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Show a F&TnGarden C2 H Opinions C4 13 Religion C8 Sunday, December 8, 1951 The Dally Herald By The Associated Press From Guadalcanal to Normandy, American soldiers in World War II lived on memories of the homeland they'd left behind. But by suppertime on Dec. 7, 1941, that land already was changing; by 1 war's end it was gone, blown away like the ships and planes at Pearl Harbor. The demands of winning a war transformed the American home front into something almost as exotic as the places where the soldiers fought. Times Square and Coney Island were blacked out and the Reflecting Pool on the Mall in Washington was lined with flimsy wood office buildings. The Rose Bowl contained interned and the New Japanese-- Americans, Year's football game was moved to North Carolina. work There was a limit national a of 35 week, speed mph, a ban on pleasure driving and a major league outfielder with one arm. Vast fields of marijuana were planted in Kentucky under government auspices to revive the hemp industry. It was time of paradox. People had more money, but there was less to buy; the government controlled everything from war news to skirt lengths, but blacks, women and many other citizens enjoyed unprecedented freedom. There is one safe generalization about home-froAmerica: It was unlike anything before or since. The change started in Washington, where the federal government spent as much in five war years as it had in the preceeding 150; hired as many as 5,000 people a month to quadruple its civilian payroll; and rationed, controlled or regulated nearly every item Americans ate, wore or lived in. To control prices, the government banned sliced bread and trouser cuffs, told butchers how to cut meat and tailors how to cut clothes, limited ice cream to eight flavors and shoes to six colors. To conserve materials, it halted production of ranging from phonographs and commercial trucks to waffle irons and asparagus tongs. It banned girdles with elastic and spittoons made of brass. 48-ho- ur nt m rll empt his department store impostors from a wage freeze. Next, people joked, President Roosevelt would require farmers to remove their horses shoes each night to preserve iron. No one joked about taxes. By 1945 the number of people required to pay federal income taxes had grown from between 3 million and 4 million to 50 million, and surtaxes were taking 94 percent of net income in the high- iMniiii hi iiiiiiiiiiiMii mi mill ll i ill ll nil 1 , . - in ' - - ScHsl v. si sSsHl - . a ':t? est bracket. Americans went along with all this new government ... most of them. Exceptions included the farmer who demanded sugar rationing coupons for a mule who supposedly refused to work without the stuff, and the New Jersey hoarder who was found with a sugar supply. Americans were simply unprepared for shortages in such basics as meat, sugar and gasoline, and for the rationing designed to mitigate them. The government regulated countless prices, including those of 1 ,800 oils and fats. Three billion rationing coupons changed hands each month. Most people grumbled, complained and complied. Pleasure the Labor driving declined Day weekend death toll dropped from 423 in 1941 to 169 in 1942 partly because government agents hung around race tracks, ballparks and nightclubs, noting license plates. Motorists who drove to a symphony concert in Rochester, N.Y., had their ration 557-ye- ar nmi;g mm mnii it'VliMliifiifliiiii'Tr--l-agEr'- iii m mi iinliini mm imtiiinriini coupons confiscated. Still, the black market flour- - ished. By war's end, for example, up to a fifth of all meat was sold in violation of price rules. The vast black market was a and too result of too few goods much money. Almost everyone who could work was doing so, and unemployment dropped to an all-tilow of 1 .2 percent. The military production whirlpool sucked in blacks, women, children and the elderly; former cranes, painted ships. Someone had to take care of the kids, so the federal government helped build and operate almost 3,000 child care centers. The centers were not particu- er v or i -' Vf -" ""ian in iMinMiiMniniif in iiim r mill i -- imn iimiiini iiMiwimir 1"' m 'T- - AP Laser photo Cleveland Indians pitching star Bob Felier joined the U.S. Navy on Dec. 9, 1941, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. auto dealers and washing machine salesmen; prisoners and prison guards. The blind salvaged rivets in aircraft plants and midgets inspected the insides of wings. The president of a hobos group said virtually everyone had left the road and gone to work. Five million