The Daily Tribune du lieu suivant : Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin • Page 16

Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune Saturday, April 16, 1933. alifornia's reat em: The Refugees From the Extreme Poverty Perils Migrating Families Waiting Work in Cotton Fields hour Probl Dust Bowl fri! ft4 1 I if 1A $4 i 1 4 I San Francisco-Ul-nourished, housed in hovels, clad in rag-fed remnants, an army of 200,000 men, women, and children spreads across the floor of the lower San Joaquin Valley, matching their few remaining pennies against time. They are migratory workers facing a lull of three months before they can hope to get work again in the cotton fields. But they are not the same migratory workers who used to "follow the crops" in the days of the great western grain ranges, many of whom were single, unattached men whose migratory work was their lives. These are the dispossessed of the dust bowl" area, the Oklahomans, Texans, Kansans, the farmers from Arizona, Arkansas and Missouri whose farms literally blew out from under them during the past few years.

With their families, in rickety, overloaded cars and trailers, Ihey have trekked westward, drawn by visions of a better land and a new home in California. 4 Seeking to give California a lift in its tremendous job of caring for thousands upon thousands Jobless migratory workers, the federal government is building groups of cottages, such as shown above at Arvin, for the transient families. Each home, constructed chiefly of adobe, is surrounded by a small plot of land, giving the itinerants a chance to settle down and grow at least part of their food. T'- They are the kind of people who A-ould like to settle down and "stay put," not professional migrants. But, except for a few who have been helped by desperate efforts of federal and local governments, they have met nothing but disappointment.

And in so doing they have treated a problem for every locality In which they are temporarily stranded between crops. Gigantic Problem i Health departments, public nursing services, camp inspection departments geared to a normal load, have been able to do no more than relieve the starkest misery, to deal with the most imminent disease and health problems. School districts, suddenly faced with three or four times the normal number of pupils, do the best they can for a school population that moves in and moves out several times during each term. Five camps set up by the Farm Security Administration, with two more under construction, demonstrate what can be done to improve the living conditions of these dispossessed people. But they provide for only a comparative few.

Twenty neat little houses in an FSA project at Arvin, Kern county, are only a finger pointing a way out. Each house has an acre of land attached, on which the tenants, can grow part of their own food while waiting for the intermittent work in nearby cotton fields. The cabins rent for $8.20 a month. The hope is that tenants will be able to find within SO miles enough work for cash to supplement what they are able to grow for themselves. Between-Season Misery But neither federal nor local governments has tackled the problem on such a scale as to give hope for permanent solution.

It arose too suddenly, became too great for that. When cotton is harvested in an area, for instance, it is many long weeks before the new crop is ready 'Mm rain rtim I'nif rtii-iiiiniiiii iifly (TThT- -iftWnW nf iiniMimuM inn nmT It Is people like these families which migrated to California from the "dust bowl" area in the hope of finding jobs who have created the west coast's serious transient proBlem. At left a little girl, scarcely in her teens, is shown picking cotton to help obtain enough money to carry the family through the off-season when no crops are being harvested. Mostly the migratory workers are a plucky lot, as witness the group at right keeping up courage with music in front of a rude tent shelter in the San Joaquin Valley. Malnutrition and even death are already taking their toll among these castaways.

Many live for weeks on beans and water. The infant mortality rate rises, the ravages of diarrhea and enteritis, bronchitis and pneumonia are two and three times as great as the average for the country. Many children get no milk at all. County and state health authorities do their best to ward off epidemic disease, always a menace under crowded conditions where poverty and ignorance unite. Any report of smallpox or diphtheria sends doctors and nurses scurrying to the camps.

Thus far no epidemic has developed. Need Land of Their Own But. permanent solution of the problem is not easy to see. Not more than a fourth of these migrants will be needed to follow the various harvests, Dr. Omer Mills, FHA economist, has declared.

Yet it is clear that most of them want to settle down. Curtailment of Mexican immigration, and the change from grain to-cotton farming has created more jobs than were hitherto available. But not enough for this tremendous migration. Most of those concerned with the problem agree that some way must be found to settle these people on land of their own. "All they want is a few acres, a cow, and some chickens," said a minister at Chowchilla.

