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Show I-A-m-,-. ..Btl - i.i,gr-' -: --- - ' - mi Atomic War Could Force Return to Primitive Life By BAUKIIAGE News Analyst and Commentator. Mid-June welcomes a gathering to Washington which will deal with a subject more im- portant to you f s and me than any- j h thing I can think j J, of. - 1 The meeting is p , described as an rV "institute on the : eontrol of atomic - A ! e n e r g y." At - ""Si f . about the same ' i i ? time, the United J 'Hj Nations Commis- -f - V-sion V-sion on Atomic f Energy will be t. .. , 1 meeting too. fclMWmiiiMia . the "institute" in Washington, authorities will explain just what effect atomic energy can have on your life if you are one of those who aren't going to be destroyed by it. I was going to say "one of the lucky ones," but you won't 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 pre-pare 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-Bomb So he began to consider. Should he try to get transferred to some smaller institution, located, in a little lit-tle 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 instance; 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, tnd 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 wouldn't be safe. He would have to build barbed wire entanglements, en-tanglements, and obtain machine guns and other weapons with which to defend himself . . . for with the 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 weren't in a magazine, or spoken from a platform. plat-form. They were said over the luncheon table in the quiet corner of a club. The speaker wasn't , trying to "sell" his ideas to anybody. any-body. He wasn't 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 men-tioned in one of my broadcasts. That Is an interesting story, too, that I want to pass on. One day, I received a little pamphlet pam-phlet among the several bushels of handout material which Is the grist of the publicity mills dumped cn press and radio desks all over the country every day. 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 couldn't 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 insur-ance men, salesmen, real estate men, teachers, clergymen, mechanics, mechan-ics, utilities workers, scientists and merchants. I did this, first, because I wanted to limit the number of applicants, and second, because the article contained con-tained specific instructions as to what the people in the groups named could do to help prevent a cataclysmic war. I blandly overlooked over-looked 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 West-ern Newspaper Union; ordered the pamphlets; and had the nerve to ask the committee to mail them out. I didn't know It then, but It costs the committee, which Is, of course, a non-profit organization and skimps along on a handful of small cash donations, four cents for the pamphlet, pam-phlet, a cent and a half for the stamp, two cents to address the envelope, en-velope, 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 didn't know what to do. The letters came from such an intelligent in-telligent and earnest set of people who were so anxious to do something some-thing 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. Questions Popularity Of Rail Nationalization oust after the bulletin came In over the news ticker in my office announcing that the government intended in-tended 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 wasn't 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 govern-ment orders when the government took over the soft coal mines during dur-ing 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 ownership own-ership of the railroads. My friend reminisced a little on the days when he was an employee of Uncle Sam once before, in World War I, when the government govern-ment 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 draw-ing room. Sorry, there were no more drawing rooms. Well, do you know who you're working for, and who I am? I'm Senator Claghorn, and you'll (something-something) well, get the passenger out of that 1 drawing room, and put me in it I ' ' My friend said he didn't think the ' people would like it if the government govern-ment took over. Of course, we don't like the black-berth-market now, either. ei-ther. Time and again, every Pullman Pull-man seat or berth will be reserved by the blackmorkcteers. They hold them up to the last minute, and if they can't sell at a premium, they cancel, just before the train leaves, half empty. The Chesapeake and Ohio ran an advertisement recently, recent-ly, begging the public to refuse to pay the premium, and help get a , regulation through which will provide pro-vide for cancellation of reservations within a reasonable time. BARBS ... by Daukhage As long as America has the heart to attend spelling bees and coumy "sings," we can't be quite as badly off as some of our neighbors seem to think. e e e I never attended enough spelling bees myself. But a radio commentator commen-tator has an advantage his audience audi-ence can't tell whether he can spell trie words he uses or not. I The Twentieth Century fund finds that 80 per cent of the fur goods industry in-dustry is located in New York. Is the rest of the country good-fur-nothing? e e e There Is no one so poor In self respect, re-spect, no one so truly inferior, as he who feels he must try to prove someone else is inferior to him. KKK. please note. |