Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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1. H. S. IN CIVILIAN DEFENSE By James Olds O protect a nation ' covering such a 1 large area and with such a coast as our own requires more than the en- listed armed forces and therefore de- pends upon the civilians of each and every town and city. These civilians must sacrifice time and effort to help make our shores safe from invasion. In view of the necessity of large numbers in these Civilian Defense Organizations it was found that many of the working people could not give their time without disrupting their business. The next available group of people to fill in in these jobs were the high school students of our country. In this town of Ipswich the degree to which the students of the Ipswich High School have offered their time and dispensed with their pleasure is grati- fying. When the army asked Mr. Conary, as a past leader of the American Legion, to organize an Observation Post in this section he sought contacts with all the townspeople to find out who could give and would give their time until the end of the war in organizing an Army Observation Post. The response was great but the number needed was greater. He then went to the students of our high school and requested many of them to volunteer to assist as ob- servers or plane spotters. Although to discourage quitters and whiners he made the picture as black as he possibly could without exaggerating, the response which the pupils made was amazing. Through the cold of winter and the rains of spring, while several of the older people dropped off for sickness or various reasons, the students of the Ips- wich High School have continued to do their part. Of the two hundred ob- servers and spotters now affiliated with the local Army Observation Post, over fifty of them are high school students. To be a plane spotter or an observer is by no means a simple job. One must be constantly on the alert with one’s eyes and ears straining for signs of planes. To do this task most effi- ciently it is necessary for each spotter to determine by hearing or by sight, the number of planes, the number of motors of each plane, and the direction the planes are flying. From the time that the planes are spotted to the time that all this information is sent into the Filter Center not more than ten seconds should intervene. This takes coopera- tion and quick thinking. The largest number of high school students in any one Civilian Defense Organization, as compared with the whole, is enrolled in the Messenger Corps. The duty of these messengers is to keep the Air Raid Warden, to whom they are assigned, in constant touch with the local Report Center. In case all other means of communication fail, the responsibility rests on their shoulders. 27

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who deemed the conference of so great importance that he attended it person- ally. and Charles Lindbergh went to allay the fears of the Latin Americans against the growth of another imperial- ism. Their attendance strengthened our position and dispelled all fears of us. The advent of the Good Neighbor Policy exorcised the last vestige of hate and imperialism. The institution of our Good Neighbor Policy was simul- taneous with the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt. In his opening message he allayed the fears of Latin America with a declaration of our in- tentions: we would seek no more land, wc would not force sales by dollar diplomacy, and we would not interfere with the internal affairs of any country. Further evidence of our receding im- perialism was the abolishment of the hated Platt amendment and the planned liberation of the Philippines. Roose- velt made a special trip to Buenos Aires in 1936 to assure the Peace Conference that “America will protect the hemisphere from all aggression. This precedent of an American administra- tion supporting so ardently a Pan American Conference was very pleasing to Latin Americans. The one device, however, that has done more for encouraging friendlier relations than doctrines and protection is the reciprocal trade treaty which was proposed by Cordell Hull together with his broad interpretation of a clause in the Smoot Hawley Tariff. This tariff was originally designed to raise duties. This clause allowed the President to raise or lower concessions on the goods of another country if we received similar concessions from that country. So we made treaties with each country reducing greatly the import levies and simultaneously the bitter feling against us. The industries of South America are booming now that the United States market is open and our war pro- gram calls for increased production. The people of Latin America are in sympathy enough with us to drive out enemy spies and break relations with our enemies, and the sympathy is a direct result of reciprocal trade. New, through the efforts of Cordell Hull, Sumner Wells, and other pro- gressive statesmen, the United States enjoys a closer harmony of governemnt, business ,and friendship with the people of nearly every country in Latin Ameri- ca than any other nation has ever re- ceived. As time goes on, more people are being converted to Pan American unity and cooperation which will prob- ably blossom into a Western Hemisphere coalescence. But significant is the example to the world of what can be done when sincere peoples unite to ad- just their differences and to work to- gether for their mutual benefit. 26

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In case of an actual air raid these Jobs should prove very dangerous; therefore, only quick-thinking, reliable, cool-headed people are enrolled. With quick thinking and reliability stressed in high school it is no wonder our stu- dents are gladly accepted as messengers. About fity per cent of the messengers arc now high school students. Another vital contribution of the Ipswich High School to the war effort was evidenced in the Defense Bond and Stamp Campaign. When the Treasury Department of our country started to organize a pledge campaign in this town, the newspapers printed an an- nouncement to the effect that all those who wished to volunteer as canvassers in this campaign would meet at the town hall on a given evening. When the evening arrived, at least one-fourth of the volunteers who responded to the call were high school pupils. Asking for money is never an en- viable job and this interviewing of people for the purpose of eliciting pledges to buy bonds was no exception. Patience, tact, and courtesy were only a few qualities of character which the job demanded in order to make plain the necessity of these pledges. The pupils rose nobly to the demands made upon them and completed the task success- fully. Some of the students, however, not content with just helping, took a bigger share of the responsibility by becoming section captains. Besides ac- quiring pledges themselves they had to see that their helpers had their share done at the given time. After this they had to compile for their section a report which was to go eventually to Washington. There v, ' ' ere many head- aches among the captains at that time, but nevertheless they had the satisfac- tion of performing well their bit in the cause of freedom. Th: students in the industrial arts division have shown their ability and at the same time have contributed a large share to defense work. In the first place they constructed twelve stretchers for the Red Cross, thereby saving monye for more needful uses. The Report Center of the Civilian De- fense Organizations of this town is now situated in a section of the high school that has been converted from a store room. After partitioning the room off and laying a new floor the boys made telephone report booths. While the shop boys were doing the construction work, the print shop printed four different application forms for various Civilian Defense Organizations. Al- together this year the shop division has done most of the construction and a good deal of the printing for the Town of Ipswich in its defense program. Furthermore the Ipswich High School boasts students in every Civilian Defense Organization to which they are permitted to belong. We have mem- bers in the Convoy Corps, the First Aid Classes, the State Guard, the Adminis- tration Office, and we even have an assistant Air Raid Warden. 28