And it is along this line that the FSA and local administrations are trying to' proceed. Some of the big ranchers have made notable efforts to provide suitable quarters for laborers. The neat, airy, well-painted cabins of the Allan Hoover ranch in the San Joaquin Valley are cited as an outstanding example. But even such forward-looking steps are no final solution. Thus far the problem of the dust bowl's dispossessed has been too great for any complete answer.

party is, of course, largely a work ing, class party, The Communists ap peal to the more extreme French working men. If the support of his friends is questionable, the opposition of his enemies is certain. The conservative elements in politics, banking and business hate him for his labor laws and even more so because he broke the hold of the "economic royalists" upon the Bank of Europe. They are helpless in the Chamber of Deputies, but the French senate is a home of reactionaries. Many a French premier has won in the Chamber only to come a cropper when the Senate acted.

Which is one of the reasons why the republic has had 105 cabinets since the war of 1870. they crouch in their tent, eking out the few pennies they have earned, until work is again to be had in this same neighborhood Beans and Water- In either case a problem arises. If they stay, sanitary conditions get worse in the camp, clothes and uten- sils wear out, the remnant of their wages gets lower daily, France Fearful as Rest of Europe "Accepts" Nazi Expansion for "chopping," or thinning. Then the hands go home to the ragged tents or crazy-quilt huts patched to-1 gether of tar paper and old packing boxes, and decide on the next move. There is a rumor of pickers needed in the Imperial Valley, farther south.

Shall they spend their few dollars for gasoline and supplies to make the trip on a chance Or shall and they see it approaching closer and closer to call them away from their shops and their factories and their farms. Leon Blum, France's first Jewish premier, finds himself again at the helm of the government in the most crucial period in recent European history with the Rights shouting he is all wrong and the Lefts shouting he is all right. New Cabinet a Target His new cabinet has been the center of attack by the powerful Right press, which is the majority press of the French nation. For Blum had announced, after Hitler's pounce upon Austria, that he wanted to form a government of national union. Many conservative Frenchmen thought he meant to form a cabinet similar to the famous coalition cabinet which conducted English affairs If they go, another community has the problem instead.

Some counties have as many as four or five thousand such migratory workers suddenly dumped in their lap. Think of that in relation to the nearest rural county you know, and it will give you the picture. ous job of governing France at the present Not since the days that preceded the World war, have things been in so a "state. Forty million Frenchmen think war is not far off. France has to face up to the fact that there is an alliance between Germany and Italy, two of the most powerfully armed nations in the world.

She has to face the fact that England's policy is still hazy. The French government will have to walk very warily. Inside the country, there is also a dangerous situation. The finances are in bad shape. Labor, despite the liberal laws Blum passed last time he was Premier, is restless.

It fears that circumstances may dictate some sort of curtailing of the charter of freedom, shorter hours and more pay they have won. Blum's Socialist BY MILTON BRONNER Taris Reading newspaper headlines that proclaim the Nazi conquest of Austria, the American is mildly thrilled at watching history-In-the-making. In England, the average Briton glances but a moment at accounts of Ihis far-reaching event, then turns the page to iee whether the piker bet he placed on a horse the day before has brought him an extra shilling or two. But in France, from the highest to the lowest, there recently has been no other topic than this latest Nazi exploit and fear of what the future may bring. "Fear," perhaps is not the right word.

For the French are a brave, fighting people when the hateful necessity arises. But they hate war during the World war. Excluding the Communists, they thought he would take in the leaders of all the other political parties. In any event, the cabinet he did build is very much like the one he had in 1936 mainly Socialists and Radical Socialists. Blum himself says he made many tentatives, but some of the parties were too exigent.

However, he insists that the cabinet represents the feeling of the majority of the people of France as expressed in the last rational election. In other words, it is a government of the alliance called the Popular Front. The Communists have no seat in it, but have promised to support it with their considerable block of votes. A Difficult Task Blum has shown himself a brave man by tackling the thankless, peril.