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Show 'Victory Volunteers' Are Satisfactory Farm-Hands Most of 700,0C0 Young People MadG Good, Quickly Learning Agricultural Skills, And Working Hard and Long. Dy BAUKIIAGE AWs Analyst and Commentator. VVNU Service, Union Trust Building, Washington, V. C. World War II has taught the world that it is one thing to raise an army and another thing to feed it feed its mouths and feed its guns. It didn't take the United States long after Pearl Harbor to realize that it was easy enough to. find enough Bailors and soldiers if you didn't have to worry about finding the civilians to take care of them. At present 10 men out of every 100 are deferred from military service serv-ice because Industry needs them; 18 out of every 100 because the farmers have to have them. Thirty-six Thirty-six out of every 100 men now in the armed forces were working in shops or factories in 1D40. Twenty-three out of every 100 were on farms three years ago. Industry has charged that congress con-gress has been kindlier to the farmers farm-ers when it came to deferring their help than it has been to them. However How-ever that may be, you won't hear any farmers complaining about having hav-ing too much help. One thing, however, how-ever, according to the reports that have come into the department of agriculture, the farmers are not complaining on one score that a lot of them thought they were going to have to complain about that is, the help they get from the Victory Farm Volunteers of the U. S. Crop corps. Many farmers who came to scoff remained to pray for more of the same. Not all of the young folks who worked on farms this summer were perfect. It is estimated that there may have been some 700,000 of these young people, half were provided through the Federal Extension serv-' serv-' Ice of the War Food administration, as many more probably fouffd jobs for themselves. Under the leadership leader-ship of the State Extension service and with the active support of the schools, the youth-serving agencies, civic organizations and farm leaders, lead-ers, these Victory Farm Volunteers were assembled. Most of them made good. Their story makes an interesting chapter in the history of American youth. A Huge Task It was no little job to launch the project. Forty-three state farm labor la-bor supervisors and some 5,000 county farm labor assistants, under the guidance of the county extension agents, worked out the plans and procedure based on the local needs. They worked with state, county and often local labor committees. Of course, training was necessary. The boys and girls were carefully selected and many specially trained and supervised, and the farmers themselves learned that they could train better if they had a little training train-ing in the art of teaching themselves. This was provided. Most of the young workers lived a home and were transported to the farms. This was done in school buses, trucks or cars. Teachers, ministers, youth leaders, acting as supervisors, often accompanied the workers right Into the fields. In some places, boys lived in camps, but 501000 boys and girls lived right with the families where they worked and many soon became a part of the family, joining its activities, activ-ities, church, grange meetings, dances, picnics. Some liked the life so well, especially those from the big cities, that they stayed right through the winter, attending the local lo-cal schools. Of course it was natural that the farmers were skeptical at first at the Idee of letting these strange kids overrun their places. But the majority changed their minds when they found how well the experiment worked. The young folks couldn't rival a trained farm worker, but some were able to do much of the work as well, and in some cases, even better. Many farmers arranged ar-ranged to keep the same workers the next year. I talked to one farmer who took on an utterly green city boy. It was late summer when I saw them both. They were going to part and I can tell you both were pretty blue. School time had come and the boy's parents thought he better come home. He told me that he was going to be a farmer when he grew up and I believe be-lieve nothing will stop him. I .. .. r ' I saw a letter from a Crop corps city girl, very able at expressing herself. her-self. I want to quote one paragraph: "I have felt," she wrote, "unutterable "unutter-able satisfaction pervade this new 'me' as I squeezed, pulled and cajoled ca-joled the last squirt of rich white milk from a reluctant mountain of a Guernsey cow ... I am learning to love this new life and am surer than ever that I have chosen well in deciding to make it my own." The Misfits One of the great troubles of the world are the misfits, the folks who are in the wrong job. There are a lot of newspaper men who ought to be barbers and a lot of barbers who might have been better sailors, a lot of farmers who ought to be in business. There are many people who have an inborn love of the country coun-try that never gets a chance to come out they don't even recognize recog-nize they have it. This summer, many of these young folks discovered discov-ered themselves realized that the country was where they belonged! I can well understand the remark of one of these volunteers, who probably prob-ably in his normal lifetime would never have had a chance to acquire the sell-confidence behind a desk or at a bench, that he felt when he learned to drive a team of horses. "I felt that I was the most capable i person in the world," he said, "when I could finally drive a tedder through the hay." It will be hard to keep him and a lot of his Uk down at the shop after he's seen the farm. Winter Traffic Hazards The war department is concerned over the annual December peak in auto accidents, and Robert P. Patterson, Pat-terson, undersecretary of war, and Lieut. Robert E. Raleigh, director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, have teamed up to try to stop them. ' Seven valuable tips, based on National Na-tional Safety council research, on how to escape traffic tieups, skid-wrecks, skid-wrecks, lost time and road blockades block-ades have been offered: (1) Reduce speeds on snow and ice. It takes 3 to 11 times normal distance to stop on snow or ice. Repair old tire chains. (2) Protect visibility. Check defroster, de-froster, windshield wipers, headlights head-lights and keep windshield clean. You must see a hazard to avoid it. (3) Use anti-skid chains. Tire chains reduce braking distances 40 to 50 per cent and provide traction on snow or ice. (4) Don't crowd traffic. When roads are slippery, allow three to six car lengths for every 10 m.p.h. because snow and ice increase braking brak-ing distances 3 to 11 times over those required on dry pavement. Slipperi-ness Slipperi-ness varies, glare ice at thawing temperatures being twice as slippery slip-pery as dry ice near zero. (5) Anticipate mistakes. Drive so that you are prepared for any emergency emer-gency under prevailing conditions. Anticipate mistakes of pedestrians and other drivers. (6) Signal your intentions. In turn-tag turn-tag or stopping on hard-packed snow or ice, remember other drivers need more time and distance to adjust themselves to your moves. Give them a chance. Some may have neglected chains and have insufficient insuf-ficient traction. (7) Mechanics are scarce and your vehicle may have to last for the duration. Essential transportation is vital to victory. An ounce of prevention pre-vention is now worth ten pounds of. cure. Better Rural Roads The National Highway Users conference con-ference calls my attention to a bill to create within the Federal Works agency a Rural Local Roads administration, ad-ministration, independent of the Public Pub-lic Roads administration, to co-operate with the states and their local subdivisions in the construction of .rural local roads. It is proposed in S. 1498 by Senator Stewart of Tennessee. The bill would authorize appropriations appropri-ations of $1,125,000,000 by the federal government to be made available at the rate of $375,000,000 a year for each of the three years immediately following the end of the war for construction con-struction of all-weather rural local roads. |