Show THE GARLAND GARLAND TIMES Electricity Reaches the Homestead Farming Regains Favor With Youth UTAH IN THE WINK OF AN EYE The natural or reflex wink of an to x of a second lasts from according to measurements taken eye photography by der the supervision of Dr J F Southbridge Mass The second wink lasts from to REA and offi- p Rural 'Depopulation Trend Reversed as Agricultural rialsAbove: rode beside modern power Iinliislries lines in an ox cart symbolising Developing New O'llturul the inconveniences of rural life and Mechanical Opportunities in a bygone day as Center Ala paraded to celebrate its new By JOSEPH W Thi lad may some day be a r than hit better dad homing future hem under an electric borer had been persuaded finally to sign p only after the up with an REA most spirited resistance Social Significance — “I never would have believed what it has meant'’ he told the coop superintendent some time after electric power had begun to relieve his family from most of its drudg‘My boys who are just enterery ing or about ready for high school are making their plans about what they are going to do on the farm It used to be when they grow up they talked about what they were going to do when they grew up to have mind in everything seeming else except farming" Nor will the cities be without compensation for the benefits extended to the farms Manufacturers will be materially helped New figures from the REA statisticians reveal that the total lent or made available by REA in the four 30 will years which will end June amount be $231000000 Of this $150000000 is for material orders from which all industry draws ex- - Stringing four lines of aluminum eable HE A projects hare required 115000 Kan sly Tony to Tread the Boards i I Orange N J heavyweight contender reTony Galento Signing his contract in a New cently embarked on a theatrical caieer York theater Tony got right into the spirit of the thing by serenading Linda Yale a model The serenade was brought to a close by Mrs Galento left who decided to put a stop to the nonsense World Aggressors Headache to Map Makers - elec- tric service La BINE "How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm?” old We used to have a lot of fun singing that ballad in the War days The question was qualified of course by the addition of the words “after they’ve seen Paree’’ The idea was supposed to be that once a lad from the cornfields of Iowa or the plantations of the Old South had had a fling at the world’s gayest capital it was no simple task to reconcile him once more to a life of hard chores and high boots Everybody sang it nobody believed it and it was swell propaganda for raising an excoupled with this day of the automopeditionary army the highway and the radio Today it’s not so funny bile well be a starting gun for the ’em down on the may Keeping decelong awaited farm is a serious problem ntralization which may some day supThe anecdote Better educational opport- plant the breadline a who concerns southeastern farmer unities and the lean times broader sophistication for which that same war was largely responsible have lured to the city many a man who would otherwise young have proudly aspired to the farming tradition Land Up Population Down In 1923 some 40 6 per cent of tie land area of the United States was in 1930 this ratio had in farms Increased to 518 per cent and by 1935 it had jumped to 554 per cent During these same years the rural population which had been 401 per cent of the nation’s total in 1925 declined to 438 per cent in 1930 and to 431 per cent in ’1935 But in a real democracy the social and economic pendulums do not swing too far out of line before a way is found to bring them back The last few years have seen a new reof sociological appreciation adjustment and its effect has been to create new machinery for spreading to the farthest reaches of the land the cultural and mechanical benefits which have all too long obtained chiefly to the cities Nowhere is this more apparent than in the concerted drive now under way to extend electricity to the farms The Rural Electrification administration organized in 1935 and "feeling its way” for the last two or three years is getting into full stride with plans to eleclrifyJSQQOOO American farms between now and June 30 Electrification Booms During the first six months of this year it will have lent or allocated funds to bring the benefits of electricity to a number of farms equal of all the to more than electrified farms there were in this country at the end of 1938 It is safe to predict that with the farms to be added independent of REA aid to the lines of the utility companies (whose rural programs REA spurred to record activity) the present total will be dbubled Cloaked in these statistics are implications certainly far vaster than the figures themselves portents far beyond the power of any allegorical string of electric light bulbs seven times the girth of the globe to illuminate It takes no more than a little anecdote to illustrate how electricity un- Two-To- n at once miles near of