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Show BUSINESS MEN IN BENTON, ARK,, HEARTILY DISLIKE 'RED TAPE' Party Affiliation Matters Little With Opposition to Regulation; Labor Still Backs Government. By BARROW LYONS (EDITOR'S NOTE This is one of a series of articles written for this paper by Barrow Lyons, staff correspondent of Western Newspaper Union. He has just completed an extended trip through the nation and in these reports gives his first-hand impressions of what rural America is thinking as we enter the third year of war and the first weeks of a presidential election year. Any opinions expressed ex-pressed are the icriters and not necessarily those of this newspaper.) BENTON, ARK. Ava, Missouri, is traditionally Republican. Republi-can. Benton, Arkansas, is traditionally Democratic. Yet in both towns they are saying virtually the same hard things about the New Deal. Administration of the OPA and AAA comes in for the most severe criticism. What appears to be unnecessary red tape, regimentation, multiplication of federal jobs and arbitrary exercise of authority have irritated irri-tated the folk of these two small towns, especially the business busi-ness men, to high inflammability. Perhaps the Republican farmers around Ava are less inclined to be violently inimical to the New Deal than the Democratic farmers around Benton. Opposition to the New Deal springs tar less from party affiliation than it does from resentment against multiple multi-ple restrictions and regulations. Opposition also rises from a deep-seated idea that the Democratic Democrat-ic leaders in Washington are more Interested in building power for themselves than in rendering practical prac-tical service to the people at least to the hardest working and most intelligent in-telligent elements of the people. These attitudes may be right or wrong but they are the way more and more people in rural districts feel about it. In fact, in Arkansas feeling has risen so high among those who have voted the Democratic Demo-cratic ticket all their lives that the situation has aspects of an incipient in-cipient rebellion. Farmers have openly written defiant letters to federal fed-eral authorities challenging them to come and enforce the law. Lawrence B. Burrow, a Little Rock attorney to whom Benton merchants go for legal advice, summed up the situation thus: "Many small business men are getting their affairs in shape so they can quit after the war. They are the backbone of this part of the country, but Washington hasn't learned it yet. Between high taxes and all kinds of restrictions, Washington Wash-ington has built up a psychology of resentment that in every way is comparable to the attitude of the American colonies toward King George III. You can go back and read the speeches of Patrick Henry, and you'll discover that he felt exactly ex-actly as most of the merchants and farmers of Arkansas feel today." Arkansas farmers and business men have gotten to the point where Shey pay very little attention to many federal regulations. Bootlegging of grain and other farm commodities above ceiling prices is said to be-the be-the usual practice, rather than the i , x x Deep strip mining for bauxite near Benton, Ark. exception in some regions. Minor federal fed-eral officials are frequently insulted, and when they resent it, they are charged with -being arbitrary and oppressive and it may be that they are in some instances. Names and cases are related freely. Complaints Are Economic As Well as Emotional The complaint of the Arkansas farmer has a strong economic as well as emotional basis. A. R. Sawyer, Saw-yer, who farms about 150 acres near Benton, told this story: , This year because of drouth he obtained only about 400 bushels of corn from 35 acres. The OPA ceiling ceil-ing price at Benton is SI. 15 a bushel, but corn is selling in the bootleg market at SI. 65 and little is obtainable ob-tainable at that price. Mr. Sawyer's fields yielded a hay crop of about 1..000 bales, as against $ OKLA. j ARK.' J J LITTLE ROCK DALLAS MISS TEXAS ) - LA. t a usual 3,000 bales. He didn't even bother to cut his soy beans, they were so dried up. "In this case," he declared, "there is no reason in the world why prices should be restricted. We have so little to sell that the money we receive re-ceive could hardly cause inflation. On one farm I have a renter who worked the farm from February to the third week in October. He grossed about $1,000 by the end of October. When his crop was in, he took a job in a near-by war plant and earned $66 a week. Which of these occupations do you think is more likely to cause inflation? Mr. Sawyer talked at length. His unhappy experiences were many and distressing. Mrs. George D. Downing, secretary sec-retary and treasurer of the C. W. Lewis Lumber company, had much to say about the government govern-ment handling of lumber. When wages were frozen, the pay of lumber workers was fixed at a level so far below that of local war plants that the company has lost a very large proportion of its employees and is unable to replace them. In 1941 it produced about 954 million feet of lumber; in 1942 about 5 million feet, and this year it will produce less than 3'4 million feet despite the fact that lumber is a critical material. Labor Regulations Trouble Merchant H. J. Gingles, general retail and wholesale merchant at Benton, feels particularly resentful over the Wage and Hour law and unemployment compensation. One employee who was discharged for drunkenness received re-ceived unemployment compensation. Two women who remained away from work for several months to have babies drew unemployment compensation, quite illegally; but the fact that they could do so with impunity disturbs him. But all of Benton is not against the New Deal. The town is close to the bauxite mining region dominated dominat-ed by the operation of the Aluminum Alumi-num Company of America. In this area are several thousand people who work in the aluminum mines and the great government alumina plant near the town of Bauxite. To this region the Aluminum Workers of America, a CIO union, sent a young man by the name of R. W. Goddard about two years ago. Under his leadership as business agent, Locals 23, 28, 32 and 33 have been organized. He says they include in-clude most of the aluminum workers work-ers of the area. "I can't speak officially about the politics of our members," said Mr. Goddard. "But I think I can say unofficially that for the most part they are satisfied with the New Deal. A big percentage are native to Arkansas. Ar-kansas. I came from Tennessee. They were born Democrats and remain re-main so. I think they feel that the New Deal has truly tried to protect the workers' interest." |