The Wyandotte news-herald. (Wyandotte, Mich.) 1943-1963, 1945-09-27
Michigan Mirror
by gene alleInan

Many of Michigan's $4,000 men
and women in the military services
are coming home Soon-noW at a
low tide pace Of only 10000 month
ly- to a Pandora'S box of problems.
It's a new world, promised for
SO long. and with it beWildering
and confusing flood of new ideas.
Just as atomic energy is being
hailed as the greatest invention Of
all times, to quote the words of a
University of Chicago scientist in
the current issue Of Survey Graph
&c, so some American leaders insist
we are at the threshold of near
Utopia itself. william Green, pres
ident of the American Federation
Of Labor, employed the phrase
new industrial revolution" in his
Labor Day address this month. The
implications are obvious.
A number of years ago, DR.. Lloyd
Douglas, the one-time Ann Arbor
minister who attained fame as all
author, pointed out that the history
of civilization has been the graph
of a series of plateaus or levels.
He said We have been striving for
centuries to free ourselves from the
necessity of physical work and We
have just about accomplished it
to our own surprise. thanks to
chronological miracles of science.
Our latest ascent to a new pla-
teau is sharp and difficult, he said.
We must adjust ourselves to the
surge upward or fall by the way
side.
There are historians who main
tain that our current problems are
the by-products of this new climb
upward, and the words they use to
describe it are social revolution"
Certainly the staggering cost and
waste of modern war, which has
weakened England as never before,
are major factors in the current
swing there from private enter
prise to state socialism.
The veterans, once they have
made their own readjustments into
civilian life, will face the immedi-
ate choice of a continuation of the
American free, competitive system
which has been responsible for the
highest living standards in the
world today or fling at state So
cialism with its Utopian hope of
a full dinner pail, individual secur-
ity, better health, and better every
thing else, all at the bounty Of the
government and thus at tht ex-
penSe of everyone, rich and poor
There is some logic to the argu-
ment that the cost of modern war,
such as the 30 billions which have
been piled on top of American ma
tional indebtedness, may inevitably
push the nation into state social
ism.
The private enterprise system
faced with such a challenge, is on
trial as never before.
What will the veterans do? The
decision will be fateful.
The Michigan veterans will come
home to an agriculture which has
experienced wartime initiation OF
land prices.
More farm land changed hands
in Michigan in 1943 than in any
previous year on record. In fact
many farms have been sold at
prices higher than their longtime
earning power justifies. Prices last
year were As per cent higher than
in 1899. The spiral continues up
ward.
Veterans will return to a highly
mechanical agriculture in which
one good tractor now does the work
of three teams of horses. The same
machine, or perhaps one adapted
for small acreage, will enable the
veteran to escape the insecurity oil
the city and to possess a small SUBJ
urban farm where he can attain
some degree of independence from
the rise and fall of employment
Huge housing and road construc-
ton programs. victory" garden ex-
perience, new popularity of frozen
food lockers these are additional
factors which will accelerate tn,
trend from city to country.
The service industries In Mich.
igan-such as transportation, re-
failing, resorts professions, mar.