women, more than half of them married, got jobs; they loaded shells, operated The government seized 200,-00- 0 pounds of scrap from a junkman and seized control of Montgomery Ward after the president of the mail-ordgiant disobeyed order. When the execa pro-labutive refused to leave his office, two burly soldiers carried him At various times, the administration took over coal mines, the railroads, and dozens of factories. It set skirt lengths three inches below the knee, and legally defined "Santa Claus" to ex ipinipi - "non-essential- out. m m Mm r irmirTfT larly popular, however; most children were left with relatives or neighbors. A social worker, however, counted 45 babies locked inside cars in the parking lot of a munitions plant in Los Angeles. rmnni AP Laserphoto Jimmy Stewart, who won the Academy Award in 1940 for best actor, isn't acting as he salutes at Fort McArthur, Calif, on March 22, 1941. Stewart, a licensed pilot, joined the U.S. Army as a corporal and by the war's end he was a colonel. 5 America was working itself out of the Depression. Civilians spent a fifth more than they had before the war, and the average factory worker's weekly pay nearly dou bled. Observed one: "It's a pretty good war if you don't get shot at." A nation supposedly stripped down for war seemed to be reliving the Jazz Age. Hotels, restau- rants and nightclubs were jammed. On Dec. 7, 1944, Macy's reported its busiest day ever. As a war worker put it, "You just bought everything." Unfortunately, there was less to buy. Housing was so scarce near the new weapons plants that many workers resorted to trailers, tents and "hot beds," because they accommodated two or three shifts of sleeped ers. A girl was seen sitting late one night in a beer hall. "I'm waiting for 12 o'clock," she explained. "My bed isn't empty until then." Materials shortages gave birth to consumer "victory" goods, many of which were losers. Shoes had less leather, glasses less glass. No bicycle could weigh more than 31 pounds. The fiimsy Victory fly swatter was designed to save metal screen, and also saved the life of many a fly. Even sports were devalued. About 4,000 of the nation's 5,700 pro baseball players went into the service, leaving the game to overage fathers, Latin Americans, and Pete Gray. Gray played in 77 games for the St. Louis Browns in 1945 despite the fact he had one arm. He batted only .2 1 8, but was an excellent fielder. To accommodate shift workers, games began as early as 10:30 a.m. and as late as 9:30 p.m. (although night baseball was banned in much of the nation). There was no spring training, no 1945 All-StGame, and by the end of the war all but nine of 41 minor leagues had closed . The 1942 Rose Bowl game was held in Durham, N.C., and travel restrictions made the 1944 game a ar strictly West Coast affair in which Southern Cal beat WashOther wartime casington, 29-ualties included the Henley Regatta and the Indianapolis 500, a Memorial Day fixture since 0. 1916. Meanwhile, a war was going on, and for the first time since the War of 1812 an attack on the mainland was a serious possibility. By early 1942 German subs were seen regularly off the East Coast, and in four months they sank 87 ships. As Roosevelt took to the radio Feb. 23 to reassure the nation, a Japanese sub surfaced off Santa Barbara, Calif., and shelled an oil refinery. All radio stations on the West Coast went off the air after dark, except for KIRO in Seattle. A ban on beach fires was enforced by mounted police, and bridges were patrolled by armed guards. frai,rarcmnnTgii National natural landmarks scandal not politically Of Last week several television stations around the country aired a shocking story about how the National Park Service has abused the rights of thousands of Americans. The charges were based on material from my own investigations that I gave to the Chicago-base- d Better Government Association (BGA), a private, nonpartisan watchdog group, which then continued the probe. Produced by Preview Media, a syndicated TV environmental news service, they were corroborated by the Interior Department's inspector general in a draft audit completed last August. But more shocking than the story itself is the lack of response to it. Revealing a disturbing indifference to human rights, the conservation community and many in the media are ignoring a flagrant misuse of federal power. The issue concerns the National Natural Landmarks Program (NNLP). Administered by the Park Service, this office is intended to designate lands whose ecological values arc nationally significant. But despite its lofty aim, the NNLP has become