The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-03-03

ODW no WdS Ill
some ways another office of Civil
ian Defense, duplicating some of the
old OCD boondoggling. There have
also been runors that in the OCD
reorganization, a lot of this boon
doggling would be dumpded in the
lap of ODWHS and carried On from
there. Neither of these accusations
is quite correct.
ODHWS like OCD is supposed to
be morale building organization, OF
more accurately to have morale
building as one of its principal func-
tons. ODHWS considers itself pure
ly a co-ordinating organization, a
professional organiza ton if you
please, working with professional
morale builders to whom is left the
job of working with the civilian
population. GOD aims its programs
right at the civilian population.
PLEASE EXPLAIN
OCD is cleaning house Of a lot of
this volunteer participation stuff but
in so doing is not dumping it on
ODHWS. 1t has been proposed to
move John B. KeIly's physical fitness
activities from OCD to ODHWS.
Kelly has been asked to justify the
existence of his program, but the
last word was that he hadn't SO
far delivered the justification argu-
ments (Mayris CLANCY was in his
organization), so tn matter is still
pending. The other frills of OCD
will apparently not be transferred to
anyone but just quietly put out Of
their misery.
Governor McNUtt is still boss of
the shop which operates on a budget
of S530,000 from presidential funds
NeXt-to- the-top executive work is
done by a couple of others. Charles
P. Taft IN charge Of health and well
fare, NJ. L. Wilson in charge of
nutrition. Wilson is also director of
the extension service in the Depart
ment of Agriculture, SO the active
work is done by DR.. Helen Mitchell,
professional nutritionist who is out
to promote the idea that the country
can and must eat its way to victory.
Forty per cent of the country, she
says, doesn't eat right and is there
fore suffering from hidden hunger"
The nutrition division of ODHWS
hasn't a large staff and it hasn't
large budget. It's job is largely to
coordinate the work of all the Or
CARNATIONS interested in nutrition
and spread the word of what good
nutrition amounts to through edu-
cational campaigns and telling other
communities what any other COM
munity has done to further the
cause of right eating.
UP TO STATES
The word is theoretically spread
through state nutrition councils. It's
up to the state councils to pass the
word on to the local communities in
the state. set up county or city nu-
triton councils and in this manner
get everyone Wised up on the food
stamps plan, school lunches, adult
education in nutrition and food sele-
ction, and so on.
At the lowest organization level,
this should mean that someone in
every community is running a nu-
triton course to tell the good wo-
man who does the marketing and
bends over the stove for your family
how to buy and plan meals so you'll
get the most good out of them. If
there is nutrition program under
way in your community, this plan
is working. If not, you are supposed
to start complaining to the authori-
ties.
Some of the local community pro-
grams are worth writing about. In
Springfield, Mass, the newspapers
took up this nutrition idea and put
it over. They started a campaign
for hot meals for the night shift in
the munitions plants, with the result
that a Red Cross canteen was opened
up for the owl and lobster trick
forces. There was drive to Pack
Pep in Your Lunches" The lowly
raw carrot was given plug as
something to prevent night blindness
for aviators and truck drivers.