i i i eA } Page 4 Oakville- Trafalgar Journal Member Canadian Weekly Newspapers Association Published Every Thursday Morning in Oakville, Ont, by Oakville-Trafalgar Publishers, Ltd. 7 DUNN STREET NORTH S. Casey Wood, Jr. Vincent H. Barrey Managing Editor Advertising Manager Bill Cotton, Editorial Assistant PHONE 1298 Thursday, January 25th., 1951 Higher But Justified The announcement of the increase in rates at the Memorial Hospital, which will bring rates in line with those charged in Hamilton and Toronto, should not surprise anyone. If there is anything which we buy today which has not increased in price, we'd like to know what is. The hospital is paying higher and high- er rates for dressings, sutures and all other medical supplies. In addition the rates of pay for all members of the staff increased ten percent. All of this adds up to a more expensive operational budget, which must be recovered in the form of charges to those who use the hospital--unless all residents, whether patients or not, are to be taxed to make up a deficit. In operation for under a year, the hospital looks forward to breaking even--with the new rates--on the year. This is an achievement in the face of all of those who predicted a large deficit would be the out- come. No hospital expects to make money. No hospit- al should make money. But no hospital should set its rates at a level where it will be sure of losing money, and then have to go to the people of the districts which it serves to ask for operating financial assist- ance. The board is also assuring the people of this district an efficient hospital by keeping the operating revenue in balance with the costs. But coupled with the announcement of the in- creased rates, was the discussion of a campaign for an additional $25,000 required to free the building of debt. This campaign will not be run until October of this year, the board has decided. We wonder if this campaign could not be made unnecessary, however. The people of this district of Oakville and Tra- falgar and Clarkson have already given most gener- ously to build the hospital. The remaining sum re- quired, in proportion to the total cost, is small. We think the board might give consideration, in view of the increasing number of patients coming from out- side these districts, to raising the $25,000 from people who have not contributed to the building of the hos- pital. If all patients from out of town were charged an additional percentage on their bills, this sum would be a payment of a part of the cost, in the same way each local resident has done by donation. A Dangerous Man At critical times in world affairs, down through the years, there has usually been an individual who held a position where his actions could have terrible effects for good or bad. In this period of stress, we feel that Robert A. Taft, termed "Mr. Republican" in the U.S.A., is such a man. His actions in attempting to force isolationism on the United States so far as Europe is concerned, may be based in all honesty on personal convictions . . . or they may be based on pol-* itical opportunism. In either case, they represent a terrible threat to world peace, or even to the hope of salvation for the democratic countries, and in partic- ular this continent. This paper usually confines its opinions to local matters where it can speak with sureness of the sit- uation. But in this case we were employed in the U. S. A. during the years 1940-3, and saw the isolation- ists in action, and the terrible awakening which came to them with Pearl Harbour. Then the U.S. was a source of support to the embattled Commonwealth forces because President Roosevelt rode rough-shod over Republican objections, with the result that tra- gedy did not result from the isolationists' efforts. President Truman is in the process of doing the same, but it is even more important to us and the U.S.A. today than it was then. Today the U.S. has become the world leader among nations. That her politicians have not grown along with her so that they can have the stature to see their country's danger if she abandons those countries who would be her allies, may well be the cause of the greatest debacle of world history. Robert Taft, and those who ally themselves with him, represents the most highly developed insular out- look now extant in the world. If we in Canada, more mature and less obsessed with our ability alone to hold our continent safe from the remainder of the world, were to accept his opinions as being open to consideration, then indeed we would be in a state of jeopardy never imagined even in our wildest dreams. The worst part of it is that American citizens are incapable of thinking for themselves on such mat-. ters . . . and react with a wild enthusiasm to what at first glance seems a pleasant and happy solution to problems, just as they wildly enthuse over some great new ball player or new gadget. We remember the same wild enthusiasm before Pearl Harbour for stopping Lend Lease, for not arm- ing Britain and the other allies. No foreign entangle- ments at any price, many people said! Pearl Harbour was quite a price to pay. If the U.S. should place her- self today in a position where a similar price will have to be paid, then we in Canada--fellow dwellers on the continent Mr. Taft would make a safe fortress and defend--will have to share the cost of the mistaken reasoning of a small-minded man--or, to put the ORE STARVED Pore FEWER! BY BESSIE CAIRNS _ TRAFALGAR TALES WHO CARES? Like nearly everyone else I love getting mail, but the letters I've received lately have puzzled and worried me. A cousin in Kentucky, usually a cheerful soul, wrote re- cently in a definitely unhappy strain, two of her sons, one Who just graduated from college and another in his sophomore year are waiting daily for their draft calls. A friend in England wrote to say her husband, who served with Montgomery's 8th. army throughout the entire African and Sicilian campaigns has rejoined the Imperials, her 