Your One Vote Is Vital

"Why should I bother to vote?" "What difference will my one ballot make out of all the millions that are cast?" Chances are you'll be hearing such questions many times between now and Election Day. They're common in every election year. An appalling number of citizens don't show up at the polls, in the mistaken belief that their "one little vote" is insignificant. Nothing could be further from the truth! History is studded with examples of how a single vote spelled the difference between victory and defeat for a candidate, a party, or sometimes even for a whole way of life." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

The Primary Step To Your Future

"During the next few months eyes of the nation will focus on 16 states. Here, Presidential hopefuls of both major parties will test their strength and popularity. The goal - the most important office in the world. The place - the 16 states that conduct presidential primaries." 

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1960

Who, Me a Politician?

"Not on your life! I don't want to be mixed up in anything dirty or corrupt. I'm a respectable citizen." Hold on a minute! Is an attitude like that really the sign of a respectable and respected citizen? Remember, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were politicians. Had they not been politicians - which means knowing how to exercise the art and practice of government - they could never have rendered to the Republic the services for which we revere them today. As citizens of our democracy, we set great store by our rights and privileges." 

The Center for Information on America, 1960

How You Can Be Active In Politics!

"Darn these holes! I'll break an axle for sure one of these days. Why doesn't the city fix them?" "Officer, why don't they put a traffic light on this corner so the kids can get to school without risking their lives?" "If they build the new incinerator at Roslyn, the value of our property will drop and the water at Bar Beach will be polluted for swimming." The man griping about the road, the mother worried about her children's safety, and the husband discussing the town fathers' plan for a new incinerator are lost "voices crying in the wilderness"...if all they do is grumble and complain and ask questions, as individuals." 

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1959

Why You Should Be Active In Politics

"Do you think politics is a dirty word? And that politicians are shady characters? Don't anser those questions - at least, not yet. First, take the case of William Q. Smith. He thought all politics were "corrupt," and because he did he wanted no part of anything that had a political ring to it. "I'm above politics - a non-politician" was the way he put it. But what Bill smith failed to realize is that any citizen who abstains from politics is not a non-politician, he is merely an ineffective politician. "How's that?" you may be wondering. Simply this: You can be influential - either for good or for bad as you choose - but you can't avoid the fact that as a citizen, you have a certain amount of influence." 

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1959

You're In Politics...Whether You Like It Or Not

"Whether you realize it or not, nearly everything you do is goverened by politics. If you work for somebody else, your job is affected by politics. If you're a businessman with employees, your business is affected by politics. You get a pay check with a notation that tax has been withheld. Your son's classroom at school is overcrowded. You get a traffic ticket for overtime parking. Politics." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1959

Your Rights and Duties as an American

"The major rights of the individual and safeguards against invasion of those rights by the federal government are guaranteed by the Constituion and its amendments, by the common law and by Supreme Court decisions. The Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution prohibits the States from depriving any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, and from denying to any person equal protection of the law." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

Hunting Tips

"To millions of men hunting means wandering a field with shotgun and dog in search of small game. In these days of limited opportunity, each gunner is faced with the problem of filling his bag with the least number of shots - normally he doesn't get many chances. Thus he needs to make every shot count. Here then, are some pointers." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

Hunting

"Is there a "best" rifle for hunting? No, there isn't, although many a shooter will try to convince you that he owns the supreme rifle, ideal for killing everything from deer to Alaskan brown bear." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1959

Hunting Successfully

"I am taking it for granted that you are already a marksman of some skill, that you know your weapon thoroughly and can handle it safely. To enter the woods and fields to hunt without these basic requirements is the mark of a poor hunter and a poorer sportsman. It means missed or wounded game rather than clean kills, danger to others in the woods, and shows a lack of mature consideration for yourself, your weapon and both companions of quarry." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

Your Teeth

"Today, with the aid of smiling models, stern white-coated announcers, and animated cartoons, the American dentrifrice industry extols, over millions of television receivers, the virtues of tooth cleanliness. Not only your health, you are warned, but your job and your social life may come to grief should you fail to brush your teeth - with, of course, Gleamo, the only dentifrice containing X-379, the miracle anti-bacterial, anti-enzyme, anti-film, anti-decay, anti-everything agent. Whether these claims are true or not, one thing seems clear: to few Americans know the importance of proper diet and preventative dental care in the campaign against tooth decay. Though this may come as a surprise, our nation has one of the world's worst records in dental health. Nearly twenty percent of our people have or should have false teeth. During World War Two, draft boards rejected about nine percent of our young men because of bad teeth. Our children's teeth decay at the rate of twenty-two million new cavities each year. Obviously we do not know how to take care of our teeth." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

What You Should Know About Skin Care

"What do you know about your skin? You're all wrapped up in it, of course, from head to toe and it's the largest organ of your body. Are you abusing it, taking it for granted, or giving your precious skin the constant care it deserves?" 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

How's Your Eye Q?

