The More Things Change...

What I learned from reading old newspapers

Let's take a quick break from The Dawn of Everything.

When I went through the accumulated mountains of hoarded trash after my mom died, I found several local newspapers. One was from the day I was born, but some were from as far back as the 1930s. For some reason my grandparents were particularly interested in the abdication of King Edward VIII and the Year of Three Kings in England (even though they weren’t English). Some of the most fascinating newspapers were from World War Two, when my mom was born. Since today is my birthday, I thought I might share some of what I found which I’ve been meaning to do so for a while.

The big takeaway from reading these newspapers for me is how little things have changed in some ways, and how much they've changed in others.

(For reasons of size, the email version will not have all the images, but the online version will)

Let's start with a “Letters to the Editor” section from 1973. This blows me away. What was on the mind of people back in 1973? Political correctness and feminism run amok. Well, except for the fact that these terms hadn't been invented yet.

This particular writer was incensed about the fact that the newspaper decided that there would no longer be separate sections for men's and women's jobs. Instead, there would just be a single "employment" section. According to the irate letter writer, this will place an undue burden on employers searching for job candidates. Where are these mythical jobs that either gender can do going to come from? What's amazing to me is that the letter drips with exactly same sort of sneering sarcasm and condescension as today’s modern internet trolls. This even starts with the title: For Milady Militant:

To the Journal: Undoubtedly, there are among your readers a gloating few who see in their new asexual format of your classified advertising section a dynamic symbol of the inexorable progression of Woman Emancipated toward the Elysium of recognition, fulfillment, vindication, liberation, etc. (The Millennium NOW!)

But it is quite obvious to any sensible advertiser that combining the two principle sexes in a single conglomerate melange for employment purposes shows a myopic disregard of the pragmatic realities of the labor market, and is farcical as it is counterproductive.

Concededly, there is a proper place in your paper for Milady Militant and other such social activists, but their valid role most assuredly is not to dictate the form of your classified advertising columns, which, presumably, are intended to serve the mundane needs of readers and users who seek only to hire or to be hired or to make other such practical arrangements.

These people—and may I dare suggest that they make the economy operative?—are ill served by airily populating the labor market with mythical unisex workers.

Have you considered striking out the blatant sexism that runs rampant in your Lost & Found columns wherein pets are described by gender?

NEIL MURPHY.

9132 W. Dixon St., Wauwatosa

Wow, I mean this exactly—exactly—matches the same style of rhetoric as right-wing internet trolls today. Not just the dripping sarcasm but also the faux outrage—even the backhanded reference to "job creators" being inconvenienced by the "social justice warriors" of the day. Milady Militant! I bet Neil Murphy was a real fun guy to hang out with. This is the kind of guy who would be on Facebook today posting about how "ThERE ARE OnLy TWO GENDERs!!!!" and grumbling about blue-haired college students. I should note that the next letter, from Heidi Hilf of Whitefish Bay, was in favor: "Listing all jobs under one heading will help lead the way to the time when jobs will be filled by the persons most qualified, regardless of sex. It seems to me that many jobs are filled by men or women exclusively only because that's the way it's always been."

Of course, we all know how that issue turned out. Employers today don't seem to be especially inconvenienced by the fact that their job listings don't need to specify a gender for job openings. We don’t even think about it anymore. It turns out that the mythical unisex worker wasn't mythical after all. But this is pretty typical of the inane culture war rhetoric in this country, and it seems like it goes back a long way.

Of course, these people were always out there. The only difference is that now, thanks to our wonderful globally-connected World Wide Web, combined with “social” media, every single one of them can immediately and relentlessly broadcast their thoughts out to the entire world with no filter whatsoever. Back then, they could only write angry, sardonic letters to the editor, and those may not even get published. Progress!

Incidentally, in the age of internet anonymity, this was the newspaper's letters policy:

Letters must include name and address, not necessarily for publication, but as evidence of good faith. They must be kept as short as possible; the editors reserve the right to trim lengthy letters.

Good faith, imagine that. And no bots or spam!

