The Durant news. (Durant, Miss.) 1882-1985, 1942-03-12
THROUGH
HAZ E |.
e Y s
q
BY
Hazel Brannon

The President in his brief adj
dress to the farmers Of the nation
Monday night said there is a lob to
be done and everyone must do his
part. He mentioned workers in the
mills and mines, workers in civilian
defense and the farmers who "are
straining every effort to produce the
food which, like the tanks and planes,
Is absolutely indispensable to VIC
tory"
The President said each of these
groups know the extent to which
they themselves are responding but
they do not always know what is
being done by the others. This, he
said, gives opportunity to the enemy
TO spread malicious words.
Labor, says the evil whisper, is
sabotaging the war program with
strikes and slowdowns and demands
for higher wages. Business is goug-
ing the country with unconscionable
profits. And the farmer, according
to this t%reacherous voice, is using the
war to grab all he cam the Presi-
dent said.
The country does not need "whis-
pers" of the enemy to know that
what the President spoke of as ru-
NOR is really truth. We have but
to use our own eyes and ears to
know of thousands of manhours lost
in strikes and slowdowns; we have
but to read the Truman committee
report to know of the waste and ex-
~travagance in various phases Of our
national defense program.
It is a matter Of record, too,
that when the farmer asks the gov
eminent not to sell products below
parity considered a fair price, the
administration and the whole coun-
try lets out a yell that the farmer
is trying to rob the country and
make the cost of living go up.
This assumption and accusation
is both unjust and true.
The farmer Is a consumer as well
as a producer. The shirt he buys
for two dollars does not have more
than ten cents worth of cotton i.
it. Other manufactured articles that
he uses to produce his crop, ploughs,
tractors and other implements. he
has to buy on a controlled and pro-
tected market. He is powerless to
fight big business and he has to
buy where he can.
But when he asks the government
not to dump government owned sur
plus products on the market, a thing
that would run prices down and keep
him from getting any kind Of fair
return on his farm products, he Is
called a robber. The same govern
ment that would dump those sur
plus products on the market run
ming prices down is the government
that continues to pacify and coddle
labor, giving it everything under
the sun. Labor has been handled
with kid gloves so much that now
great numbers of farm labor have
gone to the cities working in defense
plants who should be raising the
food the nation will need just as
much as it needs planes and tanks
and guns.
The farmer is having a hard time
holding his labor now. If his W
government conspires to hold the
prices he gets for his products be-
low cost of production he can no
longer produce.
All the farmer asks is a fair treat
ment. He is not asking for special
privileges that labor has demanded
and obtained. He will do his full
share and more. But the government
should at least regard his interest as
much as it does labor's if farm eff
fort mean anything toward winning
the war.
Try winning the war without
food or cotton.
War Production Chief Donald M
Nelson sounds like a man who knows
what he is talking about when he
says that the nations output OF
military supplies can be doubled II
all existing war production machin-
ery were used "a hours a day eve
days a week.
He also knows whereof he speaks
when he says: "Unless production IS
brought to victorious levels, neither
management nor labor could survive
the public wrath should that wrath
be turned against them; nor could
we here on the War Production
Board"
Mr.. Nelson is authority for the
statement that only 20 percent OF
the war plants are working only i've
or five and one-half days per week;
the second shifts in many plants use
only 40 per cent Of the plants capa-
city and the third shifts use only ~
percent of capacity.
eve have been on the defensive
enough. The attack begins mere a.
home-here on the production line.
It is a production offensive we must
have before we can carry the war 70
a successful offensive against the
or,yn Nv Nelson warned.