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Show THE RICH COUNTY REAPER, RANDOLPH, UTAH vsa tires Atomic War Could Force Return to Primitive Life By EDWARD EMERINE o W j WNU Features. M I N O J n'e By BAUKHAGE a A 5K a b News Analyst and Conimentator. 10LD! The magic word was spoken. It was heard and repeated. Gold in Colorado fo the taking. Nuggets as big as turkey eggs all over the mountains. As the story traveled, it was embellished in retelling. Overnight in 1858, Pikes Peak or Bust nations slogan. welcomes a gathering to Washington which will deal with a Mid-Jun- subject more and me than anything I can think of. The meeting is described as an institute on the . Men of every nationality, occupation and station in life joined the Pikes Peak gold rush, one of the great mass migrations in Americas history. They swarmed into the Colorado mountains, whooping it up as they went. In their wake followed farmers to settle in the fertile valleys. From Texas, across the open grasslands, were driven herds of longhorn cattle. Down south in Georgia, W. Green Russell heard about it. He organ-ized a party of 30 or 40 miners and set out for the Pikes Peak region, hardly sleeping until he reached the banks of the South Platte and made camp. Within a month he had been joined by 400 others and the settlement was dignified by the name Auraria, in honor of Russells 960-ac- control of atomic en ergy. oradoan knows that. Cowmen, sheepmen, beet growers, truck gardeners, fruit growers, hay ranchers and general farmers must have water. They got it. They dug wella deep in the ground. They constructed dams in the canyons to store the melted snow; they dug canals and ditches; they irrigated the rich, thirsty soil. They homesteaded in the Great American desert and they mad' it bloom. The beet and potato industry around Greeley, founded by the old Union colony, is a monument to pioneers in irrigation, All along the South Platte basin, from Denver and Fort Collins tc Sterling and Julesburg, is a mighty agricultural empire. The Arkansas river waters developed 'a famed valley that produces beets, melons, fruit and garden truck for the nation. From Canon City through Rocky Ford to Lamar and the Kansas line is another agricultural wonder brought about by irriga. re re-ena- JOHN C. VIVIAN Governor of Colorado Gov. John C. Vivian was born in Golden, Colo., not far from Denver and state capital. He is a graduate of the University of Denver. His profession is law. He . served as lieutenant from 1936 to 1942. governor tion. In between the rivers, the farms and ranches now produce wheat, corn, hay, beans, potatoes and other crops.. Thousands of head of sheep and cattle are grown and dairying is statewide. The Western Slope, the San Luis valley, and all mountainous areas below timberline are havens for farms, ranches and ord chards. peaks ofter look down on blossoms in the valnon-irrigate- Snow-cappe- ley below. With raw materials- - near al hand, Colorado progressed industrially too. Mills were built to process the ores. Steel plants grew up at Pueblo, the Pittsburgh of the ... At Brighton. Colorado is a leading SUGAR BEET FACTORY ducer of sugar, made from sugar beets. ed a hundred times. Boom towns grew overnight at Cripple Creek, Leadville, Central City, Creede and scores of other places. Prospectors clambered over the hills. Nuggets were found. Rich veins of ore were uncovered. There were millionaires created Winfield Scott Stratton, H. A. W. Tabor (of Silver Dollar fame) and others. Men blustered, gambled, drank, fought and died during the score of years that followed. But slowly the truth about Colorado emerged. The facts were not all pleasant ones. The territory was there was no incredibly rich doubt of that. There wefe great stores of silver and gold. Thera were rich and fertile soils. There were other resources lumber, coal, building stone and a marvelous climate. There was deep snow in the mountains, but there was little rainfall on the plains. The nuggets were soon picked up. The free gold was gone and hard-roc- k mining had come to stay. Gold and silver were buried deep in the granite, defying ,quick wealth. Men who had sought a soft and easy life were confronted with stark reality. Colorado was no Garden of Eden. They would have to work and work hard for whatever they got. And they couldnt live on fresh air and mountain scenery. each man Colorado weighed his worth. to find them apnong There was work to be done, and it took strong men to do it. The weakthe mislings, the fits , were eliminated. They departed with a curse on their lips and hatred in ..their hearts. Those with courage, strength, hope and vision r stayed. set to work. miners the First, They did not know the extent of mineral reserves in the Colorado and they still dont Rockies 1 , neer-do-well- s, . ( : , im- portant1 to you became the town back in Georgia. Thousands of others were on their way. A year later General Larimer crossed Cherry creek, took possession of some cabins and named the settlement Denver City, in honor of Gen. James W. Denver, governor of