The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1942-01-29
The Cherry Tree
Where We Hdtched Out
The Truth
. BECOMES COMPLEX AFFAIR
WHEN WAR ENDS
. KEEP 'EM FLYING"
"MEN OF GOOD WILL"

Some queer things are going to hap
pen before this war is over
Folks talk about adjusting wages
| to meet cost of living. An interesting
and important subject.
| But what is the cost of living going
to be? OF what will it consist? Gov
ernment is trying to force us NOT
to buy many things that have been
| regarded as necessary.
SO, those things will NOT be Il
part of the cost of living.
Workers are being urged to buy de-
fense bonds, rightly. And they will
buy them in huge quantities. See what
the Butcher WOrkmen have done But
NET wages go down every time there
is such an expenditure. Thus workers
will voluntarily cut their own wage
volume available for living costs.
Taxes are up and many will pay
this year who have never paid before
Add the new use tax for automobiles
Add many special taxes. The cost of
living problem becomes a very COM
pleX affair.
And then there's the question of
what to do after the war.
Many things are forgotten by most
of those who talk about that.
Today we're working at full speed
to produce things that don't 90 on the
table, or for shelter, or for amusement
They go just for battle purpose For
Ian I, hull
duction is a dead loss. If it wins the
war that's all we ask.
SO, many folks ask, what about the
peace time when all the machinery
now used to make war materials isn't
needed for that any more? Will there
be Il let down? And must wages 90
way up so that we can buy to keep
the factories running?
Doesn't that assume a lot that may
not be so when the time comes?
Production of war material isn't 90
ing to Starve us to death. 1t is only
going to make us get along without
some things.
Since winning the war is job for
all of us, isn't war production properly
described as production for social use?
If not then why not?
Social use is different from indi-
vidual use.
X X K
Well when the guns cease firing,
isn't it possible that we may go right
on producing for social use, until
through gradual readiuStment we can
get back to an even keel?
OF course, after the war the things
that would be of social value would
no longer be guns and tanks, but they
might be planes and bridges and parks
and public buildings and hundred
things that communities use.
Right now nobody knows what will
be our national condition when the
war ends. Nobody is wise enough to
know that, because there are too many
other things that aren't known, such
as now long the war will last and how
many millions of starving people in
other countries we may have to help
feed.
These things being as they are, it is
probably foolish to worry at all about
production and wages and living costs
after the war. But it may pay big to
do little preliminary thinking as the
weeks pass.
X X X
The primary job of the hour of
course, is to keep 'em flying, with
every factory wheel and furnace go
ing full blast without stoppagc
Best news in that picture is the
possibility that the AFL and the ClO
may quit making faces at each other
and get together. That's Il tremendous
job but it can be done "by men of
good will. The good will hasn't been
much in evidence in the months past,
but the war has worked many Won
ders and this may well he one of them.
Perhaps the heroic defense of Wake
Island has made people say to them
selves, Those brave men did their best
and we can't do less ourselves
If we can win the war, surely we
surviving the peace and making it
can do the much less heroic job Of
decent to live in.
And, among other things, we might
remember that we can all keep busy
then producing social values, just as
and guns of war.
Ii wouldn't be the worst way in the
world to keep the industrial machine
going.-CAlW.