this II or Ion cable miltensive benefits lion dollars will have gone into poles $6500000 into line hardware and $1500000 into insulators $27000000 into transforminto ers $18000000 and brackets $1500000 into grounding equipment $49000000 into conductors and $8000000 into guy wires clamps rods and anchors Aluminum: A Sample The effect upon industry is easilj seen by making a brief analysis of one of these items Take the any largest—conductors— for instance: The United States has consumed some 600000 miles of aluminum cable steel reinforced— and 115000 miles of this have been required by REA in four years! New 1939 orders will help to stabilize employment for Arkansas’ vast bauxite mines from which the ore used in REA aluminum cable comes for aluminum plant workers for the railroads for aluminum reduction and fabricating plants and even for the steel industry which provides cores for the cables Still further good news for industry as well as an indication of the fuller life in stere for the half million farms to be added to REA lines in the remainder of the fiscal year is an immediate demand for worth of appliances which the program is expected to create On the face of past records it may be prophesied that 130000 families 230000 will will buy refrigerators buy washing machines 85000 water pumps 80000 vacuum cleaners — and 435000 will buy radios which is just one more indication perhaps that it is the cultural benefits of electricity that appeal to the farmer for only 400000 will buy electric irons Small Towns Profit Profit has come also to the small urban communities which exist as marketing and recreational centers for surrounding farm areas As an example from 1935 through 1938 600000 farm homes were electrified in the United States almost all requiring new wiring Of the expended for this aspect of the work half was spent for labor performed locally by small electrical contractors who had not had much employment because of lack of local home construction The other $25000000 has gone to distributors and manufacturers of wiring materials Even with the vast nature of this year’s program there will be much When REA first left to be done began to function only one farm in nine had electricity when this year’s program is carried out to its fullest extent three farms in five will still be without it It must not be imagined either that REA’s path has been entirely it rosy REA makes no grants lends money only and theoretically cannot be counted as one of the "Santa Claus’’ agencies Its loans or it won’t must be " lend But of all the millions loaned up to March 1 1939 less than $100000 in principal and interest had been repaid Officials were plainly worried that revenues and repayments were not up to expectations Now John M Carmody REA administrator hopes a remedy will in legislation by the states which will be' favorable to REA cooperatives experiencing financial difficulties REA’s legislative plan now in effect in sue states will seek to have lightened the state tax on relieve them of control by state power commissions and exempt their securities from "blue sky” laws How successful Carmody will be remains to be seen It seems plausible to expect remonstrances from whose rural lines utility companies from are benefactors no such leniency £ Wetrn Nespr Union of America With a new Europe a new Asia and the possibility of a new Africa in the making as well as the rest of the world are finding it a gigantic task to keep abreast with the Constantly changing political frontiers One man— Adolf Hitler— has caused the cartographers untold headaches They spend months correcting all their charts changing names revising colors and ordering new prints Then in three or four days the maps are worthless except for reference works Boundaries have again been changed Globe maps pictured at the left are more difficult to correct than flat maps and present problems altogether different But West Point Was Never LikeThis ' Lawrence Breckedorff one of 20 West Point cadets who recently as guests of the National Park college at Forest spent a Glen Md gets the very best of service from Niki Manos Jean Fox Betty Bevan and Hilda Cato left to right students at the girls’ school The future generals reported a very entertaining trip SAFETY PRECAtJTIONS The British government’s new gas mask for children under two years of age as It was demonstrated reThe mask has a cently in London bellows attached to furnish the baby with air ‘Stork Special’ Wins Close Race to Hospital When Postmaster William M Jones of Mila Grove found roads closed by floods he appealed to the Chicago & Eastern Illinois railway to rush his wife expecting the stork momentarily to Tuscola where the nearest hospital was located Having no other equipment handy the division superintendent hooked on this caboose tender and locomotive and rushed the stricken mother to Tuscola The baby a arrived two hoars tt®ded T Dr- R- W Taylor railway physician Postmaster Jones waves "all's boy well and thanks" t Engineer William Mercer who piloted the “stork special” 1? |