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Show REA Has New Program For Aiding U. S. Farmer ; ; Electrification Administration Backs Plan ; j t For Placing of Nourishing Foods d On Rural Dinner Tables. j By BAUKIIAGE Nation-il Farm and Home Hour Commentator. WNU Service, 1343 H Street, N. W. Washington, D. C. For the past few weeks the directors direc-tors of rural utility companies and the members of co-operatives which furnished electric light and power have been hearing about a new idea. The idea has to do with a judicious mixture of kilowatts, vitamins and dollars its purpose is to bring the kitchen to the schoolhouse and more nourishing food into the home. The idea was launched at a dinner din-ner at Grand Island, Neb., and the dinner was addressed by four prom-, inent persons who weren't there (they talked by telephone and loudspeaker) loud-speaker) and by officials of the Rural Electrification administration. administra-tion. The people who weren't there were the secretary of agriculture, Claude Wickard, the federal security secu-rity administrator, Paul McNutt, the commissioner of education, John Studebaker, and the REA administrator, ad-ministrator, Harry Slattery. The next day the plan was described de-scribed in detail to the Grand Islanders. Wallace Statement. Perhaps the best way to explain the plan is to begin with a recent remark of Vice President Wallace: "On a foundation of good food we can build anything. Without it, we can build nothing . . . We want to make sure that our millions are so fed that their teeth are good, their digestive systems healthy, their resistance re-sistance to premature old age enhanced en-hanced through strong bodies and alert minds." That is part of the credo of the 'food for defense" program. And the Rural Electrification administration adminis-tration hit on the idea of starting things in the one-room schoolhouse. The electric power and light wires of the 824 systems which receive loans from the government pass by some 11,545 school buildings. More than half of them are one-room. Many already are electrically lighted light-ed and more lines are being constructed con-structed by more schoolhouses. Says the REA to people in these communities: "Install electric equipment in these one-room schools which will make it possible for the children to have warm lunches. Make the school a nutrition nutri-tion center where the proper choice and preparation of foods is taught. If possible, obtain equipment for three methods of preservation of food for the use of the community. (The three methods are refrigeration refrigera-tion (perhaps freezing), canning, and dehydration.) Also, add an inexpensive in-expensive mill for the grinding of whole grains which have the vitamins vita-mins and the other contents which we know the American diet now lacks. Asks Free Equipment. The REA also suggests to the men who own the co-operative power lines that they install the equipment free. Two large manufacturing companies have already agreed to sell the schools the necessary equipment equip-ment at low rates and on easy terms. The cheapest equipment, without the refrigerator, would cost about $50. That would provide hot plates, a roaster, a small flour mill, a small dehydrav-if. The most expensive equipment Includes a walk-in refrigerator with a freezing equipment, larger mills and dehydrators, water pressure and water heater systems. The purpose of making such installations in-stallations is two-fold. One is to make available proper lunches and demonstrate their preparation to the children in the hope that they will carry home the ideas. The second is to provide centers for demonstration by experts, and also a place where the women of the community can preserve food, where food can be kept in frozen storage and i?here facilities for drying dry-ing and cancrag for the use of members mem-bers of the community are at hand. The final f,oal of this plan is expressed ex-pressed in Vice President Wallace's reference to "strong bodies and alert minds," The immediate purpose pur-pose is to provide a practical means of starting the nutrition program in the place whre it will sprout the school. Food From Home. Imagine the child, instead of carrying car-rying a cold lunch to school, taking the food that can be cooked there. There is food on the farm. Suppose Sup-pose the children bring their own wheat, have it ground in the mill. Suppose some of the bread is taken home, and the folks get to eating it. Then, suppose the farmer decides de-cides to buy a little mill of his own: Say he has an average of 4 people for whom he grinds his own grain in the grinder. Then he gets six times the vitamin B that he would get from store bread, he gets five times the iron, four times the phosphorus, phosphor-us, twice the calcium, eight times the magnesia, and he saves $34.50. The kitchen has been to school, and paid for its education. . Suppose Hitler Stubs His Toe? In a grass-covered triangle in historic Pennsylvania avenue's "elbow," "el-bow," where it obligingly stops to keep from running into the Treasury Treas-ury building, stands a temporary glass house. Around it are booths and tents, a bandstand, and fierce-looking fierce-looking cannon. In the glass house defense bonds are sold. In the booths, there are representatives of the Red Cross and the United Service Serv-ice organizations. w Recruiting officers of-ficers for the army, navy, and marines ma-rines will politely explain the tools of their trade. That square is the symbol of this capitol city, once more a seething town, into which government workers work-ers have poured at the rate of 3,000 a week for a whole year. And still they come. New government buildings build-ings have pushed far outside Washington's Wash-ington's borders, across the Potomac. Poto-mac. One after another, apartment houses are being changed into offices. of-fices. Dollars pour out of the treasury at the rate of more than a billion a week. That's Washington today. If a Toe Is Stubbed. But suppose that Hitler stubs his toe! Suppose he doesn't stub it until 1944 that is when we will have reached full production, total employment em-ployment and suddenly peace is upon us. Over night 23,000,000 men will have to find new jobs because planes and ships and tanks and bombs and shells will be a drug on the market Three and a half million more men in the armed services will have to be demobilized, and most of them will have to earn their keep at peaceful trades. There are some people who think it is not quite patriotic to think about such things, right now. But the thoughtful ones know that preparation prep-aration for peace is an even bigger problem than preparation for war and now is hardly soon enough to begin thinking about it. Planning Board. And so they are thinking about it. Especially a little group with modest mod-est offices in the state department the National Resources Planning board. The chairman of this board is Frederic Delano; one of the vice chairmen is the noted political scientist, sci-entist, Charles Edward Merriam. The board was established in 1939, under the Reorganization act, as a principal division of the executive office of the President. It operates with technical assistance, co-operating with federal, state, regional and private agencies and institutions, preparing reports and outlining plans and programs on the use and conservation of natural resources. Right now, this board is beginning begin-ning the tremendous job of preparing prepar-ing for peace. Its members believe that switching back to production for peace will be easier than switching switch-ing over to production for war. These planners say that production produc-tion of peacetime goods can be balanced by consumption; that the process, thanks to this nation's great resources, will pay for itself, and that a higher standard of living will be possible for everyone. Two things are necessary to achieve this end: First, detailed planning. Second, co-operation of government, industry, agriculture and labor. As in all such government-guided efforts, the degree of co-operation obtained will determine deter-mine the amount of regulation required, re-quired, so that, in the end, it comes down to the individual. In the hands of each of us rests the solution solu-tion of this great problem the preparation prep-aration for peace. |