This letter demands women return back to the home where they belong. Again, our language has progressed to the point where there is now a term for this: tradwife. I lost the original photo of the article, but a Wikipedia search tells me the General Hugh S. Johnson died in 1942, so this must have been around or before that time:

Letters From Readers

MARRIED WOMEN IN JOBS

To the Editor of the Sentinel:

General Hugh S. Johnson is correct in his statement that unemployment is up to business and this means all employers, whether federal, state, county or city—or private. There probably are about as many people employed now as at any normal time, still millions of men are out of work. The answer is simple: women have replaced them.

Many married women hold jobs while their husbands are also gainfully employed. It is up to employers to correct this fault. What good is all this relief expense when it does not put men back to work or provide jobs for the many boys coming out of high school and college?

We cannot expect prosperity or even normal times until the men are returned to work and the women to their own sphere—the home.

OLD FASHIONED.

Madison, Wis.

On a related note, this comic from 1973 is presented without comment:

One of my other favorites is this "kids these days" advice column from the 1936. Again, I can't emphasize enough that this column is from the nineteen-thirties! It's entitled, Marriage Just as Good A Proposition as Ever (emphasis mine):

DEAR MISS DIX - Why is there so much talk about the difficulties of marriage nowadays? What is different about it from what it used to be in our parents' and grandparents' time? Why can't children take the same risks in marriage that their parents did? BELDA

...

ANSWER: There isn't any difference in marriage. The difference is in the young people of today. Marriage has always been the same in all ages, full of difficulties and dangers, full of disillusion of warring temperments, demanding the same sacrifices and patience and forbearance to make a go of it.

THE same drawbacks to marriage existed in the past as they do today, but somehow the older generation seemed to have more courage and backbone in meeting them that their descendants have.

IN THOSE days it was safer for a young girl and boy to marry than it is now, because they didn't expect to begin life where their parents were leaving off. When a poor girl, who was marrying a poor boy bought her trousseau, she didn't think she had to have mongrammed towels and sheets, lace and embroidered tablecloths and cutwork cocktail sets. She bought good, plain, substantial linen and cotton that would last for years.

IT IS because young people haven't the grit to stand a marriage that calls for self denial and hard work that parents warn their children against it. They know how weak and spoiled are the youngsters they have bred.

MARRIAGE is just as good a proposition today as it ever was, and if the young people were willing to live as their parents did there would be no need for them to wait for a raise in the boy's salary.

DOROTHY DIX

Yes indeed, those spoiled and weak children from the 1930s were unwilling to sacrifice the way their parents had. What a bunch of softies. They even expected monogrammed sheets! Thankfully, the term "snowflakes" hadn't been invented yet (we really have come a long way with reactionary rhetoric haven't we? I guess there's been some progress after all.)

What else were people worrying about back in 1973? Inflation! Thankfully we don't have to worry about that anymore. Here's an article entitled, Gardeners Beat Inflation:

Just in time to counteract soaring food prices at the supermarket and the strain on the family budget, home gardeners throughout Wisconsin are reaping a bountiful harvest of free tasty vegetables.

Economics and ecology have combined to stir a renewed interest in food growing. Plots planted with the practical intent of saving money or with the more idealistic idea of returning to nature now are reaching the payoff of peak seasonal production.

The summer of 1973, in fact, probably will produce the biggest harvest by amateur food growers in the state in more than 25 years.

Beating inflation by gardening—so old fashioned! No one would promote stuff like that today, would they? And thankfully another thing we don't have to worry about anymore is housing prices. I mean, can you even imagine???

The Housing Market

Chip Supply Dwindles in Home Buying Game

By Richard L. Stern

New York, N.Y.—AP—The nation's housing boom is becoming a bust for many Americans.

Costs are so high and mortgages have become so scarce within the last month that many prospective buyers with seemingly adequate incomes have found themselves priced out of the market.

An added burden is an increase in the cost of home maintenance, from painting a living room to repairing a furnace.

"When we added it all up, we just decided we better wait," said Rory Butler, a computer programmer who had been looking for a house in the New York suburbs.

The situation, which is especially troublesome to couples seeking to buy their first home, has caused concern in the industry.

While real estate agents in many parts of the country reported record sales in recent months, some housing experts have found signs the boom may be ending.

They point to recent figures showing housing costs running far ahead of increases in family incomes. And they note that federal measures to slow inflation by tightening the money supply generally have made mortgage money extremely scarce.

