[Ocd News Letter. No. 23]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

Landis Condemns Overlapping Units
Addressing the League of Virginia Municipalities, Director James M. Landis warned against the dangers of overlapping functions in the field of civilian war services. For example, he said, if two or more groups work on a salvage or car-sharing campaign in a single community, waste and confusion frequently result when each organization works on its own program. To achieve greatest effectiveness, such programs should be communally planned and executed.
“Here one of the most important duties of the defense council is that of coordinative activity,” Director Landis declared. “Indeed, it would be wise for local defense councils vigorously to insist that there shall not be introduced into any community essential programs of this character unless they come from or through the defense council. The success of programs of this character is too essential to the prosecution of the war to permit them to be endangered by haphazard operation.”
President Praises
Defense Volunteers
In the first Fireside Chat following his recent transcontinental tour, President Roosevelt gave warm praise to the Nation’s volunteer Civilian Defense workers.
The President said: “And I want also to say a word of praise and thanks for the more than ten million people, all over the country, who have volunteered for the work of Civilian Defense—and who are working hard at it. They are displaying unselfish devotion in the patient performance of their often tiresome and always anonymous tasks. In doing this important neighborly work they are helping to fortify our national unity and our real .understanding of the fact that we are all involved in this war.”
Organized Civilian Defense underwent a challenging test during the mid-October flood of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers in three States. Hundreds had to be evacuated, fed, and sheltered. The cooperation among Civilian Defense workers, Red Cross, military authorities, and the regular municipal police and fire services was commended by Brig. Gen. U. S. Grant, 3d, Chief of the OCD Protection Branch.
Civilians to Fight Block by Block
PUBLISHED BY U. S. OFFICE OF CIVILIAN DEFENSE
The pamphlet “Block Leaders’ Alert!” is now being distributed to State and local Defense Councils through Regional Directors. It outlines the qualifications of Block Leaders and shows their strategic role in carrying vital national campaigns into America’s homes. Increasingly, various Government Departments and war agencies are requesting the services of Block Leaders to help get across their programs. In those cities where Councils have established Block Leaders* organizations, car-sharing clubs have been formed, nutrition and other surveys have been made.
Mr. and Mrs. CAP have a new offspring. On October 9, 1942, the Civil Air Patrol Cadets (CAPC) was bom. The newly arrived will resemble its parents in most respects.
Designed to bring high-school students into aviation,
the CAPC will form a nucleus for the coming generation of air-minded adults. Membership will be limited to native-born, physically fit students in the last or next to last year of senior high school. Each CAP member may sponsor one young man for the junior corps—the boy he knows who is most likely to succeed in aviation. He will be responsible for helping his recruit make good. Similarly, each woman member of the Patrol may sponsor one girl in the CAPC. These young civilian volunteers will not be assigned to flying duties but will be given the same ground training as for the senior Patrol. Cadets will learn navigation, meteorology, radio, and other aviation subjects. Activities will be centered at airports to give recruits the feel of aviation. Upon graduation from high school and when they reach 18, they will become eligible for flying assignments and full membership in the Patrol.
Young men who go directly into the armed forces will have a head start in any service to which they are assigned, thanks to their CAPC experience. Those who carry on into CAP will be ready to take their places in local Squadrons and train further for active Patrol duty.
CAPC Squadrons are purely local. To join, see a member of CAP in your community. Do not write National or State Headquarters. Each CAP Squadron is authorized to form one counterpart Squadron of Cadets, who will have their own officers and conduct their own programs under the guidance of seasoned CAP airmen.
Dr. Paul E. Haley, medical officer of the CAP group in South Bend, Ind., has devised a field station 'that packs into a space 3 feet by 3 feet by 8 inches and weighs only 46 pounds. With this unit he is equipped for anything from a headache to an amputation.
The Church9s Role In Civilian Defense
By Samuel McCrea Cavert, General Secretary, Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America (This is the last of a series of three articles by prom-inent Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish leaders.)
In four main ways the churches seem to me to be closely related to the Civilian Defense program:
1.	The primary contribution of churches and synagogues in wartime is the strengthening of religious faith which is the source of the highest morale. No other service that the churches can render in the emergency is comparable in importance with what they do through their worship and teaching to make men conscious of their relation to God and, therefore, brave and faithful in the performance of their duty.
2.	During wartime the personal ministry of the churches to individuals in need of moral and spiritual help is more important than ever. Every community today is full of people who are worried about the safety of their sons in the armed forces, are suffering the loss of those dear to them, or are confronted with the necessity of serious adjustments in their own ways of living. To all of these the churches must bring inspiration, comfort, and guidance through the service of wise and devoted ministers.
