STATE OF THE WORLD
Reinhardt, Richard W. & Jessen, Louise F.
STATE OF THE WORLD Reports from Salonika and Honolulu The Gospel of Self-Help in Greece By Richard W. Reinhardr Salonika IN squalid villages of northern Greece, still impoverished two years...
...In Milotopos, 370 families scratch yearly crops of wheat and cotton from 5,600 acres of arid land, raise a few chickens, sheep, and draught animals...
...They cannot be "installed" by passing laws or voting appropriations...
...He pointed out where hand-made dams could check the devouring stream and showed how trees and grass should be planted on the naked hills to prevent erosion...
...But the farmers' questions were like sharp cries of disappointment...
...Wright's interpreter delivered cold comfort...
...The sequel is dictatorial rule...
...He marked lines where ditches could drain the boggy roads...
...Everyone agreed that the public had apparently been asleep when the bills were introduced...
...If Milotopos refused to help itself, he could promise only further loss of soil, worse roads, and greater poverty...
...For that we are somewhat to blame...
...Long had referred to himself as a "liberal...
...With their own hands the villagers can build up adequate roads...
...Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr...
...In one three-week investigation, Wright's office had taken back $78,000 worth of draught animals misappropriated by farmers who did not actually qualify for "agricultural rehabilitation...
...Therein it possesses a profound power for expansion...
...However, it is a medication which cannot be stolen, adulterated, or misused...
...Better use of soil alone could free these Greek farmers from the clutches of the loan office...
...These loyalty bills now, it is quite apparent, got far too little attention during the session of the legislature...
...The almost chronic corruption in Greek government—the tendency of public money to end up in private pockets—had led to repeated clashes between the American Mission and the Greek government...
...The new prescription for agriculture seems pitifully modest now, but it has great potential...
...An article she wrote a decade ago, "I Went to College at Fifty," was published in the old Forum and reprinted in the Reader's Digest...
...The board decides, subject to the governor's approval, what information must be supplied in this statement...
...Oren E. Long of Hawaii recently signed into law four legislative bills setting up a territorial employes' loyalty program more drastic than the federal program and that of most states...
...Where Arms Cannot Win "Communism inspires and enables its militant preachers to exploit injustices . . . among men...
...This ideology appeals not to the Italian or Frenchman or South American as such, but to men as human beings who become desperate in the attempt to satisfy common human needs...
...It had adjourned before he acted on the bills...
...Every job-holder and every applicant must file a personal history statement with the newly created loyalty board...
...We are not, however, living under ordinary conditions...
...He did this despite the fact that FBI statistics quoted in the U.S...
...But they seldom have enough capital to carry themselves from one season to another...
...At board hearings, "strict rules of evidence shall not be applied, but reasonable bounds shall be maintained as to competency, relevancy, and materiality...
...Sixty-five families have no land at all...
...Working with the Greek government agriculturists in each "nomos" (county), ECA and the Greek government will send out lecturers, movies, pamphlets, demonstrations— new information on every phase of agriculture...
...Was this the wonderful American aid...
...it has faced the charge of supporting a corrupt and reactionary government...
...Another fourth is so bare of soil that it will scarcely support a few skinny sheep...
...Too many farmers, like some sympathetic Americans, visualize "technical assistance" as a lightning introduction of mechanization, wonder crops, soil reclamation, and other triumphs of modern agriculture...
...America can't be a crutch forever—and Greece can't survive without building a new system of agriculture...
...Too often peasants cannot afford machinery...
...meet Communist regimented unity with the voluntary unity of common purpose, even though this may mean a sacrifice of some measure of nationalistic pretensions...
...Now, ECA was interested in helping farmers to help themselves...
...Without exception, persons opposing the bills expressed sympathy with the legislature's efforts to protect Hawaii against subversive activities...
...In the idle winter months, instead of sitting around drinking coffee and playing with Turkish beads, the men could build a more prosperous village...
...in the New York Times Magazine, Apr...
...I have not found anyone who professes to like the bills or who wants them to become a permanent part of our local and national laws...
...Gen...
...More important, "self-help" can make the farmers economically independent...
...The, unpleasant truth is that someone must assume the thankless job of selling new agricultural methods a little at a time...