When the money is available, rates have risen to 9% in some cases (the going rate for low down payment loans in Milwaukee). Lenders also are demanding higher down payments and shorter repayment periods.

The finance problems and the soaring prices of land, labor and materials for new homes have so alarmed some builders that they have cut way back on their plans for new housing, the National Homebuilders Association (NHBA) reports.

"The housing industry's most disturbing problem in the last year and a half has been the increase in housing costs and prices," said Michael Sumichrast, NHBA's chief economist.

You could literally publish this exact same article today (just lower the interest rate a bit—we still haven’t reached anywhere near 9 percent). And for you collapsniks out there, folks were already red-pilled back in 1973. Here’s an article from Lester R. Brown entitled The World Gets Hungrier as U.S. Abundance Dwindles:

Washington, D.C. - This year has witnessed a dramatic upsurge in the world food situation, largely in response to global scarcity and rising food prices. Prices for some of man's principal food commodities—wheat, rice, feed grains and soybeans—have soared to historic highs in international markets. Rationing has been in effect for some foodstuffs in three of the world's four most populous countries: China, India and the Soviet Union.

By summer, food was being airlifted into several countries in sub-Sahara [sic] Africa to stave off famine, resulting from drought. India and Bangladesh faces critical food shortages. The United States was restricting soybean exports in the hope of slowing the rise in international food prices. Food scarcity was affecting the entire world, rich countries and poor.

In the United States, those protesting and boycotting over rising meat prices in recent months hardly know whom to blame. They are not certain that supermarkets bear responsibility, they are not convinced that it is entirely the farmer's fault, and they are not sure who the middleman is.

Thankfully Reagan, Thatcher and Neoliberalism came along and this issue was solved forever so that we never had to worry about it again. Can you imagine people being worried about things like shortages and rising food prices in 2022? Unthinkable!

Of course, you could also use this as an excuse for apathy: the world has always been going to hell. But what if we've really been in the same crisis ever since the 1970s? What if it's never been resolved? What if it’s really been going on continuously for decades??? Cue the Morpheus “What if I told you?” meme.

Another example of the perennial panic of the American far Right which never, ever, seems to go away is this article from 1936 which breathtakingly proclaims the "Destruction of the Nation!" What is it that is bound to destroy the nation? Why, the New Deal, of course (emphasis mine):

DESTRUCTION OF NATION IS SEEN

WASHINGTON, Jan 20—Sounding grave warming that the nation is headed for destruction, unless President Roosevelt's present course is sharply altered, Ogden L. Mills last night drew a parallel between the Raw Deal, [sic] fascism, communism and the nazi [sic] movement.

In an impassioned address before the town hall here, attended by many who occupy key posts in the administration, the man who served as secretary of the treasury under ex-president Hoover said:

"The New Deal is the American expression of the new movement which is exemplified in Europe by the nazi [sic] government of Germany, the fascist government of Italy and the communist government of Russia.

"I cannot imagine anything more intolerable to Americans that the crushing of freedom, the denial of opportunity and condemnation to an existence narrowly confined to the walls of a regimented society."

The New Deal will take away your freedoms! Labor laws are fascism! People forget how vehemently the American right-wing opposed everything about the New Deal, and how they declared it to be tyranny and Roosevelt a dictator. Because we live in the future, we can easily look up Mr. Ogden L. Mills. Who is he? According to Wikipedia:

Ogden Livingston Mills (August 23, 1884 – October 11, 1937) was an American lawyer, businessman and politician. He served as United States Secretary of the Treasury in President Herbert Hoover's cabinet, during which time Mills pushed for tax increases, spending cuts and other austerity measures that would deepen the economic crisis. A member of the Republican Party, Mills also represented New York in the United States House of Representatives, served as Undersecretary of the Treasury during the administration of President Calvin Coolidge, and was the Republican nominee in the 1926 New York gubernatorial election…Mills served on the boards of the Lackawanna Steel Company, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, Virginia & Truckee Railroad, Mergenthaler Linotype Company and the Shredded Wheat Company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogden_L._Mills

Of course, just like the job ad panic above, we all know how that turned out: Roosevelt's New Deal did, in fact, ruin the nation forever, LoL. Republicans: wrong about absolutely everything since the 1930s. Seriously, they never, ever change and yet they keep getting elected over and over again (and, in fact, are more popular than ever). What the hell are people thinking???

