Milford chronicle., 1943-07-16
MAYOR EVANS PLAYS
THE OPA DRIVING BAN
foonllnusa From Hir.t rarpl

to the land with a stringency they
have never known. They don't like
1t and they don't intend to take it.
Chairman Gives His Views
Clinton Watson is a farmer, an
undertaken and chairman of the
OPA board in Frankford. a town
of 300 inhabitants, without a thea
ter or any other recreation CEN
ter, a town with nothing except
the homes in which its people
live, a church, store and a filling
station.
I'VE have enough to do with
regular rationing without bother
ing with these pleasure driving
cases." said Watson. i've had to
hire a man to take care of my
business so can work on the
board. That's enough, without the
driving cases.
''The only ones we acted on were
speeding cases. In one of those we
] took away a book from a truckman
for 10 days, and that was very hard
on the chicken growers around
here; because that truck was need
ed to haul feed.
"Hardesty (Charles w. Hardes-
ty, State OPA directory told us
we'd have to handle all pleasure
driving cases, and we just said we
wouldn't. There are 73 of them pill
ed up here now. We're not afraid of
our jobs. We'd like to be fired"
ItiRerant Commissioners
Fnhok fnt 10 Enx N hn
easy victory Sussex scored over the
State Opa organization. Rather
than risk the whole ratiOning pro-
gram, the State heads have trans
ferred the task of hearing driving
cases to itinerant commissioners
working out of Wilmington.
Isaac ID. Short. I'd. a lawyer. is
chairman of GeorgetOwn's OPA
board.
Il have devoted eight hours
day to rationing work for a year."
he said, but l won't sit on any
more pleasure driving cases.
This is rural community
There is absolutely no public trans
portation, no busses, no railroad,
nothing. The people who work hard
need recreation. 1t is not a ques-
ton of disloyalty or lack of SYM
pathy with the ratiOning program.
| have to live here when the war
is over"
No Volunteers
The people in the area of the
Georgetown board are not enthus-
iastic about rationing as a whole.
Short said, I'VE have been unable
to get a single person to volunteer
for clerical help in the ration board
work. and this board serves a pop /
ulation of $4,000"
Df. Frank HersOn. pastor of the
Avenue Methodist Church and /.
chairman of Milfords OPA board,
found fault wit hthe methods fol-
lowed by enforcement agents.
Delaware agents do not stop
and question drivers. They merely
note the license numbers of sus-
pected autos and refer them to To-
cal boards for action.
Most of the cases they sent us
were ridiculous" said Dr. Herson.
"Of 80 sent us, only three could
stand up at all"
Mayor Owns Theater
Mayor Evans, who serves with |
DIR. Herson on MilfOrd's board. |
owns the towns movie theater and
a small amusement park. His atti-
tude is in no way influenced, he
says. by the fact that many drivers
have been cited for using their cars
to get to his theater and his park,
but he did not relish pe1alizing
them for it.
"I'll be honest with you" he said.
Il went fishing once and used my
car to do it. How can l judge any
one for doing what l did myselfT
THE whole thing has no sense
he said. We had two cases of men
whose numbers were taken at Re-
hoboth (shOre resort when they
were there on official business as
Government employees. They had
to travel a total of Sc miles to get
to the hearing and back again, and
of course We had to apologize to
them. That isn't saving gas.
Il say that if gas is scarce and
all you Cdu dhOlu " ACt NdNh
driver have is a pint a month, let
him lave it, let him save it up
and use it as he pleases."
SeafOrd'S Board
Seaford's board, headed by Ford
is following the pat
tern of the others.
You just can't drive those peo-
ple." said A. T. F. Dougherty, State
OPA administrative officer. If you
try to, they will just drop every
thing. On the whole they do good
job on rationing and we'd lose all
that if we insisted on having them
try the pleasure driving cases.
1T was an awful Job to get
boards to serve down there in the
first place. 1 spent five days try
ing. to get board together in Sea-
ford and finally came back here
to Wilmington feeling that at last
that section was taken care of.
They next day they all resigned.
so we have decided to send at
torneys. paid on a per-diem basis,
into those localities to hear pleas
lre driving cases. On the whole,
Sussex county has had few viola
tons reported" =,