North Andover High School - Knight Yearbook (North Andover, MA)

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THE GOBBLER-1946 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL under Public Law 144. Under this law, passed as an economy measure, disabled veterans who are single and without dependents, are offered a monthly pension of from eight to twenty dollars, an amount less than that received by Nazi and Jap prisoners of war. All through the war, millions of Americans made more money than ever before. Many knew not what to do with a part of their earnings. While all these high wages were being paid, our American soldiers were fighting on foreign territory. They dodged bullets, faced enemy fire, slept in fox holes, ate K-rations, and watched the last spark of life fade out of their buddies. Thousands of our boys made this supreme sacrifice, only to have their cold, lifeless forms placed in the foreign soil, a plain white cross on their graves. Oh, yes, we had millions of patriotic citizens, people who did all that was requested for the war effort. Our food was rationed, and many of us accepted it without griping. We had dim-outs and practice air-raids. A large number of citizens went regularly to the blood bank, bought bonds and stamps, planted victory gardens and devoted their spare time to the various patriotic organiza¬ tions. But with all these war-time activities, we were reaping large profits and saving for the future. We didn ' t have to endure any real hardships. We weren’t directly affected by the war except maybe by the absence of loved ones. For many of us the end of the war meant happier days ahead. No more rationing and plenty of money to spend. But for many of those who really fought, the future now offers little. Many will be scarred for life. Some were suffering with tropical diseases and battle fatigue, hundreds were mental cases, and far too many were returning with the loss of limbs. Through scientific research and development, some were supplied with artificial limbs, and they rejoiced over the fact that they were no longer handicapped. But what about the less fortunate? They must remain in government hospitals as cripples. Here they are sure of excellent medical care and the latest medical equipment. But in spite of these conveniences, who could enjoy an indefinite period or a lifetime in a hospital? We must remember that a large number of our disabled veterans were only boys fresh out of high school. In years they are young, but their experiences have made them more mature. They didn’t have a chance to go to college to learn a profession. They missed the real joys of adolescence. And now it is too late. Their plans are ended. They forfeited their earning capacity to fight for us, and because they did, many ended up in medical institutions. Yet the American people sat back while our legislators passed a law that can only pauperize our American heroes. Will the veterans remain in hospitals as helpless war victims whom fellow citizens failed to heed? Will their plans of someday marrying be fulfilled on twenty measly dollars a month? Will they leave the hospital against the advice of medical authorities and go to work because our legislators failed to recognize the value of their sacrifice? We all know that we must struggle to win a battle of health and sickness. We all know that encouragement is an absolute necessity for the heart-broken 21

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THE GOBBLER-1946 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL helped crowd into those years many of the most notable advances that mankind has gained since civilization began. The nation emerged from the Second World War with capacities for making plastics, synthetic fibers, nitrates, hydro-carbons, high octane gasolines, and literally scores of chemical and other raw materials on a large scale that only a few years ago was beyond our comprehension. The changes that have taken place in our thinking and planning approach the unbelievable when one detaches himself from the present long enough to regain the viewpoint of only the recent past. During the last war, the epic fight of the Royal Air Force to save England, raging month upon month against odds, was also a chemists’ fight to produce better fuels—fuels that would get planes into the air in a fraction of the former time, that would give greater speed, longer, and yet longer ranges. The Ameri¬ can chemist was in that fight because he knew more about motor fuels than any chemist on earth. The Battle of Britain became a testing development and laboratory in which a nation’s life was the stake. In the First World War, Germany’s early mastery and world monopoly of the production of benzene and other coal-tar crudes and intermediates—her then “secret weapon”—brought her armies almost to victory. It was only by prodigious effort and at huge cost that private industry in the United States was able, during and after that war, to win independence in these chemicals, which are part and parcel of the nation’s economic life-blood both in war and peace. Today, we are doubly independent. Our coal-tar chemical industry is se¬ curely established. In addition, the possible output of benzene and toluene from petroleum is many times their peak output from coal-tar. Furthermore, in super motor fuels, which were the last war’s deciding weapons, we excelled the enemy’s best in quantity and quality alike. Where Germany stood in 1914 with coal-tar, the United States stands today with petroleum. During the war, we produced to destroy. In the future, we shall produce to build and we shall continue to invent and thus to multiply our chemical possessions. Now that peace reigns once more, the stream of production com¬ pared with its volume in the past, will be as a great river is to one of its tributary creeks. We shall have at our command ten, fifty, a hundred times what we had before, chiefly of new materials. The course of the American chemist will be a bold course—a course toward a better destiny. And all science will set its course by the same compass. William E. Torrey, Jr. CLASS ESSAY Forgotten Heroes FMAR is brutal. War with its carnage, ruin and bloodshed is best forgotten. I I I Peace is heaven. Peace is tranquility. But peace with all its pleasures and comforts is not truly ours until we provide security for our wounded vet¬ erans. I mean real security, not the parsimonious dole offered to our veterans 20

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THE GOBBLER-1946 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL handicapped. And yet we sit back while our lawmakers slap the faces of our loved ones with a pension too small for subsistence for the most miserly human being. It’s up to us as good American citizens to exercise our right to repeal the passage of Public Law 144. The boys did their job, and medical authorities did theirs. Now what are we going to do? Would you become a cripple for twenty dollars a month? Do you have the heart to deprive our American heroes of a decent normal life? Stop, and really think about this pathetic problem. Laborers can use many effective methods for obtaining higher wages. But these boys lying helpless on army cots in hospitals throughout the country cannot solve their dilemma. It is entirely up to us to write to our Congressmen to have Public Law 144 repealed. We are very fortunate. We can earn a good full week’s pay. But what could you do with fifty-eight cents a day? To efface this shameful situation and to speed our veteran’s recovery, write to your Congressman today, without fail. Shirley M. Wentworth CLASS ORATION With the Ropes of the Past, We Will Ring the Bells of the Future m AN has always felt two seemingly contradictory urges within himself. One urge results in the thirst for novelty, and in the changes that will bring a fuller and freer tomorrow. The other is the equally basic urge to hold on to what we have, “to stand pat,” not to gamble present advantages for theo¬ retical improvements. But these urges are not contradictory. They work together and supplement each other. The conservative urge, the urge to keep what we have, is a divinely planted instinct that keeps us in touch with each other and the past. By means of it, we develop that marvelous product called habit. By it, we eliminate a constant life of chaos and repeated errors. It develops for us magnificent traditions such as Washington’s advice to cultivate “friendly relations with all, permanent alliances with none,” or Lin¬ coln’s sublime appeal to live “with malice toward none and charity for all.” This urge to preserve the best of the past keeps fresh in our minds the great truths of religion which we learned as trusting children. It was this urge which caused the old Scotchman of Victorian days, Carlyle, to say, “The older I grow, and I am now on the brink of eternity, the clearer comes back to me the question and answer I learned at my mother’s knee: ‘What is the end of man? To know God, to serve Him, and to love Him here and to be happy with Him forever hereafter.’ ” But this urge does not bind us with our faces to the past, longing for the days that were, and blinding us to the glory that is and shall be. For like the beacon or the headland that guides the sailor to the coast, and which, when reached, opens up to him the channel to a safe harbor, this urge to conserve the 22