18 year old nephew has just been Called up. From Japan comes, "things are black and getting blacker." For consolation I turn to my Canad- ian mail only to find, "the Korean situation is bad but what can we do about it?" « Don't bother listen- ing to the war news anymore. We needn't worry, "we won't have IT SEEMS... | TO ME!! BY P. W. THOMPSON Worry, according to a_ certain medical authority, is as real an ailment as a broken leg. Not for a moment would we presume to doubt it. Worry is surely one of the worst ills with which human beings are cursed. It can cause limitless agony, and it may even prove fatal. And it is not some- thing for which doctors can pre- scribe a remedy, as they can for physical ailments. Worry appears to be an exclusiv- ely human weakness, and one which is largely confined to civilized peoples. Indeed, mod- ern civilization provides the very conditions most conduct: ive to worry. This is especially true of the bigger cities where the tempo of life is fastest, and economic competition often a Release this week of the long awaited new telephone directory points up, among other things, that: (1) town and district resi- dents must be among Canada's abbiest folks as they run up an Se of 12,700 local and 1085 long distance calls a day, and (2) people named Smith place a whale of a lot of those calls. Smiths, Smiths & Smiths The Smiths, who for pure and unadulterated multiplicity have no equals anywhere in the world, more than held their own in Oak: ville during 1950. The new book: lists 39 of them, plus two Smyths in comparison to our dogeared 1949 edition, which carried only 33 Smiths and one Smyth. In fact, except for the Wilsons and Browns, who contribute 23 and 21 subscribers, respectively, to the local Bell exchange, the Smiths have more than double represent: ation over every other family in the area. The Johnsons and the Johnstons, joining forces, -can only muster 13 phone owners, while the Taylors and the Ander- sons each boast the same numer ical rating. But the Davises, the Joneses, the Millers and the Wil: liams have slipped away off the pace, not one of these oft-used amily names managing to even climb into double figures. Mighty Man Kenneth G. Smith, top boy in the Pepsodent organization, sum- med the whole business up neat- ly with this couplet: A guy named Smith Must be reckoned with! Certainly no merchant should overlook the vast horde of Smiths when soliciting business. Shucks, any grocer who could corner the Smith trade could almost afford to snub his neighbours complet- ely. Why, with a business nuc- leus of 41 hungry families named Smith, financial security would be virtually assured. As Mark Twain put it when he dedicated one of his books to John Smith: "It is said that the man to whom a volume is dedicated always buys a copy. If this prove true in the PUFFS FROM THE COTTON GIN Abbs and Zwior Aside from the former entrench. ment of the Smiths in its co). umns, and the fact that 594 mor names are listed this year, the Oakville phone directory is prot. 22 businesses themselves as the Oakville such. and-such, E. L. Abbs, Who farmg on R. R. 1, retains his first name in the first column honors, if yoy discount Bell Manager A. Francis, who is listed right under the big black Oakville line. Act. ually, you really shouldn't gi. count Mr. Francis. Not if yoy want to hang onto your phone or get an extension put in! Ang Basil Zwior, another R. R. 1 reg. ident, is still the Iast entry along about 3596 names later. Improvement | Suggestion One change I would like to seo in the directory--a change, inci dentally, that I was hoping the new phone rates would make pos. sible--would be the use of a tougher material for the pages, Something like alligator hide, maybe. Or perhaps tinfoll, or three-ply wallboard, or even metal sheeting. Or, at the very least, heavy parchment. By the time the Journal's editor has thumbed through a directory for a month or six weeks, the volume begins to look as though it had been through a state of total siege, It's as battered as Harold Orr's fenders, as mixed up as Joe Stal. in's philosophy, as tattered and worn as my perennlal spring topcoat, and it's nearly as hard to find the number you're looking for as it is to find Bud Corbett on d& Monday. An Off Ghance i Perhaps a change in material | wouldn't solve the problem for Journal staffers after all. Maybe | it would just be a challenge to the aforementioned editor, who i just as hard on his car, family and associates as he is on phone books. But I wish the Bell people would give it a whirl, anyway. It | might be interesting watching the | editorial fingers yanking away at a tin page, or trying to tear six | names off a leather sheet. present instance, a princely af- desperate fight. But it is not only adults who are prone to conscription in. Canada. There are too many Chinese anyhow." Al- though I am inclined to agree with Canadian friends and sympathize with the others I feel ashamed of myself for so doing. I keep thinking of frozen and starving Korean children and of underfed Chinese, selling their souls in the mistaken hope that thus they may fill their stomachs. If millions of Chinese converts, who perhaps were rice Christians, are now gun Communists who, if anyone, is to blame? Who, if anyone *can remedy the: situation? Admittedly it is a complicated problem including as it must im- proved agricultural methods, flood control, higher . educational stan- dards, and quite possibly birth control too. BUT if the democra- cies, which surely includes us, turn a deaf ear and content them- selves with listening to The Thing, some Thing will happen to jar us out of our complacency. Forget for a few minutes that you are a fairly prosperous citi- zen of one of the finest countries in the world and slide your ill- clad body between the shafts of a rickshaw in faraway Peiping. Then start pulling your load, be it a wealthy Chinese or a pre-Mao American tourist. You'll stop when the master. says "Stop" and