a cat's cradle of corruption. For more than a decade, program officials secretly evaluated thousands of properties for landmark status, trespassed on private lands without permission and illegally designated hundreds as national landmarks without the owners' knowledge or consent. Then officials lied to the public, falsely suggesting that landmark status places no restrictions on listed lands. When I first broke this story nearly two years ago, conservationists and NPS officials denied everything. Now the BGA and the Interior inspector general independently have confirmed my findings. NNL administrators, the BGA reports, "have ignored ... constitutional rights to property, privacy and just compensation on a systematic and nationwide basis." The draft Inspector General Report concurs, noting that involuntary landmark designation "could result in unwanted land use restrictions or other protective measures being imposed on the landowners by the federal, state andor local governments" and concluding that "over 2,800 private landowners may have had their property rights infringed ""I '.'..'.... I'miTin" wTTrttmm MtMIUIUUUUUUIUMJUlll JJL.IUHJMlim WTi'TtTrttniirTniriilgiMirHii riMiiiiiiW'iiiiMiiiiWMtf Alston Chase "ON THE ENVIRONMENT" upon." Rather than facing reform in response to these disclosures, however, the NNLP is being en- larged and whistle-blowepunished. In its proposed revision of NNL regulations, the NPS insists on keeping information on private lands that it collected illegally. And it ominously insists on evaluating properties even over the objections of owners, using "other existing information sources." rs Meanwhile, Congress raised the NNL budget from $162,000 to $900,000, and Charles McKin-ne- y veteran of the Park , a Service who first reported program abuses to his superiors, has been forced out of the agency. Reform is not forthcoming because few demand it. Beltway conservationists want the NNLP 19-ye- ar And the BGA, which regularly packages investigative stories for the TV newsmagazine shows "60 Minutes" and "2020," found network execs also uninterested in the NNL fiasco. to grow; they don't want the NPS to worry about individual rights. The National Parks and Conservation Association and Wilderness Society wrote NPS Director James M. Ridenour, "We strongly recommend against the adoption of regulations that would permit landowner objection to thwart the evaluation process." Those who shed tears over the transfer of NPS Regional Director Lorraine Mintzmyer have not so much as wet an eyelash about the fate of McKinney. Mintzmyer was made a martyr because she was fired by the Bush administraa report that tion for might have extended federal control over private lands. McKinney became a pariah because he was concerned about individual rights. This indifference is not surprising. For conservationists, the issue is power. Although nationalizing land is often a recipe for ecological destruction, it augments the power of those Washing- groups that wield within federal influence great land management agencies. And ton-based the media presume that fretting about property rights is not politically correct and thus isn't worth reporting. Taking land from peoso long as ple, it is supposed the confiscation helps the enviis OK because most ronment landowners are rich bums ruiin..g the Earth. for landmark status, it neglected to do so when evaluating the parcel owned by Illinois housewife Margaret Dash, who is currently fighting imminent condemnation proceedings. These injustices continue because the environmental community, press and public evince a declining concern for property rights. This trend poses grave , ; dangers. The purpose of the landmark; natural preservation ; program is an important ideal. Sometimes condemnation, when done constitutionally, is desirable. .But private property also must be. strongly defended. This right is not just an economic device: It is the only way to check the arbi-- ! trary use of government power.'. As Franklin Roosevelt ob- -' served, "The function of govern--memust be to favor no small : group at the expense of its duty to the of rights personal protect and of private property of all ' : nt In fact, most NNLP victims are not rich. The NPS usually tramples on those who are not while carefully observing the rights of people in power. Thus, while the agency politely informed the family of Montana Sen. Max Baucus that their ranch was being evaluated free-do- m its citizens." Protecting these rights, therefore, should not be a : partisan issue. In our rush to save ; the environment, we must not put liberties at risk. |