in greater volume than ever—and in a shorter time. Our
enemies don’t wait.
Steel mills, eating up almost five million tons of scrap ma
terial a month, are running on almost a day-to-day basis. We
are dangerously short of copper, tin, and other non-ferrous
metals.
That’s why our school children—30 million of them—are be
ing enlisted to comb our homes, backyards, and farmyards for
scrap* to feed the steel giants. That’s why our kitchens must
shower down old tin cans by the million so that we can reach
our goal of 3,000 tons of household tin a year recovered in 17
new “detinning” plants. That’s why we must save waste fats
and greases, turn in the half billion pounds we have been asked
to salvage. These fats would help make enough bombs to cripple
the German war machine, or enough explosives to fire 1,250,000
anti-aircraft shells.
Last year our production of all-wire coat hangers, if made
into military barbed wire, would have girdled the earth six and
one-half times.
We shall not be making wire hangers this year.
LABOR PROBLEM STILL PARAMOUNT
To do alt that we must do to stop the Axis hordes, merely to
get enough skilled workers and fighting men for this gigantic
job, is going to be a tough business for all of us. In 116 of 160
critical war production areas there are serious labor shortages,
and in all these areas there are shortages of some kinds of skilled
workers. Employment in the automotive industry, now making
weapons, has passed the 800,000 mark—but not until it absorbs
another 600,000 workers will the industry have reached peak
production. There’ll be almost five million women in war in
dustries by the end of this year. More millions of them will be
needed by 1943, not only in war plants but in the fields. Small
towns and larger cities lacking war industries are losing their
young men to the Armed forces, their boys, women, and older
men to war work in nearby or distant industrial areas. These
towns are short-handed, and yet it is just such communities that
are turning in thousands of pounds of scrap metals and rubber.
FARMERS RIDING HIGH
Farmers, on the whole, haven’t found the going tough so far
—except for the shortage of labor. They’re buying mofe goods
and making more property improvements than at any time since
the unlucky boom days of the last war. Yet that very fact should
give them pause. Inflated war prices not only handicap the
whole war program, but endanger post-war security. With to
bacco, wool, and all meats bringing prices far above parity, pro
ducers might well recal lthe tragic slump which followed the last
war-created “prosperity.”
DRIVE FOR SUBSTITUTES GOES ON
In 12 Western states critical labor shortages in mining and
lumbering have led to a regulation requiring certificates of sep
aration from workers who want to change jobs . . . The Interna
tional Red Cross in Japan will try to deliver messages from
friends and relatives to U. S. soldiers and sailors reported miss
ing in action but not yet officially reported by the enemy as
prisoners of war . .. Our allies are returning Lend-Lease aid in a
multitude of ways, supplying squadrons of protective spitfires—
and new fan belts for U. S. trucks, building airdromes and naval
bases—and giving our troops chocolate bars, bananas, and other
delicacies, providing convoy protection—and filling gas tanks for
U. S. ferry planes . . . Since the President told us where we stand
in the war, the Japs and Nazis—evidently worried—have bom
barded this country by short-wave radio with misquotations and
false versions of his speech.
Hershey Predicts
Long War—Unless
HERSHEY, Pa., Sept. 15—Milton
S. Hershey, philanthropist, today pre
dicted on the eve of his eighty-fifth
birthday, a lengthy war “unless and
until the people back are impressed
with the importance and necessity of
winning.”
Unemployment At All-Time Low
Unemployment declined by 600,000
persons between July and August to
a wartime low of 2,200,00 persons, Di
rector J. C. Capt of the Bureau of
Census announced last week. August
employment remained unchained at
all-time high level of 54,000,000 per
sons and the civilian labor force de
clined to 600,000 persons.
Helpful
Expectant Mother Gets
Quick Aid
DETROIT, Sept. 15.—Members of
Pacific Local 190, U. A. W., read that
Mrs. Marguerite Scott, an expectant
mother, had been robbed of $47 which
she had been saving for hospital ex
penses.
They read also that her husband,
Harry, is in the Army and stationed
at a Pacific post. And they could
see that the loss was a real hard
ship.
So they passed the hat and col
lected $106.50, which they arranged
to have given to the woman.
Sister, Brother Have Same Rank
FULTON, N. Y.—Enola and Floyd
Thornber would run into an impasse
if they started ordering each other
around. Both sister and brother are
second lieutenants in the Army.
“Absence Makes The War Last Longer”
In dealing: with the problem of absenteeism in war production plants,
Canadian Minister of Labor Humphrey Mitchell placed the responsibility
on employers, stating that it is their responsibility to provide their workers
with plant conditions conducive to day-in, day-out work without loss of time.
In this connection, Mitchell spoke of a Toronto plant employing several
thousand women as well as men that was “experiencing a turnover and
absentee problem.” The company took steps to discover and correct the cause
of their difficulties. As a result, “arrangements have been made for such
facilities as a swimming pool and gymnasium to be made available to the
workers at a club fee of 15c a week. A roller skating rink-and a recreation
club will also be provided.”
Mitchell stressed that “everyone must concentrate on eliminating this
problem.” He concluded with: “Absence makes the war last longer.”
WISDOM
Temples have their images; and we see what influence they have
always had over a great part of mankind. But, in truth, the ideas and
images in men’s minds are the invisible powers that constantly govern
them; and to these they all pay universally a ready submission.—
Jonathan Edwards.