HE DALLAS POST, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1938
“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of
speech or of Press” — The Constitution of the United States.
The Dallas Post is a youthful, liberal, aggressive weekly, dedica-
ted to the highest ideals of the journalistic tradition and concerned
primarily with the development of the rich rural-suburban area about
Dallas. It strives constantly to be more than a newspaper, a com-
munity institution.
Subscription, $2.00 per Year, payable in advance. Subscrib-
ers who send us changes of address are requested to include both
new and old addresses with the notice of change. Advertising
rates on request.
@
Jase aan
HOWELL E. REES
More Than A Newspaper—A Community Institution
The Dallas Post
Established 1889
A Liberal, Independent Newspaper Published Every Friday
Morning At The Dallas Post Plant, Lehman Avenue,
Dallas, Penna., By The Dallas Post, Inc.
HOWARD W. RISLEY... General Manager
Managing Editor
=
THE POST'S CIVIC PROGRAM
1. A modern concrete highway leading from Dallas and con-
necting with the Sullivan Trail at Tunkhannock. :
2. A greater development of community consciousness among
residents of Dallas, Trucksville, Shavertown, and Fernbrook.
3. Centralization of local fire protection.
4. Sanitary sewage systems for local towns.
5. A centralized police force.
6. A consolidated high school eventually, and better co-oper-
ation between those that now exist.
7. Complete elimination of politics from local school affairs.
8. Construction of more sidewalks.
&
E
EDITORIALS
Our Thanks
The Post would be ungrateful if it neglected to express
ts thanks to all the people who telephoned over last week-
~ end to thank us for last week’s editorial supporting Leh-
“man’s bond issue. ;
The Pot And The Kettle
~The spectacle of Democrats moaning because a Repub-
lican WPA foreman allegedly influenced several of his
Democratic workmen to change their registration to Re-
publican is indeed a classic example of the pot calling the
kettle black.
~ Mr. Cundiff, who is a Republican committeeman and
therefore is expected to perform certain duties in behalf
of the county organization, denies that he used his position
as foreman of the Machell Avenue WPA project to convert
‘any voters to Republicanism. That sounds truthful. Ob-
wishes might be considered a mark of merit by many Dem-
ocratic political leaders. The power of dismissal lies in the
hands of the Democratic WPA administration, not with a
~ diff had been so rash as to threaten good Democrats, any-
one would pay any attention to him.
If, however, Mr. Cundiff did talk politics on the job
he was establishing no precedent. The relation of politics
to WPA needs no exposure any more, and if Mr. Cundiff in-
jected politics into his work he was merely doing, under
~ more disadvantageous conditions, what Democratic leaders
“have been doing ever since WPA was established.
It amounts, then, to this. If political pressure is to be
countenanced on WPA, as it has in the past, then the sea-
“son is open for all parties and our system of relief must
be recognized realistically as nothing more than a gigantic
stake in a crudely materialistic political system. But if
Republican foremen are to be barred from presenting their
side of the case, then all politics must be eliminated from
~ WPA and there must be neither campaigning on the project
nor reprisals because of political belief.
’ But to find the Democrats, who have used WPA con-
stantly to swell their registration, complaining because a
~ Republican foreman stole their thunder is, to us, onl
amusing. :
Our Own “Godchild”
% A reference here last week to the Pittsburgh confer-
ence at which the Czechoslovakian nation was born twenty
years ago seems to have reminded a number of our readers
of a chapter almost forgotten in our history.
President Woodrow Wilson played a major role in
launching Czechoslovakia, as well as Poland and Yugo-
~ slavia, and the formation of what are now called the Little
Entente States was started in this country even before the
end of the World War. Even the names of the countries
were selected at conferences here.
America’s refusal to join the League of Nations iso-
lated us from the later attempts toward collective security
and ended, for us, President Wilson’s dream of helping to
build, upon the basis of his Fourteen Points, a United
States of Europe.
Winter Sports For Dallas
A suggestion made by Dallas Business Men's Assoc-
iation last year, that the community capitalize upon its
opportunities for winter sports, came almost too late to be
acted upon. Perhaps something can be done about it this
year.
There are numerous spots about Dallas which could
~ be flooded for ice skating and if there is enough snow we
could reserve certain areas for skiing and tobaganning.
~ Years ago Dallas had a wide-spread reputation for winter
fun and considerable business came into town as a result.
It would seem that the revival of that reputation, would be
a worthy project for the Business Men’s Association or
some of our civic clubs.
viously, the registered Democrats on the project had little |
to fear from a Republican foreman. Disobedience to his |urging her mate to see a doctor about
(ships, bombs defenseless cities, com-
RIVES
MATTHEWS
THREE MEN ON A HORSE
It is remarkable how many of my
friends’ wives are now finding rea-
sons to believe their husbands are
not the perfect specimens of mascu-
linity to which they plighted their
troths under wreaths of orange blos- |
soms and yards of satin and lace.