...Yet ten years of warfare, occupation, and disruption, climaxed by the Communist guerrilla attrition, had left most farmers so destitute they were throwing up their hands in despair...
...STATE OF THE WORLD Reports from Salonika and Honolulu The Gospel of Self-Help in Greece By Richard W. Reinhardr Salonika IN squalid villages of northern Greece, still impoverished two years after the devastating Communist civil war, American agriculture is slowly uncorking a new prescription to heal the sick peasant economy...
...Milotopos cried for help to the government agriculturist of the district...
...Under ordinary conditions no one would think of such laws or tolerate them...
...In summer the water supply runs dry, the grass disappears, and the Vardar wind carries soil from the rocky hillsides...
...Wherever popular discontent is founded on group oppression or mass poverty or the hunger of children, there Communism may stage an offensive that arms cannot counter...
...The 65 families without land can build their livelihood on an improved community pasture...
...Working a village at a time, it is an unfortunately slow medication...
...In answer, a lanky Texan bounced into the village in a jeep and said, in effect: "Well, what do you want to do about it...
...In three years, Wright promised, the village would be noticeably richer...
...It too easily can put innocent people under suspicion of sub-versionism—and once such suspicion is voiced, the object of criticism is, even though innocent, terribly and perhaps fatally handicapped in getting into the clear...
...What Wright didn't explain was that ECA had learned some costly lessons in Greece about direct aid, not only at the top levels of capitalism but also among the plain-dirt farmers...
...But all along, ECA officials have been uncomfortably aware that the basic Greek economy was unsound —that unless peasants were able to conserve and reclaim land, to get more produce for their labor, material aid poured into industry and agriculture would bring only temporary relief...
...Upon signing the bills, the governor said: "I have discussed these bills with a great many people...
...8, 1951...
...In winter, while the farmers wallow knee-deep in mud, a stream tears yards of precious red soil from the flanks of the village and carries it away to the sea...
...Twenty preachers then sent a veto petition...
...The material aid had limits, however...
...The tired peasant farmer either sinks into more and more abysmal poverty or stretches out his hand for miraculous American aid which will not and cannot come...
...In Athens thirteen speo-ialists in home economics, livestock husbandry, poultry raising, crop rotation and so on will digest the findings of laboratories and experimental stations and dispatch them to the farmers...
...30, 1951, indicate there are only 36 Communists in the Territory out of a population of nearly 500,000...
...it has struggled desperately against misuse of funds, inefficiency, and graft...
...Dwight D. Eisenhower Quoted by Sen...
...A special session would have meant extra expense for the taxpayers, but when have Americans been unwilling to spend money to protect their constitutional rights...
...The areas in which freedom flourishes will continue to shrink unless the supporters of democracy match Communist fanaticism with clear and common understanding that the freedom of men is at stake...
...With drought-resistant grass from ECA and pine trees from government nurseries, Milotopos—if it wishes to—can make valuable grazing land from its barren hills...
...The important thing is that the village do something for itself," Wright corrected...
...Standing in front of the Town Hall, a white-washed adobe box on the open square, Wright told the villagers they could relieve their own poverty, and he would help them do it...
...An employe ousted from his job because the board thinks there is "reasonable doubt" of his loyalty has no right of appeal either to the courts or to any review board...
...The Honolulu Branch of Americans for Democratic Action protested the bills, as did scores of individuals...
...From this depressed settlement Italians and Germans had extracted levies of grain and animals, warfare had bled young men, Communist guerrillas had stolen food and livestock, and continuous disruption had sapped even the will to work...
...News and World Report Mar...
...Organizations masquerading ironically as "agricultural cooperatives" pass out short-term loans at 11% and more interest—enough to keep many farmers in perpetual debt...
...The Texan was Charles Wright, ECA's Agricultural Field Representative for Northern Greece...
...However, many people had hoped that a "liberal" governor would veto the bills and then, if he considered a loyalty program essential, would call the legislature back into special session...
...Milotopos, multiplied by hundreds of villages, is rural life in northern Greece...
...Were only the rich profiting from ECA help...