Speaking of right-wing nutjobs, here is a column by someone called Bruce Barton wondering what a "liberal" is all the way back in 1936. So the corruption of that term in the United States goes back a long way:

Far from "liberal" in their characterization of those of whom they happen to disapprove, they make very clear all the things they are AGAINST, but I have been trying for years to find out what they are FOR. What sort of social setup do they think would work? Aside from venting their jealousy and wrath on all who have happened to get along in the world, what other program do they have?

By what rule of circumstances do people happen to get themselves classified as "liberal" or "reactionary!" Calvin Coolidge was a man of simple tastes who believed in the country, worked hard and honestly to help it to prosper, and rejoiced in the prosperity of his fellow citizens. Under him the average man and woman enjoyed a better living than ever before. But he was a "reactionary."

A CERTAIN famous senator, whose gymnastics I have watched for 30 years, has been on all sides of most questions—silver juggling, potato control, Townsend plan, or whatever, you always know where to find him. Yet he is a "statesman" and a great "liberal".

I SOMETIMES wonder if professional liberalism is so much a matter of thought as of torpid livers and unfortunate financial experience. People whose livers are active, and whose affairs progress, believe in the country and want to see it go ahead. People with sluggish livers and no luck think that the "interests" are responsible for their bad feelings.

This is an exaggeration, or course, not a fair statement. But the mental snootiness of professional "liberals" has long given me a paid. I wish I knew WHY they are, what the WANT, and evidence they have that things would be better of they were given what they want.

Liberalism: the result of torpid livers. Today, of course, Mr. Barton would have his very own YouTube channel, if not an online media empire (he even has the ALL CAPS writing style down pat). Curious, I looked up Mr. Barton on Wikipedia. Probably one of the most hilarious things I have ever read on the internet is the description of a book written by Mr. Barton entitled, "The Man Nobody Knows." This book is—and I swear I am not making this up—a portrait of Jesus as a Gilded Age businessman. As the kids say, I can't even...

Barton's most famous book was, The Man Nobody Knows (1925), a "boosterish melding of religion with business" that coupled with "new communication and advertising media", provided the "cultural shift that encouraged the public display of spiritual allegiances that once belonged to the realm of private life", while amplifying the widely perceived public adoration of American business during the 1920s. In this book, Barton envisions Jesus as if he were alive as a man's man in the present day of the 1920s while criticizing the overly meek Jesus that people were used to during that time. Barton also depicts Jesus as a "strong magnetic" executive businessman, similar to himself.

In the 1925 edition of The Man Nobody Knows Barton incorporated controversial chapter titles leading into the exploration of Barton's Jesus-as-businessman themes, such as calling Jesus a modern "Executive", postulating that Jesus communicated effectively by "His Advertisements", and hailing Jesus as "The Founder of Modern Business" among others. In the much later 1956 edition of The Man Nobody Knows, editors at Bobbs-Merrill "heavily amended" Barton's text with his permission, cutting out the references to business and advertising. along with excerpts featuring popular celebrities of the 1920s, such as Henry Ford, George Perkins, and Jim Jeffries.

The Wikipedia article on the book provides some more detail:

In this book, Barton paints a picture of a strong Jesus, who worked with his hands, slept outdoors, and traveled on foot. This is very different from what he saw as the "Sunday School Jesus" — a physically weak, moralistic man, and the "lamb of God". Barton describes Jesus as "the world's greatest business executive", and according to one of the chapter headings, "The Founder of Modern Business", who created a world-conquering organization with a group of twelve men hand-picked from the bottom ranks of business…

That’s right, Bruce Fairchild Barton invented Supply Side Jesus almost one hundred years ago. I've got to find an original, unedited copy of this book. “Sorry Simon Peter, you haven’t met your believer conversion quota this quarter. We’re going to have to let you go. Let’s give that Judas guy a promotion—he seems to know the value of money!”

These type of people have been media fixtures forever in America. We’ve always been awful, haven’t we?

