U.S. Launches National War Against Okies' and Shackers' Slave Conditions
SHORT, GEORGE
U.S. Launches National War Against Okies' and Shackers' Slave Conditions By GEORGE SHORT WASHINGTON D C—With more than 32,245,000 persons pulling their livelihoods from the soil on farms from...
...But still relations have been troubled...
...competition to small municipalities Willkie's company hari made a 600 per cent profit on povSer bought from the T.V.A...
...Last year Japan took 2,024,264 tons of scrap, and in a corresponding period of the first five months of last year, 856,000 tons...
...that dishes washed with "Super Suds" require no wiping but will dry clean with no adhering soap film...
...This 4% Million operational cost must then be considered in the light of the present contemplated equipment and those already allotted for future construction, the present Congressional session already has voted $14,000,000,000 for new construction projects...
...Gropes of Wrath" Government investigation has disclosed that large groups of these migratory lemon workers are locked up at night by the corporation foremen to prevent the hands from mingling with outsiders or contacting AFL organizers...
...Apart from the considerations raised by public utilities champion Congressman Rankin, that until forced by T.VlA...
...3.00...
...that "Cashmere Bouquet" soap will remove "every bit of cosmetic from the pores...
...Last September was theiscene of many brutal episodes as the company tried to suppress a s|rike...
...The pageant of the Versailles Conference is unfolded towards the end, and Lanny is one of the young secretaries to one of the many professors of the American delegation...
...The British taxes give an inkling of what would happen here if we were forced—because of the Nazi destruction of the British fleet—tc arm more fully against a completely Germanized Europe...
...On the basis of these taxes, and others which will probably b< passed during the present sessior it is estimated by treasury officials that the government may realize about 8 billion dollars, or about 10 per cent of the total national income during a good year...
...for example, on how to broil a steak...
...A married man here earning $40,000 would pay $9,552 in income tax, his fellow British capitalist coughs up $24,452.99...
...Definitely, light summer reading...
...In order to secure evidence, the government inspectors followed a routine which might well be the basis for another motion picture scenario...
...Hence the haste of such ships as the American-owned S. S. Bejnville to load 2,000 tons of ' scrap metal from the Jersey City Railroad piers before the August 1st deadline when the decree goes into effect...
...The ouster b> the Stassen-dominated state education board of Eugene V. Carstater as state director of vocational training is construed in union circles "as a move to undermine union standards on the new defense training program, and as a move of the Stassen-Willkie machine to take over the defense training program, placing their own people in the key spots...
...Japs Rush to Avoid Scrap Iron Embargo President Roosevelt's declaration of July 25, bringing oil and scrap metal under the rigid licensing system which covers 46 other designated war products gives the Administration the power to cripple the Japanese war machines...
...Exclusive of construction, a two-ocean navy will boost the total another billion...
...Some of these have been oafe creditable Upton Sinclair novels, vide "The Jungle," "King Co«l I "Boston...
...According to Commerce Department figures released this week covering scrap exports for the first five months of this year, Japan bought 354,607 tons of scrap metal, Great Britain 304,-085 and Italy 302,697...
...This takes the form of cutting the amount of WPA funds allowed to the . states for relief purposes...
...A 2,000,000-man force will necessitate a cost of $1,000 per man a year...
...Besides hitting the cities by creating additional relief burdens, its hardest effect is upon the unions whose many unemployed organized in WPA sections have been engaged on' Federal projects in their trade...
...The book turned out to be full of recipes for cooking...
...Heil's new budget, despite his vaunted cries of economy...
...Other than what has just been described, the lemon workers enjoy all the pleasantries of the typical "Grapes of Wrath" workers...
...An NLRB election is stilf pending...
...Their story reads like a left-wing dime novel...
...Under the further provisions of the decree, American ships are prohibited from transporting these war materials when permission has., been obtained by a foreign power...
...to three billion a year...
...AH Federal agencies are'cooperating in this Federal drive, the first goal of which is to eliminate- the conditions so much publicized by Steinbeck and Twentieth Century-Fox...
