Norwell High School - Shipbuilder Yearbook (Norwell, MA)

Page 13 text:

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

Page 12 text:

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-

Page 14 text:

1,2 Tim .s'H1PB1'1LDEJ.' ' Root, and Charles G. Dawes for their contributions -to the cause of world peace. Four women have won Nobel prizes. Madame Curie, one of the women, is the only person who has been distinguished by more than one Nobel award. Madame Curie was a chemist and physicist. She and her husband, Pierre Curie, discover- ed radium. In 1903 she shared with her husband and Becquerel, the Nobel prize in chemistry, the first woman scientist to win it. Perhaps more lay persons are acquain- ted with the Nobel awards in literature than any of the others. The most recent award in literature was made last year to that prominent English novelist, John Galsworthy, who has since died, for his Forsyte Saga and Modern Comedy. The United States has received this recognition of literary merit only once, in 1931, when it was given to Sinclair Lewis particularly known for his novels Babbitt and Arrowsmith. This a- ward has been the cause of much con- troversy since that time, but there is no question that the mere reception of the Nobel prize gives Mr. Lewis real claim to the title of outstanding Ameri- can novelist. Elizabetn Lincoln VAI ,EDICTORY CAN AMERICA UTILIZE HER PRODUCTS? Like the famous question never yet satisfactorily answered, the classic ques- tion of the hen and the egg, is the ques- tion, Which came first-production or demand? Did man in the dim, dark days of his early history, realizing his needs, seek to obtain the results of his brother's toil, or did some ancient cave- man discover his own store of stone axes to be greater than his needs and scheme to force his surplus on some un- suspecting fellow caveman? Whatever the cause may have been, we are today confronted with an un- balanced ratio between supply and de- mand. It is a fact of doubtless truth that the present financial stress is due in part at least to this lack of equilib- rium, the cause of which is as much a mystery as its solution. Few people realize that the time was when supply. not demand, was the problem confront- ing the layman. Today, however, we are faced with a stagnancy in business resulting from overproduction in the past. Various efforts have been made to ov- ercome this situation. Perhaps the most outstanding of these are the attempts to instill within the people appetites con- dusive to greater demand. By the ex- ploitation of these divers wants, people are driven to believe that they are ina- dequately supplied, hence opening the way for the over burdened producer. With this method of righting the econ- omic malajustment, there is one fallacyg demand should be the desire for the goods, plus the ability and willingness to pay for it. However, it may be easily understood that the creation of a desire for the product may not necessarily be accompanied by the ability to pay. To meet this condition the producers have striven to inflate the buying power of the consumer by the well known time payment plan, by which one may take possession of the goods before actual pecuniary ownership. Although this may temporarily remedy the unbalanced re- lationship, it is inevitable that the con- sumer will eventually be forced to meet his obligations to the producer. In spite of the optimism of the manufacturer, in fostering such transactions, it is poor business to trust to future financial ben- efaction without sound basis for that expectation. The question confronting us today is, Can America utilize her products? That is, granted we desire the goods, have we sufficient buying power to just- ify the produce of the American laborer? It is difficult to comprehend the uncom- mon state of affairs now existing in our country. There are, for instance, many who desire food and clothing, while still others would have goods of a diierent nature. Since the desire is pnesent,