Uncle Sam is doing some good work on the locks and dams in the
Little Kanawha River, making them water-tight, so that we will have water
transportation a greater portion of the year.
Every citizen in the Little Kanawha Valley should aid the
project of improving our beautiful river. The sentiment is rapidly crystallizing
for river improvements all over the country. That section where business men and
property owners are energetic in pushing their claims for appropriation will
first receive aid from the government.
Each county in this valley should have representatives at the
waterways convention to be held at Cincinnati next week, and at all other such
meetings. So much can be said in favor of the Little Kanawha country. Our
resources have scarcely been touched and development only just begun.
From another field comes evidence that the Soviet Union is fully
challenging U.S. leadership in the modern world. This is the field of medicine.
An effective live virus vaccine to control influenza has been
developed in Russia, according to Dr. A.A. Smorodinstev of Leningrad. The live
vaccine is squirted directly into the nose, and is administered to 20,000,000
people annually, according to the Russian.
Also, a live virus vaccine against mumps has been developed in
Russia and a polio vaccine of the live type has been administered to 12,000,000
Russian children.
These signs of progress in medical research in Russia are
significant. It reaffirms what so many informed Americans already know, that
energy, work and challenge in almost all scientific fields is to be expected
from the regimented communist regime in Russia.
First of all, we must
not make the mistake of thinking that because our system is free and democratic
that it must inevitably outdo a regimented system. The progress Russia has made
in the missiles and rockets field shows that a broad, directed national effort
in Russia faces us with a grave challenge.
Of course, in the field of medicine, all of us welcome any
progress--in any part of the world. The fact that progress is evident in Russia,
and significant progress is, in addition, confirmation of the fact that Russia
is seriously challenging the U.S. in almost every scientific field