Evening star. [volume], July 26, 1937, Page B-5, Image 21

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Leader Tries to Improve Lot
of Farmer by Develop
ing Handicrafts.
This is the second of two articles
presenting an interview with Ma
hatma Gandhi by a nationally
known New York advertising man
who was recently appointed vice
president of the University of Chi
cago.
BY WILLIAM B. BENTON.
SEGAON, India (N.A.N.A.).—A sub
ject close to Gandhi's heart, one on
which he will talk freely, is his great
. movement to improve the lot of the
Indian villager or farmer, who con
stitutes 85 per cent of India's total
population.
iwo years ago i>anam vigorously
espoused the crusade of village uplift.
In Wardha are the headquarters and
plant of the Village Industries Asso
ciation, of which the mahatma is both
veins and arteries. There a school is
run from which 130 have just been
graduated after a year's course. Out
to the villages these 130 go as work
ers. At Wardha amd at the Ashram in
Segaon experiments are constantly be
ing made, designed to develop new
ways to improve the villager's lot.
The platform of village uplift rough
ly divides into four major planks.
First, handicrafts are developed to
occupy the villager in the six months
of the year when weather prevents
his tilling his fields and when he has
nothing to do. Chief among these
handicrafts is spinning. Prior to the
English rule the villager spun his
thread and wove his cloth. Now his
few annas go to the cotton mills of
■ Lancaster and Japan. Gandhi is re
introducing this lost native craft.
"See that boy there." my volunteer
guide told me as we visited Madeleine
Slade's cottage later in the day, “he
used to spend all his time spinning a
top. Now he earns two annas a day
spinning thread. Thus a man with
four children has eight annas daily."
An anna is 2'* cents. The average
wage for common day labor in
Wprdha. a city of 20.000 and further
advanced than the villages, is 1>2
or 2 annas daily.
Paper Making Developed.
The Village Industries Association
has developed paper making, a crude
wood pulp wetted down and dried in
the sun. The villager is urged not to
destroy the hive by fire and kill the
wild bees for one comb of honey. He
is shown how the bee can be do
mesticated.
Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell
do not figure in Gandhi's plan of vil
lage life. The blindfolded bullock goes
round and round its large wooden
mortar and pestle as oil is pressed
from the thili seed for cooking, for
bread, lamps, massage.
Experiments continue. The search
is on for other handicrafts. The work
is still very new.
The second major plank is the de
velopment of the native palm tree as a
source of sugar. From an occasional
palm alcoholic beverage is now dis
tilled. as the Mexicans distill tequila
from wild cactus. Millions of palms
still await tapping for sugar.
I unwrapped a round, hard lozenge,
looking in its paper much like the
package of nickels the bank teller
stacks on his till. Gingerly I bit. With
rest I ate. The taste compares to good
maple sugar, a rich, sweet peanut
flavor. India's millions crave sweets
and dumbly await instructions.
Third comes sanitation.
The fourth and perhaps the most
Important effort is "cowr protection."
The cow is sacred to the Hindu and,
In general, God is expected to look
» after his own. The peasant surely
doesn't. Cattle are abominably cared
for. Many a cow is turned out to
starve. In the plan for village uplift,
the peasant is taught to tend, protect
and develop his cows.
Further, and at first blush paradoxi
eally, comes care after death. Con
nected with the Wardha School is a
tannery. Here no cattle are slaugh
tered. This would violate the Hindu
faith. But after natural death the
carcass is skinned, the hide is tanned
in a series of chemical baths made
from chopped-up bark, from lime, etc.
I saw 20 women chopping bark at
two annas pay a day. The tanner
tries to emulate Mr. Swift and Mr.
Armour in utilizing every part of the
carcass except the moo.
Progress Is Slow.
"Progress is slow,” the mahatma
tells me, "but you must remember
that our work is new. We started
with nothing but faith. Only faith
Today knowledge is added.”
He breaks into his well-known tooth
less smile. “You might add a third
ingredient—give us part of the money
you make when you sell your story!”
he suggests. The mahatma is famed
for his humor. This was the first
glimpse I'd had of it. "You think
If faith plus knowledge are potent,"
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Young Washington
Just because school is out is no reason a fellow should let
down on a study he likes, according to Eugene Dodson, 12. who
is shown at the Georgetown Playground making a crayon draw
ing. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. William Henry Dodson, 1426
Thirty-fifth street, and a student at the Curtis School. Tomor
row: Teddy Bowman, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ripley Bowman, at the
Chevy Chase Playground.
—Star Staff Photo.
I reply, “faith plus knowledge plus
capital are more so."
“Yes, yes," he cackles, and rocks In
a full laugh.
“Have you ever seen an American
movie or heard American jazz?" I ask
abruptly. “These are our two most
famous exports.” I do not ask about
American dentistry, perhaps third in
fame. If he has heard of that, he
heard too la‘e. He has been toothless
almost Vs long as photographers can
remember. And he identifies himself
with the poor by using no dental
plate. Thus his words are often some
what mumbled, blurred.
“No, no. I haven’t," he laughs again.
"There's a good story for you. Do
what you can with it. I’ve never
been to a moving picture."
“Hasn’t one ever been brought to
you?" I query. “No," he laughs
again. “I have never seen one."
My question is not asked in jest.
In the talking moving picture, cheap
ly made and shown with low-cost
portable projectors, lies a method for
greatly speeding up the reaching of
India's illiterate millions with the
story of village uplift. If the British
government were alert to steal the
mahatma's thunder, or were sincerely
interested in the lot of the Indian
peasant, it would put 5 per cent of
its Indian army appropriation into
such talking moving pictures. In a
decade the results should be incal
culable. For all of its faith. Gandhi's
movement has little capital. Few of
the rich ride his band wagon.
