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Editor’s note: This following letter originally appeared in the Nov. 2, 1967 edition of the Osceola Sentinel. Is it reprinted here with family permission.
Tom White
Osceola
In reference to the article on the survey of our County in the Oct. 26, 1967 issue of the Osceola Sentinel, I note the planning promoters from Muscatine or Oskaloosa came here to organize a planning board of the different units contemplated on in the county including the County Board of Supervisors, School Board and different units and they also met with the County Conservation Committee and Directors of the Chamber of Commerce to map out and arrange for the continuation of the organization work and to start in for future plans left off which are available.
My opposition to this plan leads up to county zoning and getting control of all the activities of the people. The statement made that the farmer is not going to be bothered in managing his own personal affairs brings to my mind a statement made by a person who is in favor of this work to be continued. He told me the plan was to be implemented by degrees and this means to me that they are bound to have all the dogs’ tail but intentions are to take it one inch at a time to make it easier on the dog. The statement that the federal government will finance two-thirds of the expense of the organization and work fully convinces me that this is a national movement and a master plan to get control over the activities of the citizens of the nation put into a centralized government.
My son is visiting here from California and this come up in our discussion and he informed me that the same pattern is being followed where he lives in the Valley of the Moon and their difficulty in getting organized, which they have been working at for about two years, is that there are five different settlements in this Valley and the out-lying settlements are opposed to the plan and this further convinces me that this is nationally in scope and following a plan that has been worked out by some of the brain-trustees of our national politicians.
I am also referring to a letter that was received by a friend in this community and which was offered to me to read and when I informed the party I could not see to read they read it to me and the letter referred that this was information that this party ought to know about my activities in the county in regard to this plan of organization and referred to this article on the county survey and in completion of the reading of the article to me, I asked who was the writer and the party told me that the only identity was the letter B, which could stand for a number of names—bull, bulldozer, bum or Bill; and the party didn’t know who wrote the letter and that they had received it in the mail.
Now I appreciate very much anyone’s interest in keeping the citizens of our community posted of my activities and am also very sorry to be compelled to believe that we have citizens that are willing to depart information without identification or signature. To know that anyone would put information out without identification or signature to the letter and be so kind and condescending and to stoop so low without bending.
Mr. White was a Liberty Township farmer with a sixth-grade education. He was born in Keokuk County, and served as president of Famers Union Insurance Company; he and his family later moved to Clarke County. He was the father to the late Tom Erwin White and grandfather to the late Robert W. White.