3.	The churches must help to nourish in everyone the spirit of self-denial and of readiness to bear gladly whatever sacrifices are called for. The churches should constantly lead the people to welcome every opportunity for generous giving for the relief of suffering and the maintenance of all necessary enterprises of mercy. The churches should stimulate the people to accept without grumbling the rationing of various commodities.
4.	In many services of a very tangible and practical character, the churches can show their concern for the daily welfare of the people. Among the things which local churches are doing as a part of the organization of the community are: conducting classes in first aid, enrolling volunteer workers for the Red Cross, recruiting nurses for wartime service promoting support for the USO, poviding hospitality and recreation to soldiers and sailors when off duty, furnishing both religious and social opportunities to the new populations in centers of war industry, enlisting volunteers for cooperation in defense against air raids and fires, and in conducting salvage campaigns. All these services are important, but they should not be allowed to minimize the more distinctly spiritual function of the Church, which is not less but more important in a time of crisis.
Americanese
Some New York air-raid wardens are developing a colorful language of their own. Examples:
Smoky Joe: Civilians who take a long time to turn out their lights.	/
Punks: People who pay no attention to their wardens
Stinko Patriots: Passersby who see wardens putting out street lamps and complain to the police.
Wet Hens: Wardens who are hours late with their reports.
What Your Councils Are Doing
Women left at home as their husbands join the armed forces are being given preference in the free “Fix-It” course offered by the WASHTENAW COUNTY (MICH.) CD VO. Local plumbers, electricians, and carpenters are the professors who teach simple repairs for stoves, lamps, radios, and household heating devices. Schoolrooms are the woodworking shop and domestic science kitchen in the Ann Arbor High SchooL To cut transportation on calls for minor repairs, local repair and utility men and trade unions cooperated on the project.
Assisted by the Second Regional OCD office, the Morale Division of the NASSAU COUNTY (N. Y.) Defense Council established an Interracial Conference at Great Neck, Long Island, which helped secure for Negroes inservice training in the Sperry Gyroscope Company.
To dramatize the story of civilian responsibility in the war the Civilian Defense Organization of CEDAR RAPIDS (IOWA), together with the County Highway Safety Commission and the County War Board, is sponsoring a Victory Drivers’ Caravan for towns throughout the county. A 40-minute program is presented on the main street of each town emphasizing conservation, salvage, and War Bond ^Savings Plans.
Immunization against smallpox, diphtheria, and typhoid fever is administered by physicians under the Home and Community Services Section of the Women’s Division, LAKE WALES (FLA.) Defense Council.
Attended by 50 selected representatives 'from all sections of the State, LOUISIANA’S first Civilian Defense training school for Negroes was recently conducted by the State Defense Coordinator. The program covered both the Citizens* Defense Corps and the Citizens’ Service Corps.'
Thanks to the Transportation Committee of the DELAWARE State Defense Council, plants employing 20 or more employes in Delaware have worked out car-sharing plans and the staggering of working hours. Plans are being followed up by the State Highway Department and State Highway Police. Car-sharing registration cards have been issued.
In addition to its usual duties the volunteer office of the ATLANTA (GA.) Defense Council has fingerprinted and identified 3,000 people, staffed several war stamp booths, placed volunteer clerical workers in defense offices, maintained a war information bureau, a speakers’ bureau, and a radio group and staged a “buy a bomber” ball which cleared $3,000.
Fruit which is usually wasted after falling from trees is being salvaged by local Boy Scouts and other volunteers under the Conservation Committee of the VAN NUYS (CALIF.) Defense Council. It is then canned by women volunteers in the high school cafeteria to be stored for use in emergencies.
In each MICHIGAN county a farm labor committee has been set up. Members represent the United States
Employment Service, the County United States Department of Agriculture War Board, and the County Defense Council. The USES has direct responsibility for meeting farm labor needs; the County War Board representative assists in determining the amount, tiihe, and place of needs; and the County Council representative assists in recruitment.
The MISSOURI State Administrator is preparing a junior Civilian Defense course which will be introduced into elementary schools in the State through the State Superintendent of Instruction.
Designed to educate housewives on conservation, price control, and rationing through civic organizations, social clubs, church ,and labor groups, the Consumer Advisory Committee of the NEVADA State Defense Council is establishing in Reno the first of 25 consumer speakers’ bureaus.
The Mobilization Division of the WASHINGTON (D. C.) Defense Council will sponsor in each of the city’s 66 defense areas classes on price control, buying, conservation, and substitution. Instructions for the classes, have been prepared by the Consumer Committee.
