Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1948-01-23
HOW RICH
Is AIM ERR GA?
BY A. N. SPANIEL
President Of international Latex Corporation

Our wealth goes far beyond what we or
others estimate it to be. 1t can't be meas
ured in the number of automobiles we pro-
duCe or counted in the bushels of wheat we
grow. Our wealth is our people: creative
men and women of goodwill!
They are beyond statistics and budgets
and all theoretical calculations. They
make America!
There is Drew Pearson. No one would
call that battle-scarred neWsman a Wistful
visionary. Yet when he saw the politicos
sputtering into dangerous showdown on
the problem of helping to feed a starving
Europe, he wrote letter on October 18th,
made nationwide broadcast the follow
ing day and, within two months, sailed
with the first of four shiploads of food!
BY now the whole world knows the
story of the Friendship Train. But let us
not forget that it was Pearson who, single
handed, cut through a tangle of red tape
and filled 266 box cars with a nations gen
crosby. He generated a wave of good
fellowship that made Americas great
railroads produce scarce box cars as if by
magic. The wave" reached hard-boiled
tearnsters who had fought against forty
hour week but worked a twenty four-hour
day for Pearson. American shipping COM
panies jointly provided four ships; Ameri-
can airlines elaborated to furnish planes
which flew pamphlets of hope and the
promise of, succor to desperate people.
The spirit stimulated by this crusading
newsman spread to Hawaii, where plant
ers rushed a plane load of sugar. 1t reached
across to France, where dock workers stop
ped squabbling long enough to unload the
Friend Ship. From the Atlantic to the from
tier of Yugoslavia packages were well
coined by hungry children. One man had
initiated more goodwill in two months
than scores of politicians and billions of
dollars could make or unmake in years.
Because Pearson is working newsman
himself, press and radio comments have
underplayed his role in the story. He knew
that he would get small credit for what he
did. And that is as he would want it. But as
weseeit, projects like the Friendship Train
do not spring full blown from the soil.
Someone has to strike the spark, interest
others, organize them for fast work; some
one has to fight off the Cassandras who say
it can't be done.
All his life Drew Pearson has had to get
things done. The son of a Quaker minister,
he earned his own way as a boy by trapping
small game. He became a travelling lee
turer and broadened his horizons. Al the
end of World War he went overseas for
the American Friends Service Committee
and spent two years doing relief work in
the Balkans. In Yugoslavia they named a
town, Pearsonavatz, to honor him and his
good work. Pearson never forgot the star
walton and agony that are the backwash of
war. That memory and big, bold heart
are what launched the Friendship Train.
And it's that kind of generous, spontan-
eous urge to do the right thing that is our
greatest national resource.
1t is Americans like Drew Pearson and
the many who made the Friendship Train
possible who give our country its prestige
in the world and enrich it beyond all cali
Culation.
Rseseu5aaee RsIM .sssose q