Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1945-07-13
On The
Beam
By
Clayton w.
Fountain

The victory pay-off has
come to Willow Run, that big
bomber plane we built out in
the COW pastures near Ypsi-
lanti, Michigan, with some 80
million of Uncle Sans hard
earned dollars.
Thousands of workers have
been given their walking pa
pers. The last Liberator was
towed off the line few days
ago, with Mr.. Henry Ford ii
officiating, while the editors
of the daily press chewed their
pencils and maintained a dis
Greet silence.
Now the mud-dauber wasps
will sneak into the huge plant
to plaster their nests in its
quiet corners, and the songs of
invading crickets will be
heard where the riveters once
clattered "a hours a day.
So victory comes to Willow
Run, and the little beasties
who are taking it over must
think that man is an awfully
dumb creature to build such
splendid big plant and use it
for a couple of years, then
desert it.
BRAVE NEW WORLD
After all the fine words our
politicians have spouted dur
ing the course of this war -
explaining how all the bomb
ing and killing was necessary
to lay the groundwork for a
brave new world of peace and
plenty - you would expect to
see few big public figures
breaking their necks to use
Willow Run to secure the
peace.
But, while we cheer the
formulation of the Charter at
Frisco, the Willow Run work
ers check in their badges,
scratch their heads and plod
home to figure out the interest
on their War Bonds.
This is a situation that calls
for some good old-fashioned
soap-box oratory.
Somebody should rear up on
a street corner and yell to the
world that the Frisco Charter
will turn out to be a dud if we
do not dope out a way to fur
nish jobs for the Willow Run
workers.
INDIGESTIBLE CHARTER
The Frisco Charter is a fine
document, of course, but the
paper on which it is written
is highly indigestible. Unem-
ployed Willow Run workers
cannot eat the fancy phrases
with which, the Charter plots
the framework of the plenti-
full world it proposes to erect.
But, bark - there is that
man on the street corner,
yelling from his soap-box. He
is Joe Worker, a laid-off en-
ployee from Willow Run, who
thinks that he has right to a
job in the brave new world
planned by the Frisco Charter.
Listen to what he is saying!
He says that, if the Fords do
not intend to furnish him a
job, the federal government
should step in and create pub
lie corporations to operate
Willow Run and other war
plants for the purpose of pro-
viding jobs for American
workers.
WILLOW RUN "TVA"
He says this in a pamphlet
published by UAW-CIO Will
low Run Bomber Local so. In
this pamphlet, Local SO and
UAW- -CIO Vice President Wal
ter P. Reuther propose jointly
to create a workers producer
cooperative, under a Willow
Run "TVA," to produce light
weight railroad cars and pre-
fabricated low-cost housing.
Joe Worker, from Willow
Run, says these things while
Senators Burton, Hatch and
Ball are dreaming up a law to
put a crimp in labor's rights.
He says these words, offers
his plan for democratically-
planned production at Willow
Run, while Senator Bilbo is
cutting the throat of the Fair
Employment Practices Com
mittee.
So, hush, you mud-daubers
and crickets.
We are not a nation of Bill
bos.
Joe Worker is on the job -
he will look after the well
fare of mankind, in spite of
the Bilbos and the Fords.
mo nation (the United