OCR Text |
Show SOLDIERS vs. MAN POWER A breakdown of manpower problems shows that on the basis of present plans the armed services of the United States demand 10,700,000 for the war effort. More than 02,500,000 of America's population will be either in the armed services or employed in various capacities. The official estimate brings 60 per cent or 38 mllion, under the heads of "military forces" and war production. The farm situation calls for 8,500,000 workers, and about the best that Secretary Wickard has been able to do is express hopes that 3,000,000 men, women and children may be enlisted to take the places of skilled and regular farm hands who for various reasons have left the farm. The President, Secretary Wickard, Manpower Chairman McNutt and the Congress of the United States apparently agree that the greatest threat to agriculture is manpower. No one disputes the Secretary of Agriculture who is so optimistic as to predict that the 1943 crops will be the greatest on record. But just how these crops are to be harvested, even with the help of "volunteers" and soldiers is a puzzle for which the answer is lacking. There are not more than 5 million farm workers in sight, and their numbers are decreasing. The reason is that farm workers have no trouble in getting jobs in war production plants at twice the wages they get on the farms. We are starting right now on a broad food rationing ration-ing plan, and an emergency price ceiling program has been clamped hurriedly on fresh vegetables at levels that existed about the middle of February. Practically every effort and every plan to increase the rate of pay . of farm workers has failed to get the support of the Administration and the war agencies. Senators and Congressmen argue this point and call it unfair to farm workers. It is perfectly evident that the nation is short of manpower. It also appears that the food shortage is mounting with each passing week. And there you are. The farm worker must get more money from now on, or the full harvest will not be gathered from the fields this Fall. "Incentive payments" or "subsidies" are in disfavor with Congress. You can't . run the farms without men, and you can't get men to work on the farms this year unless they get higher wages than the farmers pay. |