"Are you irritable? Nervous? Tired out at the end of the day? Do you have frequent headaches? Digestive upsets? Do you get drowsy when you read or look at television? Are you slowing up in your job or in school? These troubles may come from many causes. They also may all come from one cause: your eyes." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

You Can Have a Better Memory

"In Coral Gables, Florida, recently, a 63 year old woman stepped into the path of a railroad freight train. She was killed, but the man with her leaped aside unharmed. Later he said that they were returning home to pick up the woman's eyeglasses…she had forgotten them at hom. One evening my husband stepped off the bus from the city and walked home briskly. We had dinner and afterwards he retreated to the living room to catch up on some office work. But, alas, his briefcase was nowhere in the house. We looked everywhere, then he remembered...he'd left it on the bus! We phoned the bus line that serves our suburban community. "I'm sure I left my briefcase in the third seat of the 6:01," my husband told the Lost and Found Department. "If you left it, you can pick it up tomorrow at the Department's office in the main terminal," said the man on the other ened. "The driver makes regular trips through the bus picking up all the articles left behind. He turns them in after the day's run. You should see all the stuff we get in here after one day's run!" he said." 

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1959

How To Keep Your Head From Splitting

"If you have trouble with frequent headaches, you're one of the countless millions of Americans who do. No other source of human distress is as common. Just completed, one of the most thorough headache surveys ever made shows that 64.8 percent - almost two-thirds - of the people queried suffer from headaches." 

Headaches and What To Do About Them

"If you woke up this morning with a splitting, dull or throbbing headache, you may find some consolation in knowing that your misery had plenty of company. About three out of five people have the common variety and millions of men and women suffer from chronic pain-in-the-head month after month. Although a headache in itself has never killed anyone, it is one of the most annoying of human complaints. What really brought on your agonzing head this morning? Sinus trouble? Something you ate the night before? Lack of sleep? Chances are the underlying reason is the last one you suspect. Medical authorities maintain that the headaches most easily relieved are those that are clearly recognized for what they are. Once you can identify and understand your own brand of headaceh, you may be able to avoid many of those harrowing attacks that interfere with your job, often cause accidents in errors and judgment, and mar your social and family life." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1960

Your Aches and Pains

"The slender, attractive little file clerk struggles to open a stuck window in her office. Suddenly, she winces at a shooting pain across her lower back… The tall, brawny machinist starts mowing his lawn on a weekend. For the first time he notices a strange tingling in his fingers, discovers that his knuckles have puffed up... Whoever you are, whatever your job, you've probably felt an expected ache in your joints or muscles at some time or other. Maybe you've passed it off as a trivial "touch or rheumatism." But there's danger in ignoring such aches and pains. Any of them may be a red light, the warning sign of an ailment that may cripple you for months - or for the rest of your life." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

Bank Your Blood

"Build a Life Saving Account. Everytime you deposit a pint of your blood in a blood bank you increase your own chances and those of your family of coming safely through an accident or unexpected illness."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

An Honest Look at Smoking

"Most of us benefit from periods of relaxation and we may achieve this pleasure in a number of ways including an occasional smoke. If this statement shocks you, coming as it does from a physician who does not smoke and never has, then of course I owe you a complete explanation. My thinking is not based so much on scientific or medical facts as it is on a simple philosophy of life and health. I believe that everything we do in life involves a certain amount of risk. We can't drive a car, play golf, compete in tennis, swim, fly, cross the street, or take a shot of penicillin without assuming certain risks. We are, in short, always assuming risks. Usually the risks we assume do not intrude upon our consciousness of living. We do not think of them as risks. At other times, we give great thought to them, and we base our decisions on logical and intelligent thinking. Most of us will assume a risk whenever we feel the actual or potential hazards are not out of proportion to the gain. What is the gain in smoking? No matter how you word it, the usual answer is pleasure. You enjoy it. You enjoy it because it may enable you to relax. It helps ease stress and strain, but as we shall see, its relaxing qualities are psychic and not due to a sedative effect." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1960

What You Should Know About Cancer

"Next to heart disease, more people in this country die from cancer than from any other illness. For this reason fear of cancer has reached terrifying proportions. Some doctors try not to mention the word, but veil the reality in talk of "malignancy" or "unusual growth." Some women who find lumps in their breasts refuse to consult a physician and harbour the fear of cancer until, like a psychological malignancy, it takes its toll in sapped vitality and loss of peace of mind. Men who suspect they might have cancer sometimes in mistaken self-pity gradually withdraw from other people, denying life itself. What is lost through fear of cancer, totally without proof of cancer, in productive, joyous living is hard to estimate, but the fear of the disease sometimes does more actual harm than the disease itself." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

What Can You Do Abut Asiatic Flu?

