The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-10-25

have worked as a farmland
was at his gate watching a
hunter and his dog. From the
woods across the railroad tracks a
gun went off, sounding like one stone
hit against another. Even back in
the city there are signs that the
hunting season has opened. The
subway trains carry eds of Hanes
Underwear-some young gentlemen
ofe the leisure class in their slick
underwear holding guns.
Lenin liked to shoulder a gun
when he was in exile in Siberia and
go woodcoc5ing. But you don't have
to hide behind Lenin to admit
liking for hunting. Even if you
don't jerk your shotgun once off your
shoulder there is enough sport in
trampihg through the woods, sneak
ing up to hickory tree, stumbling
over the bogs to make hunting day
a day we'll spent.
In the city most young workers
can not afford Eanes Underwear. Or
the guns. A 22-rifle costs $22.50.
Even shooting galleries are expen-
sive. Very few of us when we were
kids could buy waterguns or air
rifles. In school only the wealtlliest
boys generally were members of the
gun club. Whatever hunting we did
was not out in the meadows Or brake,
but in some filthy backyard after
cats or sparrows or taking bead
at bottle on the fence.
HENCE city workers are seriously
IL handicapped. "They don't know
which end of the gun to use," says
the ex-marine with whom we are
squirrel hunting here. He Is an ex-
pert marksman He would rather
hunt than eat. He comes from an
Alabama farm, where his folks are as
poor as snakes" He laughs when
he remembers Kelly and some of the
other boys on the battleship Ar
kansas. Most of the city boys
couldn't hit the side of barn with
12-inch gun"
From the earliest days frontiers
men and farmers of America have
used their guns like another arm.
Against wild animals. For food.
And it is so now still with tens of
thousands of them. But game is
much scarcer.
About 80 miles southeast of HouS-
ton, Texas, is Galveston Bay and
miles of low country where rice is
grown. Here hundreds of rice farm
ers have gone under, squeezed by
the irrigation companies and the rice
dealers. Negro farmhands have told
me that once they could take their
guns with them and bring back
from the woods food to last them a
couple of days. Now you can
hardly see duck around. They
make the season short. Posslm and
coon is thinned out"
When more and more farmers
can no. buy meat for their fam
lilies a gun Is handy thing.
remember the Pennsylvania farmer
with whom we stayed last July.
don't believe he had the money to
buy shells for a shotgun. There
wasn't Sirgie chicken on his farm.
On the desk before me lies his
milk check: S7.S5 with deduction
Of $1.1S for carriage. Well, his cows
weren's making a living for him.
So one day one Of them went out
and stepped on a rabbit. How the
five children fell on that sweet
meat. And for one meal the gaunt
farm-woman did not have to worry
how to prepare her potatoes --boiled,
mashed, salad. potatoes, potatoes,
day in and ont.
The "they" that the Negro
farmland was referring to are re-
sp0nsibIe for conditions in Michi-
gan. Here the government has
been trying to push the farmers
off the marginal land in the north
ern counties to make it better