go when he says "Go." You may jog-trot all' day or just squat on your haunches but you must nev- er get more than ear-shot away from the imperious "Boy." At the end of the day or in the wee small hours you go home, the proud possessor of 30c. Home consists of an open-fronted hovel, a wife, four children and a bowl of what- ever 30c will currently provide for. six people. Honestly you wouldn't need an offer of pie in the sky to grab a gun and fight for a prom- ise of a better life would you? Don't get the idea that I'm sid- ing with Communism or excusing the Chinese themselves for their own rotten administration but the world is too small and too dangerously divided to let vast millions simmer in their own stew, even if that stew happens to be of thei? own concocting. I'm signing off now with the hope that at least some of you haye stuck with me to the end. this unhappy tendency to wor ry. Even the suposedly blissful and carefree period of child- hood is not free from it. There are children who worry about thein schoolwork, = about the consequences of the mischief they inevitably get into, about the quarrels and fights they have with other children. Perhaps the most common sub- ject of worry among adults is lack of economic security, such as loss, of income or job. Many worry about their health and that of their families, some so acutely that they develop neuroses. Then there are those who worry about what their friends and neighbors and business associates think of them. Even very wealthy people may worry about their investments. And if a man happens to be in politics, the schemes of his op- ponents or the temper of his con- stituents may cost him sleepless nights. Lack of success may lead a man to worry; possession of it may cause him to worry about losing it. Worry, like most things, has its varying degrees. In Its milder forms it can be quite bad enough. Carried to excess It can lead its victim to madness, sui- icide, death. And oddly enough, the distress occasioned by wor ry is usually far, far greater than would result if our fears materialized. Often the things people worry | about never hap- pen. When they do, they some- times turn out to be for the best. And even when definitely bad they are often not nearly as terrible as we had feared. It would be a wonderful boon to the human race if someone could discover a panacea for wor- ry, some simple, inexpensive formula that would abolish or ma- terfally reduce this terrible scourge. But the chances of this happening are very small, It is up to each person to' tackle the: problem for himself. Those prone to worry should try and keep in mind the knowledge that the worry process is: often the more harmful to them than the thing they worry about can be. Then they should look back, now and then, over their past worries, and see how futile and pointless they turned out to be. Above all, lef these victims realize that to con- quer the worry habit is half the battle of life. fluence is about to burst upon this author." Hopefully Yours, BILL COTTON You hear a lot of talk about times having been inflationary, worst interpretation on his present stand, for the political opportunism of a man who lusts for the Presidency of the United States of America. Be warn- ed against there being an easy and pleasant solution to our present dangers . . . nothing worth having comes without paying the price in effort and integrity to get it--and maintain it. Mr. Taft should realize this. and people haying money to spend. Yet, while prices certainly have risen, and net profils of nearly all corporations are away | up there even after the heavy taxes now in force, the times | following World War II did not resemble the days following World War L At least, not like the years up to 1929 and the crash. People just haven't been throwing the wild parties they did then--blowing money in an insane manner. Most people nave Yust paid more and more for the necessities, thus living a pretty even life. Quite a difference, and if peace can be ar- ranged for the years ahead, there need be no crash to face. Reading last week's column, we realized people' might think we meant the new barber at the Halton Inn was well known to them. We meant the Inn's name would be. Youll remember that's the place which refused to any longer sell the Journal because of our stand in the recent cocktail lounge 'and dining-room vote. Hope this clears it up for you. The Miracle is an Italian play at present showing to New York, audiences. The critics, as usual haye differed as to whether it is great art or unpleasant dirt. That's a habit erit- ics have. But New York's commissioner of licenses got into the act because the play offended him. He said the theatre would have to stop showing it or lose their license. The /matter was settled by a judge whose ruling contained, we believe, the es- sence of the democratic principle, because it stressed the nec- essity for always following the legal lines set down for every- one--set down by everyone. He said people who were offend- ed by The Miracle can either refrain from seeing it or appeal to the ip who it in the first place. This is the course of action which the Home and School as- sociations across the country took to have certain objectionable crime comics banned from sale. If any other literature is for sale which falls under an undesirable head, the way to control, limit or ban it is to have the censorship board, duly constitu ed under the democratic process, take the necessary action. As the New York judge said, it was not the duty of the commis sioner of licenses to decide by himself what is indecent or immoral, Unanimity of in a democratic country can bring to bear necessary pressure to have the constituted author- ity take action . ..and on a national scale. What is bad for one location, is either bad for all . . . or isn't bad at all. OUR EQUIPMENT IS THE FINEST IN/ALL CANADA . . . INSTAL- LED TO GIVE YOU THE BEST LAUNDRY SERVICES 16 DUNN ST. N. OAKVILLE