>
Two of them, though sorely temp-
ted by the cockeyed hats currently
flaunted along Fifth Avenue, are re-
straining themselves to the extent of
making last year’s hats do, so they
can buy their breadwinners electrical
devices said to aid the hard of hear-
ing. Both wives are convinced their
husbands are stone deaf.
SE
Another better-half is constantly
his feet. Shes sure they're flat.
Three of my friends, in recent weeks,
donned spectacles at the instigation
of their wives. To hear their good
Republican foreman, so it is unlikely that, even if Mr. Cun-; Tus talk, they're threatened with
blindness. Still another friend now
can discuss nothing but his receding
hairline. I suppose his wife is hound-
ing him into premature old age, and it
wouldn't surprise me at all if he took
to bleaching it white.
—
My own wife, who has only re-
cently fallen into the reprehensible
habit of searching for her nail polish
in the medicine cabinet, where it
doesn’t belong, just at those delight
ful times when I am imagining myself
a water lily floating on the Nile, now
seems to take fiendish pleasure, after
a survey of my pink and steaming
person, in pointing out my one and
only and very embarrassing physical
imperfection: I blush when I admit to
a pair of hammer toes.
—C—
At hen teas, they tell me, the
cackle no longer concerns such trivi-
alities as the strapless evening gown,
engagements, weddings, pregnancies,
christenings, and pre-school age prob-
lems, but the possibility of our being
drawn into another World War.
How, they are all wondering, can
their husbands keep out of it? Child-
less couples, I understand, are being
urged to increase the population as
quickly as possible. Engaged cou-
» [ples are told to hurry up and get
married, never mind the payments on
that little diamond chip.
pe
Right now the sentiment seems to
favor draft dodgers. All my friends’
wives want them to be dodgers when
the bugles sound and drums roll and
admirals steer a course for Europe.
—p—
Bullets, I am frank to say, make
me nervous. I am likewise ready to
admit that if I could avoid going to
war, I would do so. But in the case
of a nation at war, such individual
solutions as outlined above, are, in
the last analysis, cowardly and ir-
responsible skin-saving artifices. Not
to say unpatriotic.
rr
It would be the better part of valor
and patriotism if hundreds of thou-
sands of perfectly healthy men of
fighting age simply refused to fight,
and formed an organization to ex-
press their stand in a corporate and
shoulder-to-shoulder fashion. There
are, of course, various existing or-
ganizations which stand for peace at
any price. Their leaders are well in-
tentioned, and doubtless they've ac-
complished a few half measures.
-—_
The munition makers, I have rea-
son to know, cynically regard them
as good advertisers and salesmen of
bombs, guns and armor plate. Their
sales method is the same used by the
mouthwash people: fear. Every peace
plea, so far, seems to have been met
by the statesmen with such slogans as
“Arm for Peace.”
ye
The good ladies and gentlemen
who run these peace societies have
done little to capture the interest of
those who will, in the long run, bear
the first bloody brunt of another war.
From what I can gather, there are
not many young men between six-
teen and thirty who would rather re-
main in school, CCC camps, on re-
lief, unemployed, or with small, un-
derpaid jobs if an opportunity to see
the world at Uncle Sam’s expense
was offered.
——
Tt seems to me the surest way to
preserve peace, as far as we are con-
cerned, is to make sure, and quickly,
that our footloose, still fancy free
young men are given a better break
than they are now. To trade a slow
death and years of futility for a quick
one and a few months of the glorifi-
cation that goes with a uniform, is a
choice many a young man today
would make without hesitation.
—Q—
As long as there are young men
in this country ready to make such
a tragic choice, none of us can es
cape the possibility of being drawn
into a war. And after the younger
men have gone and been killed, then
our own turn will come, no matter
how flat our feet, how weak our
eyes, how" clamorous and full our
baby carriages.
The
MAIL BAG
WHY WAR?
War is the menacing force which
is used to destroy human life, the
most priceless thing on earth. It cries
“right or wrong, my country.” It
is where “might makes right”. It vi-
olates sacred treaties by calling them
“scraps of paper”. To the hilt it
defends nationalism above the moral
order of nations. War is futile, ir-
rational and suicidal. It is organized
mass murder, for it employs poison
gas, burning oil, aeroplane bombs,
hunger blockades, life-destroying elec
tric rays and deadly germs. It sinks
mits indescribable atrocities and de-
stroys life and property. In the last
great conflict, war cost the world
twenty-six million lives and 337 bil
lion dollars. It makes the world in-
deed a “city of dreadful night.”
On the contrary, peace promotes
ity, righteousness, active good-will,
sympathy, unselfishness, and the sin-
cere human spirit of love. It fosters
prosperity, cooperation, mutual un
.|derstanding, national security and a
sense of honor. It causes men to
“beat their swords into plow-shares
and their spears into pruning hooks”.
