Detroit evening times., 1945-08-28
Full Employment

Tires, vast mOuHldlnSlueS WneTe IeW
stark naked trees still stand with black
ened surfaces among myriads of fallen
giants.
All you have to do to reforest those
places is to haul the logs away, cut down
the standing deadwood, pull up million
stumps, then prepare the soil, dig holes.
transplant young new trees, stick them in
the ground, and nurse them while they
grow.
That's nice work if you like it,
These regions which need reforesting
are always remote from the cities. Trans
portation is long and difficult, and facili-
ties for housing and feeding the workers
would have to be built.
The ordinary lumberjack who does
that sort of work has to be pretty much
of giant of strength, who can endure
not only the horrible hardships of the toll,
but the dull life of the lumber camps
Literary men and politicians calmly
propose to move millions of unemployed
men into such jobs.
What is to be done with their wives
and children? That's easy, too. Just build
towns for them.
The next man that tosses "reforesta-
ton" at you as an easy answer to gov
ernment guaranty of full employment
ought to be forced to go out there and
cut down one dead tree, pull up its stump
and put new one in its place.
4 MOTHER beautiful answer is Build
"A great highways"
Did YOU ever watch a highway in
construction?
Well, highway building, like building
railroads and digging tunnels and sewers
and coal mines, is mighty hard work. How
many of our citizens are fit to get out and
run bulldozers, pour concrete, tamp
gravel and work over hot tar wagons
Highway building is an easy answer to
public unemployment-easy for the poll
ticlan or writer who wants your support
or your applause But what one of them
will lead the way What one of them will
swing an ak or pick?
How are you going to get the people
into the lonely places where the highways
must be built They will all be unskilled,
most of them feeble, and the expense of
their upkeep will be ruinous.
ANOTHER THING THEY NEVER
MENTION is THE NECESSARY USE
OF FORCE
You don't need to be told what they
don't remind you of: That the govern
ment could only get these jobs of refor-
estation and highway building done by
the use of the most complete POLICE
POWER ever known.
The government would be forced to
be a slave driver just as the pharaohs
were. \
The government will run its labor
armies the way it runs its fighting forces.
You are drafted and told where 10 go,
what to wear, what to do.
You eat what you get and YOU obey
orders-OR ELSE! with capital E.
WHY during the depression and the
w days Of the WPA farmers and fruit
growers begged the people on relief to
come and pick the crops, and offered them
high wages. Almost nobody applied
So the despairing farmers begged the
people to come out and harvest the crops
and pluck the fruits and keep what they
picked.
The people on relief laughed at them
and said it was the governments business
to bring their food to them and cook il
for them. AND 1T BETTER BE GOOD,
We can't afford that experience
again. 1t cost us billions to feed people
who refused to be coaxed out into the
country. What would they do if the gov
ernment tried to drive them out7
THE GOVERNMENT WOULD NEED
ALL IT'S TROOPS TO DO TT.