And if you have any illusions about religious nut jobs trying to take over the state being somehow a recent phenomenon, may I point you to this article from 1936:

Evangelist Would Dose Politics With Religion

Congress Needs Old Fashioned Revival, She Insists.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20—(Universal)—Platinum blond Uldine Utley, 23, evangelist, who has been preaching since she was 11, thinks congress and our present day statesmen need a good dose of old-fashioned religion. [Note: even in 1936 they apparently thought her style of religion was old fashioned!]

Opening a month's revival meeting here today, she laid down this creed:

"I would like to spread my revival to the hall of congress."

"Let us have a recovery through revival."

"The real white house is the little white church—where the nation should be governed by God."

"We have left God out of America, and all we have now is a skyline and a deficit." [me: were conservatives freaking out about the budget deficit all the way back in 1936?]

"God is the only really vital issue in government today."

"Righteousness exalteth a nation."

"Gambling is rampant in the nation's capital. Christians trust in God—not in luck." [me: if she thinks DC is bad, she should see Wall Street!]

Here is a brief Wikipedia page about Ms. Utley (she spent most of her later years in a mental institution). Today, with her platinum blond hair, she’d be a fixture on Fox News. These people have always been around! On a related note, one consistent theme you see emanating from newspapers in the 1940's, and especially during the 1950's, is the Red Scare. And it's not subtle. For example, this article is about the need to "oust Reds" from Methodist churches across the nation:

“Methodists must clean house. They must wipe out all Methodist pastors who are radicals and communists."

This today was the statement of Dr. John Thompson, pastor of the first Methodist Church of Chicago and a leader in Methodism, who addresses the Milwaukee Methodist Ministers' association at Grace Norwegian Methodist Church, S. Twelfth and W. Scott sts. today.

Some of Dr. Thompson's rhetoric from the 1930's could have come directly out of the mouth of someone like Dr. Jordan Peterson today:

"These leaders in the youth movement are too radical. The young people have not had the experience it takes to think these things though. They are too gullible. This applies not only to the leaders, but to the youth they seek to guide."

"I believe everybody in the church and out of it would like see a more just and fair social order, so that every man and woman could get reasonable compensation for his or her daily toil.

"I think the reds make a mistake at this point. They're trying to make a golden age in one jump. It cannot be done that way.”

"The reds lack historic perspective. If they but look backward, they will see we have traveled a long way from the slavery of the Roman empire."

"We have in America now but one day in the year set apart for labor. But labor is coming onto its own, and has come partially along the way today. But I think the reds, with their impetuosity and wild radical talk are hurting their own cause."

The "radical Left" is out of control! They want a revolution! They need to be more patient. After all, we had slavery during the Roman Empire (no mention of the lack of indoor plumbing). Concern trolling is apparently nothing new. As a reminder: this was spoken during the Great Depression. We've always been under a heavy cloud of propaganda in America. The thing is, it works. Even though the Soviet Union collapsed over thirty years ago, there is more panic and paranoia about Communism in the U.S. today than during the Cold War. Here’s a more visual example of some vintage Red Scare paranoia:

Given the panic over conditions at the Mexican border, I found this article from1942 interesting:

By RAY RICHARDS

Sentinel Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - Their desks heavily weighted with demands from the West coast that something be done about the farm labor supply, California congressmen prepared today for a legislative battle next week to clear the way for the importation of Mexicans.

The general principle of their campaign has the support of the Office of Defense Transportation which is pleading for the admission of Mexican section hands on the ground that maintenance of way conditions on Western railroads are becoming critical.

The Californians saw danger today, as a subcommittee of the house ways and means committee drafted a new version of the administration's bill permitting the President to relax immigration and tariff laws which impede the war effort.

In the substitute bill safeguards are provided against admission of any aliens or goods, beyond present quota and tariff laws, that are not absolutely essential to the war program.

We want more Mexicans! Except when we don’t! Why won’t they go home?

And even though there is a certain political contingent that constantly screeches about “censorship” and the return of George Orwell’s Big Brother whenever someone gets kicked off of Twitter, the reality is that censorship was much more routine in the past than it today. We live in a relative paradise of free speech, despite the hysteria whipped up by cynical freeze peach opportunists. In fact, if you study your history you will find that speech was much more restricted and circumscribed during the “Golden Age” than it is today. This article is hilariously entitled, Damm named to TV Board, Will Enforce Code (and the guy looks exactly how you would expect):

The review board is the television broadcasting industry's policing body, set up to administer and enforce the code, which was adopted by association members last fall. The code was drafted to offset criticism by the federal communications commission that TV stations in some cases were not following standards of decency in programs…

The board's duties, as set forth by the code, include maintaining a review of all television programming; receiving, screening and clearing complaints about television programming; defining and interpreting provisions of the code and developing and maintaining appropriate liaison with government agencies.

