A ROOM OF OUR OWN
Follette, Isabel Bacon La
A Room of Our Own Old Parties Adrift Our War Emotions 'Guns and Butter' By ISABEL BACON LA FOLLETTE PROGRESSIVES have more than ordinary responsibility at this time. We know each day as we talk...
...We must think of it in terms of our country...
...Moat of these homes were located near the great industrial centers...
...Hitler is not immune...
...that extensions of TWS to persons not having printer connections are made on an arbitrary basis, and that charges are fixed according to a varying and arbitrary basis...
...The Willkie candidacy is facing many hurdles...
...Generous as they were in the stress of war-time, I do not forget the after-war bitterness of women I have known in Europe—women who had the main-springs of their lives removed by war—husbands, sons, and just as tragic, girls and women whom war prevented from having those great human experiences...
...We simply can't afford it...
...Where did you pick it up...
...In the general anxiety over our national defense, It is our patriotic duty to keep in mind that armies and navies and air forces cost a great deal of money...
...the experts who, instead of howling have to actually get the materials and men over there, tell us It would take months...
...It results from causes which every informed person has recognized for years and known would lead to this Inevitable crisis...
...I'm losing my garter...
...You will recall that Pres...
...The commission reversing a report and order in 1937 which was never nut Into effect, has found in Its proposed new report on the matter that the existing ratio between chargs ior ordinary nnd urgent telegraphic messages in the International servict is not, unjust, unreasonable, or discriminatory...
...Retail sales to farmers are twice as great as in 1932 Soil conservation and soil building have become a reality in the vast farming areas of our country...
...The American people now more than ever want to go to work producing real wealth, making a significant contribution to their country's and their own need...
...Should the battle be brought to the new world, we •hall have to cope with what situation arises, and it will not be the jittery wringing their hands over a lost world who will save America...
...Now more than 25 per cent of the farm homes' of the United States have the benefit of this fine labor-saving commodity, and the lines which have been financed stretch into the distant communities far away from the busy marts of trade...
...It is also complained that although generally TWS messages are sent at lower charges than for full rate messages the same standard of transmission s.nd delivery apply, and that they get priority over day-letter messages, although charges for TWS messages usually are less than for a day-letter message of the same length...
...Assails False GOP Promises to Agriculture Rep...
...His Retort An English lady, self-appointed supervisor of Tillage morals, accused a workman of having reverted to drink because "with her own eyes" she had seen his wheelbarrow standing outside a public house...
...Those of us who actual¦ -it to use the well-known proverb that "Experience is the best teacher" must stand firmly together until the panic-stricken come to their senses...
...I am thankful to see that various groups are holding firm among them the American Legion who personally experienced the last war and are outspoken in their determination to stay out of another European slaughter...
...This cannot be preserved in a museum...
...Cash farm income has doubled...
...This has enabled literally hundreds of thousands of farmers to save their homes...
...The Republican party leaders and aspirants for the Republican presidential nomination are trying desperately tr win back the farm vote...
...Most of us are not qualified to decide the technical problems of our national defence, but shouldn't we watch carefully in the orgy of defense appropriations what safeguards are being provided in the way of legislation against war-profits, and whether congress is really providing the enormous sums by taxation according to ability to pay...
...Roosevelt, in his fireside chat reporting on our defenses, took pains to appeal to large numbers of people by assuring them of increased "social security" and pension plans, and warning against lowering our standard of living, with a special appeal to labor...
...Boiled down, most of them seem to think it is popular to talk about giving material defense to the allies but itopping short of men...
...We must point out the fact that this European war differs from the last only in size and speed—"stream-lined," so to speak...
...The Production Credit corporations have furnished current credit to the farmer at the lowest interest rates that ever prevailed in this country...
...Jones said: "Oour farmers today are mobilized into a force of nearly 6.000,000 volunteer cooperators in the New Deal farm programs advanced to cope with our farm problems...
...With our farmers working together, American agriculture stands prepared to meet whatever demands may arise...
...Farm prices were the lowest since before the Civil War, and farm income had shrunk to the lowest on record—four and three quarter billions...
...Through rehabilitation loans more than a half-million destitute farm families have again become self-supporting and have ben given a new hope...
...It is true that we live In a new age...
...Wire Services Draw Fire for ^Tinted Wires9 WASHINGTON, D. C—The TWS or "timed wire service," which Western Union, Postal, Mackay and Continental Telegraph companies offer to some customers, is declared by the Federal Communications commission to be ?.n "unjust and unreasonable" classification of telegraph communications which result in "unjust and unreasonable discrimination...
...The iacts show that it is utterly impossible to rely upon any promises the Republican party, in its desperation, may make to you...
...Alongside soil conservation has gone human conservation...
...Bigger WPA funds are not what we need...
...the accused man made no verbal defense, but the same evening he placed his wheelbarrow outside her door and left it there all night...
...Are you watching the news and radio for their stand on vital Issues inside our country...
...Observation still shows that there are limits beyond which it is folly to reach...
...as the Progressives have long recognized with a program to meet today's problems, but the same old human weaknesses and virtues are still with us...
...At the present rate, the war tnay be over long before that...
...on the altar of other countries is a horror to me...