Kansas. (At that time, Colorado as yet unnamed was a part of Kansas territory). Wild days followed on that townsite. Thousands of excited people thronged the dusty streets. Soon Denver was the Mecca of the Mountains. A printing plant was brought from Omaha, and the Rocky Mountain News made its debut (1859). Soon thereafter the Herald was founded. The files of those early-da-y newspapers tell a story of lusty lifei in Denver, of gambling, Indian scares and promised riches for all men. The Denver scene was e pro- know. Many veins have been merely tapped and new ones are constantly being discovered. In spite of all obstacles, Coloradoans have dug and blasted three billion dolr lars worth of precious and indus, trial metals from the granite warewithin its borders. More than 250 minerals have been discovered within the state, between 35 and 50 of them now being extracted for market. Colorado is first among the states in vanadium and uranium, third in gold, fourth in tungsten, fifth in silver, sixth in lead, seventh in corner and fifteenth in zinc. It leads the world in molybdenum production. These Coloradoans probed and blasted and swore, as they went deeper and deeper into the grap-it-e treasure chest. In 1862, A. M. Cassedy drilled in a canyon near Florence and struck oil, after petroleum had been found bubbling on the surface of Oil creek. They fouijd Colorado shales containing enough recoverable oil to equal present production for 50 years. The recently opened Rangely oil field on the western slope is the most sensational find in years. Natural gas was discovered over a wide area, and helium gas struck in Las Animas county. Beneath the surface of the good earth they found coal, . too enough of it to last the nation for 700 years! Colorado ranks first among the states in coal reserves, most of them in the San Juan basin, Moffat county, all along the Utah border and extending under the foothills on the eastern slope from the Wyoming border to New Mexhouses . . ico. The Colorado plainsmen were sifted, too, and the unfit were blown out, starvi out and sent back home.' Where there is. life there must be water every Col- ' , ; At about the same time, the United Nations commission on Atomic Energy will be meeting too. At the institute in Washington, authorities will explain just what effect atomic energy can have on your life if you' are one of those who arent going to be destroyed by it. I was going to say one of the lucky ones, but you wont be lucky, if atomic warfare starts, even if you are among those whose lives are spared. . We have all heard a lot of dire prophecies about what the atom bomb can do, if it once gets on the loose. Also, what wonders atomic energy can perform in building a better world, if it is confined to peaceful and productive activity. But by far the most impressive footnote on the subject came' to me in the repeated words of a scientist speaking not scientifically, or for quotation, but very intimately of his own private thoughts, and his own personal plans. He has lectured a great deal on the subject of atomic energy, and is one of those intimately concerned with its development. Suddenly, one day he realized that he had better make some personal plans to prepare for the future in this atomic age of which he had spoken so much. His work is near one of the several prime targets of any enemy bombs that would be dropped. No Refuge From A-Bo- So he began to consider. Should he try to get transferred to some smaller institution, located in a little town? That, he considered, would not help much. He has a farm, but he is not a farmer. Should he move onto the farm immediately, learn as much as he could about farming, and plan to live there where he would be comparatively safe? The farm is far from any large city, tucked in the hills. Then he started planning. He would have to learn a lot more than farming. He would have to learn to card wool, for in- -. stance; his wife would have to learn to spin, to weave, to make soap, to fabricate all the things you buy in stores. He would have to lay in tools, and enough other supplies to last him the rest of his lifetime. Well, perhaps all that could be done. Then he realized that even at that, he wouldnt be safe. He would have to build barbed wire entanglements, and obtain machine guns and other weapons with which for with the to defend himself refugees who escaped, starving, from the cities, the few who had food would be at the mercy of the hungry mobs. If I had heard those statements from a lecture platform, or read them in a magazine, I might have passed them by as sensationalism. But the statements werent in a magazine, or spoken from a platform. They were said over the luncheon table in the quiet corner of . a club. The speaker wasnt trying to sell his ideas to anybody. He wasnt trying to persuade anybody to do anything, or to get publicity. He was thinking out loud about what he considered an acute personal problem. In the end it left him baffled. There is no defense. The only hope is to make the United Nations work. I heard this story, and