One thing that has changed drastically is our willingness to accept hardship, as well as our willingness to sacrifice for others and for the common good. The articles from the newspapers during World War Two are especially illuminating. The entire U.S. economy really was centrally controlled and managed successfully. Wages were set by committee. Unemployment was abolished. Food and durable goods were rationed. And this wasn’t in some faraway land or fantasy novel. This was in this country!

Perhaps the most mind-blowing article to me was one where the government gave about a quarter of the entire American workforce a raise by fiat! It’s like something from another planet. The article is worth quoting at length:

Milwaukee Sentinel

Sunday, November 22, 1942

Steel Formula Applied To 29 War Industries; 8,000,000 Face Raises

WASHINGTON, Nov 21—(INS) The War Labor Board today announced a list of 29 essential was industries—employing 8,000,000 workers—in which the board's regional directors are authorized to correct wage maladjustments by applying "Little Steel" formula.

In each of the industries named, WLB regional directors are now empowered to pass upon requirements for general wage increases in straight time rates up to 15 per cent above the Jan 1, 1941 levels.

The industries listed employ about one quarter of the 33,000,000 workers not employed by agriculture or government.

INDUSTRIES NAMED

At the same time, the WLB appointed acting directors for its 10 regional offices and advisory boards in each of the 10 districts.

This decentralization of the labor board's functions was promised by WLB in its recent announcement that wage stabilization would be accomplished by adherence to the Little Steel formula.

The industries named were: Abrasives, aircraft, automobiles, chemicals and allied products, cotton manufacturers, dyeing and finishing textiles, footwear, iron and steel and their by-products, leather, logging, machinery,

Meat products, metal mining, nonferrous metals and their products, nonmetallic mining and quarrying, petroleum, coal and natural gas products, petroleum and natural gas production, planning mills, professional and scientific instruments and photographical [sic] apparatus and optical goods, railroad equipment,

Rayon manufacturers, refractory products, rubber products, saw mills, street and suburban railways and buses, surgical and medical and dental instruments, tobacco products, woolen and worsted manufacturers, and work clothing.

REASONS GIVEN

These industries were singled out, the WLB said, because they are: Essential to the war effort, industries in which most workers have already received wage increases averaging 15 per cent, and industries in which WLB has had "experience" in applying the Little Steel formula.

Requests for general wage increases in industries other than the 29 named must be referred to the WLB in Washington, D.C. or file decision, after being analyzed be regional directors.

Director of region 6, comprising Indiana Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota is Robert K. Burns. His headquarters will be Chicago.

Each of the 10 regional advisory boards will be made up of six members, two representing the public, two representing employers, and one each, representing the AFL and CIO.

William H. Davis, WLB chairman, told advisory board members, "the functions of your board are to assist by your advice the regional director.

"You have been selected from among the residents of the region because of the board's desire, in the decentralization of its work, to be fully informed about local problems and points of view"

The Little Steel policy, the WLB said, "set a terminal point for general wage increases. It is not applicable to individual workers or to employees in any particular job classifications. It will be applied only to groups composed of all the employees in a bargaining unit, in a plant, a company, or an industry, depending upon circumstances in each case.

Change Is Welcomed

The War Labor board's decentralization move is a welcome change of procedure which will help speed wage adjustment cases that might have gone unsettled for months, Wisconsin labor officials said Saturday. Herman Seide, president of the Wisconsin State Federation of Labor, and Walter Burke, state CIO secretary, both said many cases had already been held up by the former procedure of channeling all action through the WLB at Washington. Burke added John R. Steelman, director of the U.S. conciliation service, told the recent CIO convention in Boston that as of Oct. 30, only 400 cases had been certified to the WLB and 4,000 more awaited certification. The new procedure, however, still operates within the terms of the President's wage freezing order.

