For the Softies
(The Holyoke Transcript)
A Hadley farmer, who used to live in Holyoke, wanted a hired-hand to help out
there this summer on his place where there is a lot of extra work clearing up
the flood damage. It is a real hard job that faces the new man, about like the
one that the farmer himself went to years ago from Holyoke, when he started
off from scratch and built for himself a substantial farm property.
The offer was $30 a month with board and room. That's the CCC scale. Figuring
it out on an actual cost basis with the $12-$14 a week WPA scale, it is quite
a bit more. But a real day's work is required, the kind of effort with which
the pioneer built up the United States of America to a land of strength and
power.
The ex-Holyoker, with a lot of native pride, came to his old home to get the
hired man. He figured that there were young men in the city without employment
who would jump at the chance to take a good job and a hard one on a farm.
He went the rounds of Holyoke. He contacted many young men. He saw agency heads,
federal and city ones. He went back to Hadley alone. Not a lad would accept
the offer.
"Why should I? It's going to be hard work and I can get enough with a
soft job on WPA or the city" was the gist of the answer the Hadley farmer
got wherever he went.
Thus can be seen how extensively has the deterioration of the fibre of American
manhood set in. The day is not far off when we are going to find the industrious
working man of the type that built this nation, that created the superior American
system, vanishing. Death takes its toll. This insidious habit of easy money for
easy work will break down the spirit of the rest. Then this great country will
really have its back up against the wall. |