Norwell High School - Shipbuilder Yearbook (Norwell, MA)

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J U TH lc' SHIPB l'1 L HEL' readers recite old and new bits of Rus- sian literature before eager and appre- ciative audiences. Formerly only for- eigners enjoyed Moscow's meager night- life, but now the restaurants, never before populated, are crowded with care- free Russians. But there is another side to this seemingly successful result of the Plan. In the side streets, men and women line up two and three abreast on the side- walks carrying baskets. These people who resemble an American breadline, are waiting to buy meat. They are not paupers or beggars, they have money in their pockets yet they live patiently, hoping that the meat will last until their turn comes to purchase some. This is just one such example of con- ditions in many parts of Russia to-day. Everywhere there is a shortage of com- modities. It is practically impossible to buy overcoats. Nevertheless, the Five Year Plan was a daring experiment and a truly courageous undertaking. In 1908 the year it was launched, Rus- sia was in a terrible state both politi- cally and internationally. Soviet repre- sentatives were ousted in China. Amer- ica refused to recognize her, England had severed relations, and no credit was extended except in limited amounts from Italy and Germany. The communist party was disintegrating, and hundreds of the ablest men in the country econ- omists, executives, orators and engin- eers-were exiled to remote districts of Russia. The peasants were restless, and there were very few able leaders in the country. And then the Plan was laun- ched to smooth the troubled waters of Russia. But a brief outline of the Five Year Plan may help. The main idea of the Plan was to have all work done in unison, everyone working for the common good of the Soviet government. Everything one does is a part of the Great Plan. Each factory, each school house and each co- operative farm has its own Plan which fits into some other Plan, and which in turn joins some other Plan, until all finally merge into One Great Plan, In working the farms, the individual farmers merged their land holdings, im- plements and horses, they worked the fields jointly ,dividing the produce ac- cording to the amount of work each did. The plan called for the building of a certain number of railroad cars, for the manufacturing of tractors, shoes, rub- bers, locomotives and farm tools. And yet in all these cases, the output far over-reached the amount specified. All of Russia's manufactures are of an extremely inferior quality compared with American or European goods, their shoes wear out quickly, their tractors and machines do not stand up nearly as well, and their clothes are cheap in cut and in quality. Yet in spite of all these setbacks, the success of the Five Year Plan is astoun- ding, especially considering the illiter- acy among the masses, the lack of ex- perienced technicians and engineers and the refusal of credit from other nations. The machine is the central feature of the Great Plan. The whole success of the idea lies in the machine, and the fact that it is practically worsipped by the peasants. All other personal poss essions have lost their appeal, and the machine is now cherished above all else. Although the Plan has succeeded in all other fields, it has suffered immense difficulties in land reform, and the eco- nomic loss has been stupendous. There are no competent organizers to manage the farms, and consequently the amount wasted seed, animal labor has been colossal. The farms have commit- ted blunder upon blunder because of this lack of advice, and the percentage of output of farm produce has suffered tre- mendously. Ukraine, in 1931, had an especially fine crop, but the drastic amounts that the peasants were forced to sell the gov- ernment, at government prices, left them without food for their horses and pigs, and barely enough for themselves. Con- sequently, the peasant class suffered tremendous losses in stock starvation, and they themselves were forced to eat weed seed or migrate to other parts of Russia in search of bread. Each farm sustained heavy losses, when the Soviets, not content with forc- ing the peasants to sell grain, bought meat, milk and vegetables in unreason- able quantities. In 1932 the meat collections were so heavy that peasants were compelled to give up their cows, which left them with-