CHICAGO block captains secured permission to take over an empty gas station from which the pumps had been removed, and converted it into a zone salvage station. The ground was graded, the station was painted, and signs were put up explaining that it was run for the zone by Civilian Defense workers. A volunteer attendant is on duty at all times. Already several tons of salvage material have been collected and disposed of.
"It’s blackout regulations”
Copyright 1942c Reprinted by permission of Newspaper PM.
•	“The effective operation of hospitals is essential not only for the general promotion of the Nation’s health but for the active, persistent, and continuing prosecution of the war. To support them is to deal a blow not only at the dark shadow of death but at the common enemies of the United States.”—OCD Director James M. Landis, before United Hospital Fund of New York, October 13,1942.
•	“The conflict throughout the world will not be won by armies and navies and air forces unaided, but by whole peopje fighting for the lands they love. Behind Russia’s battle lines, a people’s army of men, women, and children too, has made possible the defense that is piling dead Germans around Stalingrad.”—Maj. Earle L. Johnson, National Commander, Civil Air Patrol, at dedication of JUings Airport, CAP Training Base, Michigan.
o “If this war is lost, don’t blame your soldiers and sailors—blame yourself. Not the man or womarv in the next block or at the next machine, but yourself. All wars are lost by the people back home who want somebody else to do the fighting, the dying, the sacrificing for them.”— Excerpts from an advertisement.
• “Unity starts with U. To win the war, stop private wars at home, on the job, with the neighbors. Honest apology ends friction—starts teamwork. If we all pull together, we’ll all pull through.”—Virginia Civilian Defense News.
OCD Press Releases
Aerial Bombs
The use of aerial bombs as air-raid warning devices are frowned upon by the War Department in a statement to OCD officials. Not only is the sound of aerial bombs easily confused with that of antiaircraft fire, but “they have doubtful value for warning purposes.” Communities now using aerial bombs should discontinue the practice.
Phosphorescent Materials
Phosphorescent materials should not be purchased at the present time by Defense Councils or individuals for outdoor use in signs, stickers, or armbands during blackouts, according to latest advices made after numerous tests. A large proportion of such materials use highly critical chemicals that have to be diverted from war production, deteriorate so rapidly in sun and rain that they are unsuitable for extended outdoor use, and their brightness is little more than that of ordinary white paint under starlight.
Fire Prevention Week
Fire Prevention Week was marked for the first time in its history by the activity of thousands of auxiliary firemen recruited under the program of the OCD Protection Division. Thousands of volunteer firemen were sworn in at public ceremonies and thousands more were recruited throughout the country.
Calling upon all Defense Councils to continue their efforts to prevent waste of our resources and strength through fire, Director Landis described Fire Prevention Week as a good start on a job that is still to be finished.
' Water-Supply Precautions
Ten precautions which should be followed in the home to protect family health in the .event of failure of the public water-supply system, because of air raids or other emergencies, have been recommended by the OCD Medical Division.
Profile
(This is the third of a series of biographical sketches of your Regional OCD Directors.)
Congratulated for a successful program in his Region, he will smile and say: “Why, I didn’t have much to do with that. It couldn’t have been done without the cooperation of everybody working with me.”
Judge Roland K. Adams, Director of the Third Civilian Defense Region, is that sort of man. Calm, deliberate, patient, Judge Adams served on Baltimore’s Supreme Bench. Early he learned to look at life compassionately, laughing where laughing was appropriate, fighting where action was demanded, listening open-mindedly to all sides of every question. Though respecting the advice of others, when determined on a certain course, nothing can sway the Judge.
When Judge Adams took a leave of absence from the bench in March 1942, to assume his present job, he was warmly welcomed. Here was a man who was known, respected, and trusted—a man who had spent most of his life in two of the States in his Region, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
In Revolutionary days, the Judge’s hardy ancestors served the Nation faithfully. During World, War I the Judge himself was a captain in the Army. Well fitted for his challenging Civilian Defense job, the hard-working Judge today is striving to make his entire Region—which includes such strategic spots as Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh—prepared for any emergency. Yet the Judge doesn’t get excited very easily. He has a way of working serenely and successfully.
Human Interest File
In response to repeated requests, the OCD Editorial Section has established a file of human-interest stories on civilians in the war effort. This file is composed of anecdotes of individual and community achievements, sacrifice, heroism, ingenuity, and neighborly cooperation.
In order that this material may be used effectively to lift the morale of other civilians and stimulate them to similar deeds, the national office should be advised of the occurrence of such incidents. Contributions should include dates, names, and localities. Send material to Room 1004, Dupont Circle Building, Washington, D. C.
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