was moved by it. I was already pretty well stirred up, because I had just learned of what deep concern this question is to more than three thousand people who wrote me, asking for a pamphlet I had mentioned in one of my broadcasts. That is an interesting story, too, that I want to pass on. One day, I received a little pamphlet among the several bushels of handout material which is the grist of the publicity mills dumped on press and radio desks all over the country every day. ... Snow Mass Lake and Hagger-ma- n near Glenwood Peak, Springs. Rockies. Colorado has foundries, brick kilns, canning plants, sugar factories, food processing plants, creameries, cheese factories and scores of other manufacturing plants. Colorados granite, marble, limestone, sandstone and lavas are known to builders the world around Sawmills still flourish near its great forests. Colorado clasped its riches tightly to its bosom and said, you can if you deserve them. have them The men and women of Colorado accepted the challenge. They conquered the mountains and plains. They built cities and factories and schools. They blasted highways oul of solid granite. They made it easy for others to Come Up to Cool Colorado,! where the sublimity oi the Rockies inspired Katherine Lee America the Bates to write Beautiful. - : This pamphlet caught my eye and held it. It was a reprint from Look ' magazine entitled Your Last Chance. You may have seen it. It moved me so much that I just couldnt help talking about it on the air, and offering to pay for the first 500 pamphlets requested, providing a stamp was enclosed. I limited the requests to people in the following categories: insurance men, salesmen, real estate men, teachers, clergymen, mechanics, utilities workers, scientists and merchants. I did this, first, because I wanted to limit the number of applicants, and second, because the article contained specific instructions as to what the people in the groups named could do to help prevent a cataclysmic war. I blandly overlooked the fact that somebody had to address envelopes, insert the pamphlets, mail them out. Public Interested In Prevention Requests began to arrive, so I called up the National Committee on Atomic Information which is near the Washington office of the Western Newspaper Union; ordered the pamphlets; and had the nerve to ask the committee to mail them out. I didnt know it then, but it costs the committee, which is, of course, it a organization and skimps along on a handful of small cash donations, four cents for the pamphlet, a cent and a half for the stamp, two cents to address the envelope, another cent to insert, seal and mail! Eight and a half cents, altogether. My generous gesture toward preserving civilization had turned out to be rather lame. But that was only the beginning. An avalanche began to descend on me. At last count the requests reached over three thousand. - The committee didnt know what to do. The letters came from such an intelligent and earnest set of people who were so anxious to do something that the committee hated to disappoint them. Twice, I begged the public to hold off, but the committee is still filling the requests while its funds hold out, or more donations come in. Which is what happens when you get an atom by the tail. non-prof- Questions Popularity Of Rail Nationalization Just after the bulletin came in . over the news ticker in my office announcing that the government intended to take over the railroads, a railroad man happened to call me up about another matter. I congratulated him on his new job with Uncle Sam. He wasnt very enthusiastic. He speculated on whether or not the men would go back' to work if the government ordered them to do so. The miners, you recall, refused to obey government orders when the government took over the soft coal mines during the war. Everybody ought to go on strike in the country, he said. If it gets bad enough, it may get better. We mentioned the possibility of permanent government ownMy ership of . the railroads. friend reminisced a little on the days when he was an employee of Uncle Sam once before, in World War I, when the government did (to its sorrow) take over the railways. , He said what happened then was that a man would come up to the ticket window and demand a drawing room. Sorry, there were no more drawing rooms. Well, do you know who youre working for, and who I am? Im Senator Claghom, and youll (something-somethinwell, get the passenger out of that drawing room, and put me in it! My friend said he didnt think the people woyld like it if the government took over. Of course, we dont like the now, either. Time and again, every Pullman seat or berth will be reserved by the blackmarketeers. They hold them up to the last minute, and if they canVt sell at a premium, they cancel, just before the train leaves, half empty. The Chesapeake and Ohio ran an advertisement recently, begging the public to refuse to pay the premium, and help get a regu-- : lation through which will provide for cancellation of reservations in a reasonable time. g) black-berth-mark- et |