...When legislators and the press asked the professors for constructive suggestions for amending the bills, the professors placed their suggestions on legislators' desks within two days...
...The village of Milotopos, 35 miles northwest of Salonika, was introduced to "self-help" a few months ago...
...The proceedings and orders of the board may not be reviewed by any court except where the board shall exceed its powers or shall deprive an employe of his rights as guaranteed by the act...
...and, above all, annul Communist appeals to the hungry, the poor, the oppressed, with practical measures untiringly prosecuted for the elimination of social and economic evils that set men against men...
...Discontent can be fanned into revolution, and revolution into social chaos...
...The important thing is that we do something for the village," he said...
...The board has power to make its own rules of procedure, including the fixing of its own quorum and the number of votes necessary to take action on any matter...
...Tell them that," he added to the interpreter...
...usually they do not know how to apply the simplest modern techniques...
...It is no uncommon result, though, that in a crowded legislative session when fights over big appropriation bills and taxes are getting the limelight, other legislation is lost to view...
...It is a peasant "self-help" program, based on an agricultural extension system like that in the United States...
...Decisions of the loyalty board regarding an employe are final...
...At that time they were assured that they and other objectors would be given a hearing...
...Some 220 University of Hawaii professors petitioned the governor to veto three of the loyalty bills...
...The president of Milotopos promised Wright to do his best to encourage the "self-help" program...
...But the Mission had learned, too, that even canny Greek farmers were prone to misappropriate aid...
...and it is being applied to causes, not symptoms of a national economic malady...
...Wright walked around the village, with the president of Milotopos chattering in school-book English and the men of the town strung out in a procession, respectfully trailed by the women...
...Nothing in the act would prevent an employe from being fired if one of the seven board members voted against his being retained...
...In his inaugural address delivered a few days before the loyalty bills reached his desk...
...In its stormy history, the ECA Mission has been forced to allocate many funds to aid the Greek fight against Communism...
...He was formerly on the staff of the New York Times . . -LOUISE S. 1ESSEN was on the staff of the U. S. Agricultural Extension Service in Hawaii until poor health caused her to resign...
...Over the customary glasses of potent ouzo, Wright patiently explained how much indirect aid the village actually had received: ECA-built roads and railroads, the hydroelectric plants, the new cotton gins, the outright gifts to farmers who had lost tools and animals...
...Any employe questioned by the board who refuses to answer on the grounds of possible self-incrimination shall be dismissed immediately...
...They've got to help themselves...
...Why couldn't machines do the work...
...Such an employe shall thereafter be ineligible for election or appointment to any office or to employment by the Territory...
...Why should they plant trees and grass on hills that were burnt dry in summer...
...If the villagers would meet, outline their needs, and elect four men to lead a redevelopment program, ECA would supply them with trees, seeds, minor equipment, and technical advice...
...Against such tactics exclusive reliance on military might is vain...
...II On this conviction the "self-help" program is moving ahead...
...ECA and the Greek government will provide technical advice and certain materials to villages that adopt a group program of development...
...This promise was not carried out...
...Under the circumstances, it has done a good job...
...Most Greek farmers own the land they till...
...RICHARD W. REINHARDT has been studying local conditions in Greece on a Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship from Columbia University...
...Hawaii Plunges Overboard on Loyalty By Louise S. Jessen Honolulu WITH an apologetic statement to the press, Gov...
...In his office in Salonika, Wright raps his pencil nervously on his desk and says...
...American aid has been coming to Greece at the average rate of about $200 million a year since 1947...
...In the rainy season, one-fourth of the land is flooded...
...The American Civil Liberties Union sent a cablegram urging the governor to veto House Bill 1054, the most objectionable of the four...
...Hawaii's loyalty program includes the following provisions, most of which do not appear in the federal program or in state programs: Elected officials as well as teachers and all civil service employes are subject to the loyalty procedures...
...II Commenting editorially on June 2, the Honolulu Srar Bulletin said: "It [the loyalty program] is too sweeping...
...The fervent hope of everyone is that in the near future all legislation of this nature will be unnecessary...
...So ECA is unsealing its miserly, mighty "self-help" prescription for the "forgotten majority" of the Greek people...
Vol. 15 • September 1951 • No. 9