...Much of the money is poured into the rural districts to bolster the pocket - borough top - heavy counties which are solidly Republican...
...This is further expected to hit at Japan and other Axis powers who would have to face the British blockade...
...Even after tke purges, Sinclair feels certain that Stalin "teaches the peasants cooperation" which is slightly too optimistic for this column...
...But it is not only the union-smashing records, the actions behind Willkie's glittering prom-isesj which leaye the trade-unionists} bitter, but the labor record of ^Villkie's own Commonwealth anda Southern...
...While nominally Japan can still apply for a license to buy these products here, it is expected that permission will be refused...
...which won for him the election^ has broken all state records for \ expenditures...
...In other sectors, government inspectors from the Wages and Hours division have been prosecuting lumber mill and pulp corporations, and have succeeded in securing criminal indictments against twelve southern pulpwood manufacturers...
...On both sides of the Atlantic, Lanny has a chance to see greed, intrigue, the financien and industrialists, with their interests backing the politicians...
...Wilson, Clemenceaa, Lloyd George, appear in their bickerings and the high poker o? the Big Four...
...Six million tons of ore a year, at the least, will be required to make up the 2 million ton iron and steel deficit now looming over Tokio's war economy...
...But it is the "world's end...
...Typical of this peonage, which exists in states reaching from New York to the West Coast, are those of the' Ventura (California) lemon workers...
...Saginaw valley, the home of the/, company, was the scene of several sit-down strikes...
...Their total earnings are ?14 to $16 a month, subject to deductions for water amounting to $2.75 a month, or a dollar a month for the schooling of each child...
...Thus, a few years ago he wrote *a whole novel about prohibition, not against prohibition, but for prohibition...
...Replacement costs for materials are expected to add another billion and a half yearly...
...In England there is an excess profits tax on corporations which takes 100f...
...One was caught in quicksand and barely escaped with his^life...
...Viking Picas...
...To reach isolated or fly-by-night mills, they traveled by train, rail-handcar, automobile, canoe, on horseback and on foot...
...Minimum Wage Law Hifs Runaway Shops Unions in the men's and women's apparel industries scored another point against the runaway shop, with the institution of an increased hourly wage benefitting 200,000 workers in the garment trade...
...Although the majority of the workers in the industry will not be effected by the new minimum, both the International Ladies Garment Workers and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers supported the measure because of the stabilizing effect it is expected to exert throughout the industry...
...Just so-so...
...I • * • War and War-Mongers The book under review* is a fair specimen of an Upton Sinclair novel...
...By EUAS L TARTAK Sinclair on the First World War IJPTON SINCLAIR has a good many novels to his credit, per ^ haps a dozen, perhaps two...
...Neafly $4,000,000 in cold cash is gone from the badly shriveled state" treasury and has found its way into the coffers of the telephone companies, utilities and wealthy families as a result of Republican enacted legislation handing the "fat boys" tax rebates andi'reductions...
...The new tax burdens are being laid upon the largje masses of people...
...The boy is in his early teens when 1914 crashes out...
...So drastic are British taxes on individual income that the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the British people that, if he confiscated all income remaining above $8.000 after the taxes had been collected, he would realize only $280,000,000 among all the people of England...
...extension-of the stamp program for distributing farm surpluses among the needy, reduced interest ratesr-and . the settling, of non-owner farm families on good lands now "owned and operated^ in larger than family-* sized units...
...The order further prohibits advertising that "Murine" will prevent or ward off eyestrain due to driving or attendance at movies, reading, sewing or other uses of the eyes...
...Walter Finky, Stassen's state social welfare director, recently announced that Minneapolis would receive only $68,000 of WPA funds from the state in the present fiscal year as compared with the $100,000 for the year ended June 30...
...Fr The others, however, have had too much Upton Sinclair ? them, i. e., Sinclair's eager reformer's naivete, done too much in black and white—the "capitalist scoundrels" or whoever it may happen that Sinclair hates at the moment—all black—while his "good men" are all white and decent...
...The land of Lenin and Trotzkj, the "workers' and peasants' cooperative state," looms on the horizon...