Miss Slade later tells me, ‘‘India
U smaller than your country, but
much more complex. Our people are
Illiterate and must be shown. This
it slow work.” As she talks she stops
to show an Italian painter, the only
other European at Segaon, squatting
by his spinning wheel, dressed only
in a knee-length dhoti, ‘‘No, not two
fingers. You must hold the cotton
roll in three lingers.”
I tell Miss Slade that any contribu
tion of mine toward village uplift
shall be earmarked for an experi
mental moving picture.
Miss Slade has short-clipped black
hair, shot with gray, stiff and up
right, like a Prussian officer's. Charm
ing, poised, with pleasant voice and
twinkling laugh, her skin is soft
brown from 15 years in the Indian sun.
She has sensitive, intelligent brown
eyes.
Miss Slade has visited countless vil
lages throughout India. "By the ex
ample of her character,” Mr. Mahadev
told me, "she has become a tremen
dous force among Indian women.
Twenty years ago no one could have
imagined such a change in the status
of our women. Thousands are so po
litical and social minded today that,
like my wife, they Joyfully go to jail
during the civil disobedience move
ment. The new constitution gives
women the vote. Young Hindu widows
are beginning to remarry, for cen
turies an unheard-of custom. Many
women have been elected to the legis
lative assemblies. Thanks to Gand
hiji, purdah (literally, a curtain; i. e.,
the covered face and cloistered life)
has been almost eliminated in South
ern India.”
Here is a monument to the ma
hatma and to Miss Slade which may
well be more enduring than any
political reform.
As I leave Gandi I unwittingly
overstep. The last 20 minutes of our
conversation are so friendly and in
formal that I produce a sheet of paper
made by the association in Wardha
which I had purchased for one anna.
I ask the mahatma if he will sign it—
the first and only such request I have
ever made. "No,” he smiles shyly and
turns his head. Then he sees my
paper. “No," he giggles cheerfully,
“even that does not tempt me." Again
we shake hands crisply.
As our tonga meanders through its
hour's drive across the sun-blistered
plain to Wardha, Mr. Mahadev tells
me the mahatma has given autographs
only in London. And I think him
right In refusing them. The auto
graph collector is a pest as unmitigated
as the boll weevil.
“When I was in Jail,” Mr. Mahadev
begins a story. He has served six or
seven years in Jail, not far behind the
mahatma’s record. "They’ve been
very considerate twice,” he tells me.
"They know how close I’ve always
been to Gandhljl and twice they’ve
let me share the same cell with him,
once for a year and a half.”
As we plod homeward and train
ward, I try to picture the tens of
thousands in India who speak of their
years in jail with pride—these are the
American Legion of Indian politics.
And tens of millions more will cheer
fully lace Jail, mutilation or death at
a nod from the 69-year-old politician
saint who makes of whatever village
he occupies the most important town
in India, and of whatever mud hut or
room one of the most important in
today's world.
(Copyright, 1937. by tha North American
Newspaper Alliance, Inc.)
■ ■ " ■ •
New Money in Manchukuo.
Manchukuo’s five-year program of
substituting a new coinage for the
old has been completed according to
schedule.
BO SMS
BLOOOIESI POLL
War on Syphilis Launched
as Queries Are Sent to
Quarter of Million.
Mr the Associated Pres*.
CHICAGO, July 26—The Nation’*
first mass attack on the syphilis
plague, was launched today when a
quarter of .a million persons were
polled on the question of submitting
to free secret blood tests.
At the same time 6,500 physicians
were invited by Dr. Louis Schmidt
of Mayor Edward J. Kelly’s Com
mittee for Control of Venereal Disease,
to enlist in the campaign sponsored
by the United States Public Health
Service.
Health authorities will poll ap
proximately 1,000,000 Chicagoans on
the question of submitting to free
secret tests.
“If we find a large number of citi
zens favor confidential blood tests
the city and State will be asked to
furnish funds to carry out the pro
gram,” Dr. Schmidt said.
The first bundle of 250,000 ballots
and explanatory letters were de
livered today.
The ballots, mailed at the rate of
SO,000 a day, ask a yes or no answer }
to this question: ,
"In strict confidence and at no ex- 1
pense to you, would you like to be 1
given by your own physician a blood 1
test for syphilis?" i
Dr. Schmidt asserted clergymen had 1
been asked to urge their congrega- .
tions to co-operate with the Public
Health Service in the project. The
city has enlisted the aid of 35 senior
medical students in the laboratory
work. United States Public Health
Service officials at Washington, praised
the campaign, stating it was the “first
time in the history of the country |
that a major disease has been at- j
tacked so intelligently and thoroughly."
“The Chicago campaign Is a shining
example of what must be done by hun
dreds of cities throughout the country
If the present campaign to eradicate
syphilis is to be successful,” said an
assistant of Surgeon General Thomas
Parr an.
Dr. Oliver C. Wenger, United States
Health Service specialist, said the
program “alms to put the population
of Chicago through a sieve by means
of the blood tests. Those free from
the disease will pass through the
sieve: the others wil be sifted out • • •
and the disease will then be In the,
open where we can combat it with •
medical methods.”
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Members of the Southeast Business
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. m., 2 p.m.. %:30 p m. and 8:30 p.m.
Athletic events and a beauty contest
ire scheduled, with dancing to follow
n the evening
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