...Let us recount some of the things which the recent Administration has done for agriculture in the little more than seven years it has been in power...
...To show the utter absurdity of the charge of some of the Republican Fifth Ave...
...high adventure," "romance" in modern warfare where machine guns and bombs annihilate human beings by the thousands...
...Yes, less than zero, for in 1932, the last year of the Hoover administration, agriculture was in the worst condition ever known...
...What happens to such women's thinking when war-emotions overcome their reason...
...He—Funny step, nothing...
...But farmers have had their eyes opened to the empty promises of that party which until 1920 had never recognized that there was such a thing ax a farm problem...
...In a proposed new report and order the commission asserts that the TWS service is offered to a special group of telegraph users at rates not available to the public as a whole...
...The same thing is true in the financing of cooperatives...
...When we remember how utterly we failed to "save European civilization and democracy" in 1917, one can scarcely believe her eyes when one sees so-called intelligent people completely forgetting their past experience and calling upon America to repeat the same mistake...
...If we want to preserve American values, it means that each one of us will have to "gird our loins" and dedicate ourselves anew to making our ideal of democracy work In terms of this world in which we find ourselves...
...farmer candidates that the farmers of the nation were being "regimented" and that they are crying to have their "freedon" given back to them, Mr...
...We know each day as we talk with our friends and neighbors of the old political parties that they are adrift, frightened over •vents in Europe, with apparently no faith to sustain them...
...I hesitate to say, as with the older men who "wish they were young enough to go over" that they are unconsciously affected by the fact that they personally are not involved, because many of these women do care more for their sons than for life itself...
...I deeply hope that we women will resist the emotional surge that has engulfed too many of us In previous wars...
...The utility of TWS service when provided upon an equitable, orderly and non-dlscrlminatory basis is recognized, however, and the order will be without prejudice to the filing of appropriate tariffs...
...They are certainly trying to keep our attention centered on the confusion of Europe's day to day trials and saying nothing very definite about a program for our country...
...Even if we should throw all reason out the window and turn our country into a war-machine to take over Europe as our "white man's burden...
...It is up to each of us Progressives to patiently and firmly draw the jittery back to reason...
...Yet with all this experience to learn from, there is an all-too-general attitude among people who do the most public talking that we should pour our own life-blood (they aay materials, but there are no half-way measures in warfare) into Europe's age-old conflict...
...As one Progressive woman said to me recently, "People say to me all the time 'Isn't the war news terrible!' and I say 'Yes, it is, but I am doing everything I know how to do to help in ?his critical time.'" Fun and Philosophy At the Dance She—I simply adore that funny step of yours...
...This is the time when Progressive women are badly needed...
...I am told, for the sea-flooded areas of Holland to be reclaimed...
...But what about human beings...
...We know from experience that no matter what crises develop In the life of the family, the daily needs must be met...
...Even Mr...
...Marvin Jones in Review of New Deal Record WASHINGTON, D. C. — Congressman Marvin Jones of Texas, Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives, in an address over the radio declared that the Republicans had promised the farmers everything but had given them nothing, while the Roosevelt administration had not only promised but had performed by carrying out its promises...
...At the beginning of this administration about 10 per cent of the farm homes had the benefit of electricity...
...Sacramento Bee...
...They know that without the farm vote they have no chance to elect a Republican President and a Republican Congress...
...Through thousands of AAA committeemen chosen by farmers at nonpartisan election* In every agricultural county, each farmer has a democratic voice in carrying out the farm programs in his locality...
...In 1932 corn sold for 10 cents a bushel, wheat at the lowest price in 300 years, hogs for $3 a hundred, and cotton for 5 cents a pound...
...that printer connections, w'hich qualify a person to receive TWS, are furnished or refused by the companies at their discretion...
...How a woman can "offer" another human being, her •on...
...The two old parties are soon holding their national conventions...
...Villages and cities razed will be rebuilt as they are needed for the uses and resources of the peopie...
...The Republicans, for one thing, want to win...
...Let as sound this vigorous note Hot only to our official representatives, but daily as we .go about the world's work...
...Can they envisage a great rush of r^ Inr support to a man who is one of the leading power trust figures in the nation...
...However, we must fojee ourselves to reckon not only the Individual suffering from the loss of a son who has represented our care and hope from babyhood...
...I cannot share the president's optimism that without a real producing program which he has thus far failed to bring forth we can have both "guns and butter" at the present rate we are going for guns...
...Experience shows that we can do a perfectly good job if we coolly set our limits which often seems like a drab and unromantic way to do, while we fail dismally when we spread ourselves too thin...
...After 12 years of control the Republican Party's promises to the farmer amounted exactly to zero...
...Purchasing power has nearly doubled...
...Experts are already estimating the years It will take for the battle-torn countries to recover—10 years at least...
...Thus far the news is full of the various candidates' stand on the international situation, and they are vying with each other as the "peace" party...
...Agriculture was prostrate and farmers desperate...
...as is talk of "ideals...
...Nearly 800,000 farm homes have been refinanced at, the lowest interest rates that have prevailed in this country...
...It is true that the changes taking place here as in Europe will have their effect on what we have called the "American way" of life...
Vol. 10 • June 1940 • No. 25