"The current outbreak of Asiatic flue - called a "pandemic" because it is spread throughout the world - is the greatest single attack of influenza since 1918, according to the United States Public Health Service. But, in providing most of the following information about the disease, Health Service spokesmen emphasize that they do not expect Asiatic flue to come even close to the seriousness of the pandemic thirty-nine years ago." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

How to Fight Fatigue

"Fatigue, that plain old tired feeling, is one of the most democratic things on earth. Whether your job is running a country or running a lathe, some of your days probably end with a weariness that reaches right down to your toes. Of course no one needs to tell you that the big medicine for fatigue is food and sleep. You were born knowing that - your hollers for an overdue feeding and nap proved it." 

Alumni Publications Inc. and Richard Hall, 1955

Why Be Tired?

"If you are like everyone else, there are times when you wake in the morning feeling just as tired as when you went to bed. You fight yourself to get up in face the day and you can't explain why you haven't any pep. Other times, you may come home from work feeling "pooped" and all you want to do is have your dinner and collapse into bed. Yet if you were offered free tickets to a good show or congenial friends invited you to a party, all your weariness would vanish as if by magic. Or perhaps you've had an apparently easy day on the job, just sitting at your desk, but you feel drained of all energy. Evidently fatigue can be an elusive, unreasonable, mysterious sensation which doesn't seem to make sense." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1959

What You Should Know About Sleep

"Several months ago I happened to be at a fabricating plant in Detroit on the afternoon a big, hefty machinist almost lost his right hand in an accident. When the excitement in the shop had calmed down, I asked the foreman what had caused the mishap. From what I'd heard, there seemed to be no reason at all for it. The foreman signed. "I questioned Joe about it at the infirmary. You know what he said? At the time it happened he'd felt a little drowsy, that's all. He couldn't get to sleep last night." He shook his head sadly. "I see it all the time. Some of the men come in groggy, hardly keep their eyes open, you can tell they didn't get a good night's sleep. They're not up to par and next thing you know, they have an accident, make a mistake or get in a hassle about some little trifle." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

Your Heart Is In Your Hands

"President Eisenhower's heart attack came as a great shock to most of the nation. Suddenly, overnight, the words "coronary thrombosis," "electrocardiograph," and "arteriosclerosis" were heard on every news broadcast. Many people were alarmed that the President had been placed in an oxygen tent; some people held the mistaken notion that all heart attacks are fatal. Most people, however, were reminded of the fact that heart disease is the No.1 killer in the United States today. The President's untimely attack only emphasized the importance of knowledge about this unseen enemy. As a result, more people have become interested in finding out about heart disease, and knowledge and awareness are our most powerful weapons against such an enemy."

 Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

Helps for Better Health

"Afraid of not getting enough sleep? That fear, drilled into us from childhood, can keep us awake. Mrs, Ralph Cleveland of Chicago smiled with indulgent amusement when she said that three-year-old Susie couldn't go to sleep unless her favorite quilt was tucked in around her - even in July. She laughed more openly when she told of Mr. Cleveland's insistence on a cucumber and cheese sandwhich at bedtime. But she was entirely serious as she described her own insomnia-beater. Mrs. Cleveland hangs her head over the side of the bed until she's slightly dizzy!"

Good Reading Rack Service, 1954 

Picking Your Family Doctor

"In starting out to choose a doctor for your family, you can have several nice, easy routes open to you. You can pick a doctor as you would a supermarket, solely by proximity. Or as you would a fortune-teller, by the rumors you hear about how fashionable he is. Or as you would a beauty parlor, by how pretty his office is. Or even as you would a television repairman, by scanning at random the listings in the yellow pages of the telephone directory. Sounds a little horrifying, doesn't it, to rely on such methods for finding the man or woman on whom your life and the lives of your children may depend? But people land in doctors' offices every day just for such reasons and for others even sillier."

The Kiplinger Magazine, 1954 

When You See Your Doctor

"When you see your doctor…the result of your visit can be satisfying, disappointing, or just so-so. Much of the outcome depends upon how you act and react as a patient." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1960

Your Health Questions Answered

"Everybody seems to have questions about his health. How much sleep should you get a night? How do you cure "athlete's foot"? Should you reduce and, if so, how? The American Medical Association has been answering such questions by mail for more than 60 years. Dr. W. W. Bauer, Director of the Department of Health Education of the A.M.A., has answered 33 of the most frequently asked questions in this booklet."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1959 

Five Helps to Better Health

"A brilliant new science of nutrition, grown out of the discovery of synthetic vitamins, is demonstrating that old age need no longer be regarded as a sad dragging out of existence. There is today chemical hope that for many it can be a period of active, productive life." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1958

Eight Ways to Live Longer

"You can live longer than you think you can. The statisticians may predict a life span of 60 or 65 years for you, the doctors may set a time limit on you, you yourself may in the back of your mind fix the date at which the life insurance companies probably will have to pay off on you. But you can fool them all, including yourself. How? Simply by wanting to live and by having a good time while you do it."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956