Galveston v. Peat Bogs

Food, machinery and raw materials--Marshall Plan aid from the U.S.--is unloading on the docks of western Europe. What difference does it make? One close-up answer can be found in the town of Nijverdal (pop. 9,000), set in the peatbog country of eastern Holland. To Nijverdal, the Marshall Plan means cotton. When TIME Correspondent Frank White went to have a look, he found that word of his coming had got to Nijverdal ahead of him. Cabled White last week:

The broad highway from the Zuider Zee topped a beech-trimmed ridge, then dropped into the town. In the growing darkness, the steep-roofed houses spread themselves out in misty brick waves. At the hotel, a man took my suitcase and typewriter, then ushered us inside. A banquet table had been spread across the length of the dining room.

The man holding my bags introduced himself. "I am Eduard Witschey, the burgomaster," he said. "We understand that you have come to see how Marshall help works in our village." With a glance at the banquet table, he added: "I thought you would like to meet some of the people of the town. The Queen's Commissioner will be a little late."

"For European Recovery." The Queen's Commissioner arrived, Burgomaster Witschey said grace in Dutch, and dinner proceeded: three stout courses followed by brandy and a speech by the burgomaster. "Thanks to America," he said, "we are able to work." Next day I was shown what that meant.

More than 2,200 of Nijverdal's 9,000 people are working in the town's cotton industry--the Koninklijke Stoomwevery te Nijverdal--consisting of spinneries, a weaving mill, and dyeing and bleaching plants. The warehouse flew the American flag, as did most of Nijverdal that day. Managing Director Godfried van der Meulen pointed to a pile of cotton bales --most of them from New Orleans and Galveston. There were 350 of them, each with the red, white & blue shield of the U.S. and the inscription: "For European Recovery." "This isn't much," Van der Meulen said, "but six months ago we could have had a ball in here--though not a very cheerful one."

For Mice & Near-Misses. Burgomaster Witschey felt that, with the mills humming, the town itself could make some plans for simple reconstruction. One day in 1944, 600 of Nijverdal's homes were damaged or destroyed by the near-misses of Allied bombers attacking a German V-2 launching platform just back of town. With the mills hardly running at all, the town had been too poor to do much about repairs. Nijverdal could remedy that now. Burgomaster Witschey hoped for renovation of the down-at-heel town hall, too: a couple of months ago, mice nibbled through his desk drawer and ate up his old budget report. Witschey could laugh about it; the 1949 budget is a lot brighter.

Both Mijnheer van der Meulen's increased production schedules and Burgomaster Witschey's civic improvement plans are regarded as encouraging in Nijverdal. But "Marshall help" means something more personal than that. A slippered housewife made the point succinctly. "From 1931 to 1936," she said, "there wasn't much work at the mill. Jan dug peat. Almost the whole town dug peat. If Jan loses his job again, I don't think we would get over it."

Back at the factory, Nijverdal's union leaders felt the same way. "Before help came last spring," said Cornelius Kalkhoven, company representative of the Christian National Federation of Trade Unions, "you could feel the tension through your wooden shoes." Said the Catholic union's young Hendrik Grondman: "Our men will never go back to the peat bogs."

And Part Good Fellowship. There was one point I wanted to clear up. "Why," I asked spinners in the plant canteen, "do you think America is doing this?" Answered Jan Missink, a wiry, blond fellow, seven members of whose family work for the company: "Americans really want to help us; they know that under the Russians we would be lost, as we were under the Germans." Said Berend Groote: "Yes, it is part self-interest and part sportief [good fellowship]."

How did the Communists feel? Mijnheer van der Meulen was regretful. "I would like to be helpful," he said; "we used to have some Communists in the plant. But now we have only one left, and I'm afraid you cannot meet him. We've given him some time off. You see, this week he celebrated his fiftieth anniversary with the company."

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