Can you imagine such a scenario today? And yet, this is not fiction—this is from an actual newspaper. This really happened. People lived through this, people just like you and me. And commercial items and foodstuffs were strictly rationed during this period rather than letting the markets take their course:

HUNDREDS JAM STORES, BEAT COFFEE FREEZE

Sales Halted Until Nov. 29 Throughout Nation

Queues of men, women and children, one line boasting 150 persons, Saturday jammed Milwaukee grocery stores to stock up on coffee before sales were frozen at midnight.

Many of the stores imposed their own preliminary rationing with allotments of one or two pounds per person.

TO REFILL SHELVES

No more coffee may be purchased until Nov. 29, when rationing begins throughout the nation.

In the week starting Sunday, retailers and wholesalers will refill their shelves with coffee by issue of purchase warrants. After rationing begins, all coffee transactions will be carried on by exchange of ration coupons.

Coffee dealers are not required to register for rationing, nor are individual consumers, but institutional users must apply to their local boards next Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

GET 2 MONTH SUPPLY

Hotels, restaurants, drug stores, boarding houses, dormitories, hospitals and any other establishment using roasted coffee to prepare a beverage for sale must register and will receive a two month supply of purchase certificated based on September and October consumption.

When rationing begins, everyone over 15 years old will be entitled to one pound of coffee each five weeks. The end stamps in sugar rationing books will be used and the age limit is based on the date of registration for sugar rationing. Those with coffee on hand should not make any purchases until the supply has been exhausted at the rate of one pound per person every five weeks.

RUN BEGINS ON TEA

Those without sugar ration books should apply before Dec. 15 to their local ration boards even though they still have excess sugar. The sugar coupons will be removed by the board. An estimated 500,000 Wisconsin residents do not have the books.

The army has sacrificed for the public at least in the case of coffee, the war department said, with the announcement coffee now is served on the average only slightly more than once a day, instead of twice daily. The cut was made both to benefit civilians and conserve shipping space.

While OPA officials reported that there will be enough coffee available to meet the ration provision of one cup per day, wholesalers here said green tea is no longer being sold in Milwaukee and many stores are limiting purchases of black tea is not being rationed.

People would be stockpiling weapons and screaming about the loss of “freedom” if any of this were to happen today. Even the slightest inconvenience is tantamount to “tyranny” in today’s overheated political climate. Can you imagine rationing coffee, sugar and tea? Something clearly has changed in society in a very dramatic way. Imagine making 1/100th of these sacrifices to ameliorate, for example, the changing climate which threatens all of civilization as we know it.

So while some things in America (pointless and inane culture wars, anticommunitst paranoia, religious nut jobs, business/corporate worship) are pretty much the same, other things (full employment, increasing wages, central planning, sacrificing for the common good) are a thing of the past and almost impossible to imagine in our world today. And some issues like inflation, shortages, high gas prices, and expensive housing, which were thought to have been vanquished a long time ago, have returned with a vengeance and may be the wave of the future. At least gardening seems to be making a comeback.

Let’s end on a lighter note:

Job in Workhouse Is Given Man Who 'Needs Exercise'

Andrew Roehsner of 1331 N. Nineteenth st., a bit paunchy, stepped to the witness stand Wednesday afternoon in his wife's alimony contempt hearing before Circuit Judge John J. Gregory.

He told the court that he spent most of his time around taverns in the winter and worked with carnivals in the summer. His divorced wife, Anna, lives at 1922 N. Fifteenth st. Roehsner has fallen $3,316 behind in alimony and support money for his wife and two children since the divorce in 1930.

"Those taverns are a bad place in the winter," remarked Judge Gregory. "People keep opening and closing doors and if you hang around them very much you'll catch a bad cold. I want to protect you against that; I'm going to do you a favor. You go out to the house of corrections for 30 days, and tell them I said you ought to have a job shoveling snow. That outside work will be good for you. You'll get rid of some of that fat and shoveling snow will harden you for the spring carnival season."

That’ll do it, I’m nearly out of space in this post. I’ll be spending my birthday alone, of course. I had to get my driver’s license renewed, which fortunately was not as painful as I remember. I’ll be following Usyk vs. Joshua tomorrow and may pop over to Irish Fest this weekend if the rain holds off. I’m sorry I haven’t gotten around to responding to the comments yet, but I’ll get to it soon. Hope everyone’s doing well.