...The Consumers Power company, a subsidiary of holding company Commonwealth and Southern, which, dominates the Michigan valley, has been indicted numerous times by the NLRB for using labor spies, organizing company unions, firing for union actfyity and using sluggers to intimidate union leaders...
...This decline can be explained by Japan's increasing difficulty in obtaining foreign currency, and by the entry of Great Britain into the market as a purchasing competitor...
...The fiery attacks on Willkie as a "lecond Insull" by the respected Senator George W. Norris, and the unmasking of the big advertising agencies behind the "spontaneous" Philadelphia boom of WiDkie, has further determined the*anti-Willkie stand of the trust hating, democratic-minded midwest trade-union leaders...
...This columnist, then being younger and also naive, read "The Book of Life," expecting to pick up a lot of philosophy...
...The staggering total on the ojher hand of last year's Japanese buying can be attributed to the fear of this embargo, and the need for accumulating reserves...
...Newtek City...
...Sfeoir and Apples Upton Sinclair can become excited about many causes, most astonishing causes...
...The July 25th decree forbidding the export of oil to Spain and Japan indicates the Administration's desire to keep these products out of aggressor's hands...
...And this column remembers Sinclair's "The Book of Life...
...He himself, however, has never quite grown up...
...WORLD'S EXD," by Upton Sinclair...
...Carstater was to have been in charge of the training of young men in skilled trades, and the appointment of a reactionary in this important supervisory position'is being bitterly fought jy the ^trade-union movement...
...Some waded through snake-filled swamps and dodged falling timber...
...The British people are now paying a tax on income that starts at 42.5 9'r...
...Lanny's people, the Budds, are in the arms industry...
...There is a young hero named Lanny Budd, born rich, but with his heart in the right place...
...IT OOP's Anti-Labor Rule Hits Willkie in Midwest By JOHN DONNE MINNEAPOLIS, Minn...
...There is a certain boyUh eagerness and simplicity about Sinclair's periodical "crushes.1' fjf late, his crush is Stalin's "cooperative State...
...When you have read the novel, you discover that it is another Upton Sinclair noveL Not bad...
...Sinclair was quite excited about the steak and the right process of stewing apples...
...If Congress passes ? war-profits tax, as seems likelj at present, it will take about hall a billion dollars out of corpora tion dividends...
...The blow at Japan is seen as a reaction to the closing of the Burma road...
...revelations of this near slavery in the lemon-growing industry have already caused horror among California's social and welfare workers, and have led to the organization by the AFL of the agriculture and citrus workers...
...Everything 'jLliW?i denotes the future—the future fellow-traveler...
...of all taxable income above the average earned in prewar years...
...But so chaotic are employment conditions in urban centers, that there is a marked tendency toward,migration back to rur&I districts The campaign of action mapped out by the government's Department of Agriculture under Secretary Wallace, vice-presidential nominee, includes a broad rural conservation works program for displaced farm workers -and underprivileged families...
...More than 400,000 farm workers have been displaced during the past few seasons, government investigators have just learned...
...And he called it "A Book of Life...
...While you read you an interested in "what next...
...not very good...
...active in the union movement...
...Three or four tons of ore are generally needed to equal in iron content ¦ each ton of scrap in the production of steel...
...The Colgate-Palmolive Company was enjoined from advertising that "Concentrated Super Suds" destroys or removes all germs which "lurk in the family wash...
...A favorable decision will add more than a million dollars a month to the pay envelopes of at least sixty thousand workers in these plants and set the precedent for government action to aid scores of thousands not only throughout the South, but the Midwest lumber sectors as well...
...Operational costs for the maintenance of men alone will add up...
...FTC Hits Murine, Advertising The Federal Trade Commission has ordered the Murine Company to cease advertising that "Murine" is a cure, remedy or effective treatment for eyestrain...
...More than 5 millions of this fund will go to meet defense costs—necessitated by cir cumstances created by the 2( years of isolation from Europe's affairs...
...The novel reads smoothly and easily...
...it had bought at 1.58 mills per kiloVat hour and had retailed for 10 ?tents a kwh), the record of dealings with its own employers has been a vicious one...
