Monday, Aug. 02, 1948
God bless all Americans like Farmer Rhinehart. If we want our freedom and our way of life to endure, we'll have to share it. What you don't use, you lose.
This letter from a TIME reader in Los Angeles was one of those that came to us shortly after we had printed a story you may remember. It told how Farmer Paul Rhinehart of Peacock Station, Va., had offered a house and $100 a month to a Polish D.P. named Marian Zielezinski, who had arrived in the U.S. a fortnight before with his wife Irma, their two baby boys, two suitcases and nothing else.
Said Farmer Rhinehart of D.P. Zielezinski: "Right away he puts his hands like he was giving them to me for a present--like to ask me where he should start working. We can't speak a word to each other but we sure piled up a heap of understanding."
The plight of Europe's displaced persons has of course been getting a great deal of attention--from Congress, from the press as a whole, from organizations, from individuals anxious to help. A pleasing indication of this interest is the response from TIME readers to the Zielezinski story. During the past few weeks a good many of you have written to TIME to ask how you can help displaced persons admitted to this country. For example:
A TIME reader who raises pure bred Holsteins and Guernseys in Brockport, N.Y., writes: "I would like to hire a displaced person. There is just one major requirement: He must be a man who loves cattle. I will furnish the man with a house, electricity for all purposes except heat, such milk as he wishes to use, and I will pay him $100 a month . . ."
From Pittsfield, Mass., a TIME reader and his wife write: "Please tell us how to reach the right people or organizations to put something like this across. We have the interest and the will to do it. . ."
An executive of a machine tool company in a small city in Ohio tells us that "several families in this community are in need of domestic help. It is quite possible that some of the young women entering this country could find security in lovely surroundings should they be interested in this type of work ..."
And from Wellsville, N.Y., still another TIME reader writes: "I am sure a town the size of ours (pop. 6,000) would open its heart to a group of displaced persons and provide them with everything needed to start over . . ."
We have forwarded your letters to an organization which is very active in helping to solve the problem of the displaced person: The United Service for New Americans, Inc. Another such organization is the Catholic Committee for Refugees, which was responsible for putting Farmer Rhinehart in touch with the Zielezinskis.
How much this kind of work can mean to the distressed of Europe is illustrated by another letter we have received as a result of the Zielezinski story --this one from a Polish D.P. now living in England. He writes:
"I look at the picture of the Zielezinski family and oh, how I envy them! but wish them the best also. I was once a farmer like Mr. Rhinehart but in 1939 the Germans took my property away and in 1945 the Soviet-Polish regime took it again for themselves. How gladly would I accept the place of a laborer on a farm like the one of Mr. Rhinehart, and feed the chickens for him, because I cannot do much hard work -- being feeble and middleaged. Please do not forget about us D.P.s from many European countries . . ."
Perhaps for the benefit of other TIME readers who might care to help, we should print here the addresses of the United Service for New Americans and the Catholic Committee for Refugees. The first is 15 Park Row, the second 265 West 14th Street -- both in New York City.
Cordially, James A. Linen
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.