New York Times
January 5, 1943
OWI PLOWS UNDER THE ALMANAC SINGERS
'We Pulled a Blunder' in Hiring Them for Radio, It Admits
The Office of War Information admitted yesterday that it had made a mistake. The Almanac Singers - a hillbilly group that once made a
specialty of a number called "Plow Under Every Fourth American Boy," and has been periodically praised in the Communist organ The Daily Worker - were hired to do short wave broadcasts in the propaganda service. The mistake, the OWI said, had
been corrected. The Almanac Singers are no longer thumping out their alleged folksongs for the short wave propaganda service.
The mistake was candidly admitted yesterday by Leonard Carlton, in charge of the international radio section of the OWI, after an article about the Almanac Singers appeared in an afternoon paper.
"Well", Mr. Carlton said, "there's only one thing to say about that. We pulled a blunder. Those boys are no longer doing any broadcasts for us. We put on 2,500 programs a day and I suppose out of all that it was no more than natural that somebody should pull a blunder sometime. But that's all there is to it."
The Almanac Singers did not do the plow song for the OWI. Instead they did one about "everybody" having "joined the union", which was broadcast as part of a program on various American states. This specific one dealt with Michigan.
They recorded two other songs. One of them dealt with the C.I.O. victory over Henry Ford, and the other with the American Federation of Labor in terms reported to be uncomplimentary. Neither of these recordings, it was said, was ever broadcast by the
government agency.