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.THE N H I P13 L'l I, I IIC If fl MAN'S GREATEST ENEMY- FEAR Fear is man's greatest enemy. Every person has lost something because of fear, perhaps even their happiness. Man's greatest fears are these: poverty, disgrace, sickness, water, accidents, and fire. None of these fears have a right to live. It is right to be careful, and to work diligently against failure and poverty, but what do we gain by fearing these things? Poverty has never been chased away by fear. Dread of disgrace on the part of upright men is pure folly, for no disgrace has ever come to them unless they have let it come. A person who fails honestly has no disgrace. Nu person regards it, except the unfortun- ate person who has failed and permitted himself to become a victim of a false interpretation of his own ill fortune. Fear is nothing but a feeling which peo- ple get. It hasn't even the right to ex- ist. Every year we hear of hunters being lost in the great northe-rn woods. Per- haps a loss of the sense of direction makes a man become more panicky than anything else. Sometimes they walk a- round in circles and fire sho-t after shot without waiting for an answer. By doing this they give up all means of guiding a searching party to them. Obviously, the best thing for a man who is lost is calmness, that which he loses first. They should never think they are lost. They should always think of something else. Have faith-Remembering that a man with faith is like a turtle going through the tall grass. How can you overcome fear? The answer is to take a new view of life. When fears come into your thoughts, analyze them, see if you have good grounds for their pre-sence. The chances are that the need for fear has not yet become a reality nor even have started. They are imaginary troubles manufact- ured in your own thought factory. Stop manufacturing t-hat line of thought, and open up a new line. There has been fear ever since the world began but it is not a necessity any more than mean- ess is a necessity. The book which has always had the highest number of sales per year, the Bible, emphazises the chief opponent of fear,--faith. Faith in God and faith in your fellow man. What is Faith '? Faith is energy, and like energy can be changed but never destroyed, Faith is everything and fear is nothing. From faith we derive cour- age, another opponent of fear. You have all seen a flapping pair of pants, an old coat, and a hat hung on crossed sticks in fields of corn. These were put there to scare the timid birds away, but now and then a wise bird cogn- es down and perches on it. He has changed his fears to faith and derived courage. Can we not gain courage though our own fears? Fears of life are nothing more than scarecrows. The first successful trans-atlantic airplane flight was made by a fearless young American, May 21, 1927. Do you think that it was anything else but courage that made him fly this dangerous course alone? What a sensation it must be to conquer fear? Vash Young has said, Let us all try to overcome man's great- est enemy- Fear. , E. Pearl Gaulcy ESSA RUSSIA'S FIVE YEAR PLAN- FROM THE VIEW-POINT OF MAURICE HINDUS To all appearances, Moscow has never looked as bright and cheerful as it does now, at the end of the Five Year Plan. Street after street has been torn up, and the old, worn-out cobbles replaced with new shining asphalt. The shops are neat, clean and well-stocked, the win- dows, once dingy and dirty now glisten from frequent washings. The theatres and cinemas are always over-crowded. There is also a stimulat- ed interest in literature and professional

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gp -p rfm SHIPB out milk and 110 chance whatever of raising a cali. And even it they do raise a cow they are worried, for what would happen in the case of a severe grain collection? The local oflicials took matters in their own hands and proceeded to socialize livestock. In retaliation the peasants slaughtered livestock to escape this law. The higher authorities quickly interven- ed, but not before many cattle were needlessly destroyed. The peasants therefore, faced with all these difficulties, grow discouraged and do not do their work properly. There have been many instances Where peas- ants have deliberately sown thibly and plowed badly, partly out of sheer indif- ference and partly out of revenge. 'ine attitude they take is that the land is left in the village, but the Soviets take all their labor, so why toil L? Recently the communists have extend- ed some concessions to the peasantry that has slightly eased the tension, but the conditions are still very bad and the peasants will have to be assured, not verbally, but by deeds on the part of the authorities. Although the Soviets have sadly mes- sed up the form situation, they have pusehd way ahead in cultural and intel- lectual development. There is not a village, however small it may L-e, that has not a schoolhouse and library, and every city has at least one technical school and a university. The younger Russian generation has shown a great apptitude for knowledge and they are given abundant opportunity to satisfy it. The Five Year Plan has ended, with the cultural standard of the Russian masses much higher than it has ever been but with the standards of living and the cost of food lower than it has been in a decade. Russia has laid her foundation for future development, and at the present her main task is to raise the standard of living of the masses. Florence J. Hamblin THE NOBEL PRIZE Distinguished contributions to the fields of science, economics and literat- ure to-day receive attention not only ll'll,llEli' Il from scholars in those particular fields but also may receive international recog- nition through various substantial mon- etary awards famous throughout the civilized world. Without a doubt the best known and most valued of these awards are the world-famous Nobel Prizes an- nounced annually. The Nobel Prize was given by Alfred Bernhard Nobel, a Swedish chemist and inventor. Nobel was born at Stockholm in 1833. His father, a mechanician, be- gan in 1862 to manufacture nitroglycer- in. some of it accidently spilled into the sand used in packing the casks. Nobel found that this combination made a safe and manageable explosive which is dyn- amite. He experimented with several different explosives and invented blast- ing gelatin and several kinds of smoke- less powder. He had patented more than a hundred of his inventions and estab- lished factories in various parts of the world. At his death at St. Remo, Italy, in 1896, he left over 259,000,000 for an- nual awards to persons who, in different fields of activity, have made the greatest contributions to ine progress and the welfare of the wfrld. These prizes .ire awarded for distin 5- uished work .n chemistry, physics, phys- iology or medicine, literature and the cause ff international peace. In chem- istry and physics, the awards are made by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sci- cncesg in medicine, by the Caroline In- stitute of Stockholmg in literature by the Svedish Academy: and for peace, 'oy a committee appointed by the Nor- 'vegian Parliament. The awards were first made in 1901 and have continued since then, although during the period of the World War and in certain years after its close, a num-- ber of the prizes were not awarded. In some cases two or more people have ear- ned a prize and it has been divided bet- ween them with equal honor. The total amount of the prizes given in one year is 340,000 The number of awards given at the end of 1925 was 138. Three of these were peace prizes to institutions instead of individuals. Of these 135 awards, the United States has received nine. Four eminent Americans, two of whom have been President, re- ceived the peace prize. They are Theo- dore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Elihu