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Show IlPff Released by Western Newspaper Union. FOOD IS ESSENTIAL I WINNING THE WAR HERE IS A LITTLE PICTURE of wartime as at least two elements in America play the game. A patriotic old citizen of my acquaintance, ac-quaintance, wishing to do his part but too old to get into the armed services and with no opportunity for employment in a war industry plant, proposed to help in the production of that first war essential food. He planted nine acres of tomatoes. With long hours of labor, he cultivated and cared for them up to the picking stage, but alone, he could not pick the hundred tons of tomatoes, and farm help was not available. He applied to the boy students in the high school for assistance after school hours. Not one single boy of that school responded. I watched this patriotic individual he is nearly near-ly 60 years old as he worked long hours, picking such of his crop as was possible that it might augment the food supply of the nation at a time when food is desperately needed. Across the road, less than 200 feet distant, I also watched some 75 of the boy students of the town high school practicing football. They were the boys who had refused to help pick tomatoes, although offered liberal pay for their assistance.' Something is wrong with our schools when they fail to impress upon our young men, those of 16, 17 and 18 years of age, a sense of their obligation to the nation, especially in time of stress. Defeat for the nation would mean far more to those boys than to the man who was picking the tomatoes. It would mean far more to them than to their grand, fathers or their fathers. Defeat to them would mean a lifetime of toil and sweat and tears. They would not devote a few hours of playtime to doing a bit for the nation that gave them birth, that provided education edu-cation and opportunity, a nation that will be their legacy within but a few years. Yes, something is wrong, radically wrong, with a school system that produces such conditions among our high school students. If our teachers teach-ers cannot or will not instill a sense of the obligation of citizenship in the minds of the students, government should draft the boys of 16 to 19 years of age for service in the fields where help is needed. NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING AND A FREE PRESS WHEN THE MERCHANT buys newspaper advertising he buys something more than space and circulation cir-culation coverage. Along with these tangibles, he pays also for that intangible in-tangible protection for his business, a free press. A free press is the first essential to the maintenance of a republic; a controlled press the first essential of a dictator. In America we must have a free press if we are to preserve pre-serve our American system of private pri-vate enterprise. A free press can, and does, serve as the medium for the distribution of such factual information as will provide a background for sane thinking. think-ing. It is the distribution of sucb information that will preserve the business of each community, and of the nation as a whole, as private enterprise. To adequately serve, the newspaper news-paper must be financially successful. success-ful. Patronage of its advertising columns is warranted, not alone for the tangible values offered, but also for the intangibles, that it may serve in preserving our American system of free enterprise. That intangible is one of the values the advertiser buys. FINANCIAL STATEMENT THAT GIVES FACTS THE DU PONT COMPANY issues once each year the most illuminating illuminat-ing financial statement I have ever seen. That statement shows the gross total revenue of the company for a year. It shows the distribution of that revenue in totals and percentages per-centages going to each element involved in-volved in its production. It shows how much and what percentage of the total goes to factory labor; how much and what percentage goes to office and sales employees; how much and what proportion to taxes local, state and federal to management, man-agement, to purchases, to capital. If the financial editors of the metropolitan newspapers receiving that statement would but see it, they would find the material for one of the really big news stories of each year a story that would do much toward eliminating the labor racketeer rack-eteer and one that would be a human-interest document for all America. MEDALS FOR FARMERS A LACK OF FOOD can cause us to lose the war as quickly as a lack of munitions. If we are going to make heroes of those who produce ships, tanks, guns and planes, we must also reserve some medals for the American farmer. The only real hero is the man on the battle front, stopping the enemy. It does not take that of which heroism is made to work 40 hours a week in a munitions muni-tions plant at exceptionally high wages. |