...During my tour here and my talks with labor and political lea?ers, I have been appalled by the amount of labor-wrecking legislation instituted by Midwest Republican Governors, especially convention keynoter Stassen of Minnesota—who has just announced his candidacy for re-election—and Julius "the Just" Heil of Wisconsin...
...In the face of the renewed Japanese drive in China, however, it is doubtful whether this reserve is adequate...
...And the young -hero, whose heart, like the authors, is in the right place, is moved by a vague and timid sympathy (again Hee the author) for the land of "the future...
...This still leaves a huge peacetime deficit and even a greater one if war breaks...
...The base tax rate on individual incomes here continues to be 4% - A married man here with two children earning $1600 would pay no income tax, in Britain he pays $63.35...
...Something of the same prospects are in sight for Americans as the U. S. faces a world saddled with armaments...
...Besides statutes weakening collective bargaining, Stas-sen's current onslaught is directed against those cities having Democratic and Farmer-Labor administrations...
...tag to read, easy to forget...
...In the case of individuals there is a surtax that takes 90 % of all income above $80,000 a year, and there is the 42.5% tax that applies as the starting base of all income...
...expansion of present farm purchase and rehabilitation loan programs...
...Two-thirds of the violations were found in southern states...
...The characters are reportorially correct, without much depth or elasticity...
...Desjute Franklin Waltman's $300,000,000 publicity machine depicting Wendell Willkie as a touseled-haired man of the Indiana soil, Midwest labor leaders are strangely unmoved...
...Launches National War Against Okies' and Shackers' Slave Conditions By GEORGE SHORT WASHINGTON D C—With more than 32,245,000 persons pulling their livelihoods from the soil on farms from Maine to Southern California's Imperial Valley, and millions more of the Okies, Arkies and "shackers type stoically plodding the highways in search for tomorrow's food and shelter, the Federal government has just de-claredits own private war on corporation landowners, lumber operators and fruitgrowers to definitely stamp out newly discovered conditions which would make John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" scenario read like last, Sun3 T^hnobg^cT^developments threaten serious economic trouble for those who live off the soil...
...He was excited about m»ny such important matters...
...The people of this nation, ever in continued peace, will have tc accustom themselves to this vas1 daily outpourings for arms—ar expenditure which won't stop un til the German army has beer disintegrated...
...Even Basil Zaharpff appears, suave and sinister...
...liij Wisconsin, with mo.st of the LaFbllette enacted progressive legislation repealed,.?the heavy industrialist interests are leading a raid on the state treasury...
...Socio/ Significance With all that, Upton Sinclair was one of the first to introdac*' the "social significance" note into American literature...
...The same person living here who finds his income raised to $4000 would pay $34 while his British "cousin" receiving $4000 would pay $844...
...It was onljl after Governor Murphy has opejgly placed the blame on the Willkie company in 1937 that the powjsr trust started negotiations...
...To pay this bill American citi zens will have to dig at least ar extra billion dollars out of theii jeans this year—especially out o: the pockets of those who buj gasoline, or go to the movies fre quently, or smoke cigarettes con tinually...
...He helped American literature in its process of coming of age...
...The order establishing minimum wages at 32% to 40 cents, went into effect on the order of Colonel Phillip B. Fleming, Federal Wage-Hour Administrator...
...Now that scrap is cut off, ore will become a vital cog...
...Several of the reactionary board members are said to have told their friends that their reason for dismissing Carstater is that he is "too...
...They began their sleuthing as early as 5 a. m. and kept going as late as 8 p. m. to catch portable mills that move quickly from spot to spot to keep out of reach...
...Many have had to stumble through secluded forests with only a compass to guide them...
...U.S.Spendsl3 Million Daily For Defense Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C—It wil cost the government 12 billior dollars to operate between Julj 1, 1940, and July 1, 1941—ar average of about 32 million dollars a day...
...Wages and Hours Administrator Phillip B. Fleming predicted that before his crusade ends, the lumber industry—one of the most sweated in the nation—would be yielding to the law, both in the North and South...
Vol. 23 • August 1940 • No. 31