It is one of Man's most benign bless-
ings. It makes for peace of mind
through devotion to truth, peace of
conscience through righteous living,
peace of soul in its vision of God as
Love enthroned, It is the healing and
elevating influence of a war-ridden
world.
Peace devotes itself to the art of
life rather than to the art of death.
Its philosophy implies the will to
share, the will to love all. It rings
out a sense of justice and the vast
sacredness of all life. ‘‘It abhors that
which is evil; it cleaves to that which
is good”. It follows in the path of
the Prince of Peace, when he said,
“Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men.
Blessed are the peace-makers”.
If these are the great benefactions
of peace to mankind, WHY NOT
PEACE?
Velfardd
human liberty, culture, justice, humil-
Edwardsville, Pa.
Bs
Duin YOUR 0k G7
CITY
| = Nevertheless, Thomas Wolfe loved
(his America and he wanted to write
about it. He wanted everyone to
{know about this great country in
SYMPHONY | iw a bs nr Fe
By Edna Blez
{of Chapel Hill where he graduated
when he was twenty and he wrote of
oe nis life as a student of Harvard. Har-
| vard has never been as real as it was
Thorius Wolfe. is dead! Portaps under the pen of this giant of a man.
it doesn’t mean anything to you that
Thomas Wolfe is dead. I didn’t |
know him but I feel that I have lost |
a very good friend because I knew |
Thomas Wolfe through the books he
wrote and particularly through the
first book he wrote ‘Look Home-
ward Angel”.
——Q—
Thomas Wolfe was young—he was
just 27 when he died two weeks ago
in Baltimore of a cerebral hemor-
rhage. Even though he lived such a
short time he can well be numbered
among the great and the near great
in the field of American letters. The
one great objection critics and readers
alike had to his books was that his
works were too long—but now that
he is gone they seem too short.
—Q—
He was born of a poor family in
North Carolina and in “Look Home-
ward Angel” he told the story of his
family—his father, mother, and his
brothers and sisters. It has been some
time since I have read “Look Home-
ward Angel” but I still remember
Thomas Wolfe's father. He was a
stone cutter—a great, gusty man who
would rather talk than anything else
in the world. He was always right
and to the day he died his wife called
him Mr. Gant.
Jom
Thomas Wolfe was a huge person.
He was six foot seven and he lived
and worked in strange places and in |
strange ways. It is said he lived for
some time in a hovel of a room over
in Brooklyn and ate out of tin cans
for weeks at a time while he wrote.
He would roam ‘the streets at night—
sometimes all night. Time meant
nothing to him. He wrote so much
and so long his publishers despaired
of ever stopping him. I remember
one story which told of him deliver-
ing his manuscript to his publisher in
a packing box. His publishers plead-
ed and pleaded with him to blue pen-
cil his work and cut out all the un-
necessary passages. But for every line
he cut out he put in a dozen more.
——
Wolfe had something to say and he
couldn’t understand why he should
be limited. Who was a publisher to
tell him how to write? His stories
came out of him in teeming warm
words and that was how he wanted
it published. I remember in his sec-
ond book it took him something like
ten pages to describe a train coming
into a station and, of course, the av-
erage reader simply cannot wait ten
pages for a train to pull into a sta-
He always seemed like Walt Whit
man to me—but he never seemed to
hit his real stride. The pulse of this
vast and exciting country was in his
heart and he spent his entire life try-
ing to sing its praises and telling of
its many peoples.
-——
Thomas Wolfe was a great Amer-
ican writer—fairly bursting with the
story of his native land and just as
he had made up his mind to travel
and see more of America he was
stricken and died in his prime. Per-
haps his greatest works were yet to
come. I feel that we have lost one of
our very best writers and if you don’t
believe me read “Look Homeward
Angel”,
THE LOW DOWN
from
HICKORY GROVE
Somewhere around 12 million
or 15 million girls and boys have
had new haircuts and their necks
washed and are heading back to
the school : house—smelling
soapy,, but nice and clean and
bright.
But we have become so used
to big figures on account of the
Govt. going in the hole 100 mil-
lion: or 500 million every time
you pick up a paper, we maybe
do not think 15 million boys and
girls is so very many. But if you
are the mama in the family, and
are making the sandwiches, you
will savvy.
. But going to school, it is what
this .country needs—and every
other country too.
And times should change in
how to teach, like styles change
in automobiles, etc.
And if I had anything to say
about changes in teaching, I
would start right with the 6
year olds, and would commence
teaching Aesop. And I would
keep it up clear through to the
senior in the college. Aid by
doing so, when you are 21 and
can vote, you will know the
sheep from the goats and the
foxes, etc., if you see one.
The best seller, it should be
Aesop.
Yours, with the low down,
tion.
JO SERRA
a
~