The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1942-03-20
released by Western Newspaper union.)
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tReleased by Western Newspaper UnionJ
HORSE AND BUGGY DAYS
AND A WORLD AT WAR
WE ARE TRAVELLING backward
to the horse and buggy days of yes
teryear, If we can again find the
horses and buggies. The war has
marked at least a temporary sus-
pension of the automobile era.
In 1941, the more than 20 million
cars in the United States travelled
a total distance of over 288 billion
miles, an average of better than
5000 miles per car. That gives
some idea of what the automobile
has meant to America and to the
American family.
On the farm it meant easy and
quick transportation to town, and
to 'far-away towns. It meant an
opportunity to visit the movies, even
in towns 20 to 80 miles away. It
meant marketing in larger centers,
and pleasure trips covering long
distances.
Now when the present family bus
is gone, it cannot be replaced. When
its essential rubber has been burned
out, it cannot be reshod. The prob
lem is to make both the car and the
rubber last as long as possible; to
conserve both for the essential needs
Of the family. It will carry them
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the nearer stores than to those far
Their away. Its rubber shoes will
last longer at a slow speed than
when burned up at top speed. It
means getting back to the more
simple life of the horse and buggy
days.
For those of the generation that
knew the horse and buggy times,
going back to the simplicity Of that
period is rather alluring. It means
home-produced, instead of imported
entertainment. Visits with friendly
neighbors will take the place of joy
riding. It means neighborhood par
ties, instead of movies. The Sunday
school picnic, the Epworth League
meeting, the school entertainment
will again come into their own.
Conserve the old car and the farm
truck and their rubber tires for the
essential uses. It will be hard to
obtain the horses, buggies and farm
wagons of yesteryear as substitutes,
even though they might be satisfac-
tory. It may be long time before
the assembly lines are again turning
out family transportation facilities
as they have in the past quarter of
a century.
CLOSED SHOP
AND FREE LABOR
'THE UNITED STATES army has
a secret weapon. It is an army Of
free Americans. Extract from an
ad for the army recruiting service.
That should be true, but is it en-
tirely so today? Can we say an
American is free when it is possible
for a labor racketeer to force him
to pay a price for the privilege Of
working; when the labor racketeer
demands that all American workers
; be forced to pay for the privilege
Of working? That is what a "closed
shop" in American industry would
mean. The American worker should
be free to join union if he wants to,
and many would, but is he free when
he is forced to do so if he wants to
find a job through which to support
himself and family? The "closed
shop would be as un-American as
a state church, with all forced to
join and support it.
That the union can function effec-
lively, that it can adequately repre-
sent labor when operating on an
American basis of freedom of ac-
ton of the Individual, has been DEM
onstrated through the years. On
such basis the union has advanced
the cause of labor. When it de-
mands as infringement of the free
dom of the individual, it seriously
Injuries the cause it should seek to
help. The cry for closed shop is
the cry of the labor racketeer, not of
American workmen.
FARMERS SON
AND DRAFT BOARDS
THOSE WHO MAKE the rules for
the exemption boards do not figure
the farmers son and the ''hired
man" as essential to national de-
tense as are the officers and organ
izers of labor unions. The farmers
son and the "hired man" only pro-
vide food for our armed forces. The
union officers and labor racketeers
provide the strikes that delay our