Vagabond Editoriafs

(Continued from Page 7) bring to the prospective horne-buyer or builder some assurance of safety. Men have got to have business-safety and job-safety to make them prospective home builders. ***

What we've got to have in this country before we can begin building homes is a general loosening of finances, beginning at the sources of finance, and seeping gradually through all the channels of trade and of business. Banks must begin financing business as in normal times; then business will begin operating more freely, employment will become general, prosperity will reappear-and men will build. Give the business man the assurance of his business success and safety-and he will build. Give the employed man job assurance and income assurance and he will build. We've got to have something besides mortgage money. You can go into any city in this land and buy homes for less than the first mortgage on the property. We've got to loosen our frozen credits-from the foundation.

The most interesting-and perhaps the most intelligent -phophecy regarding business that I have heard of late, was from a leader in the oil industry. He says that the condition in which we find ourselves is more than likely to be to a considerable extent permanent, and that the greatest problem the human race now has to solve is how to Iive happily and prosperously WITH SURPLUSES. He thinks surpluses will be the rule frorn now on; surpluses of most manufactured articles, of agricultural products, etc. We have got to learn to live with them, and still enjoy happiness and prosperity, according to his opinion.

The Secretary of an"

;r""""ry

of the United States pointedly suggested that same thing the other day when he gave an interview to the news agencies generally to the effect that the Government was more than w.lling to loan the money to the banks if the banks would just loan it out again to worthy people. The conclusion drawn from his interview was that the Government was stymied in its efforts to get cash into the frozen veins of business because the Government could only loan the banks, and when they did the money went no farther. Whenever it starts going the rounds like it used to do-things will be O.K. But how are we going to start this needed circulation?

More headlines. One Southern lumberman, discussing the future of the lumber industry, said: "The lumber industry of the South will soon pass into history." Another equally important Southern lumber student says: "The Yellow Pine industry of the South can maintain a production of nine billion feet a year for nineteen more years." So, you see, you can believe whatever you want to. It IS a fact that the depression and its attendant enforced curtailment for want of markets has lengthened the life of the average Yellow Pine mill fully two years, and that scores of mills are still operating that would long have been out of bus.ness with normal productiveness.

Such opinions must be respected when their practical fruits are already in evidence. The oil industry is the only great American industry that is even fairly prosperous, and this in spite of the fact that they are living with at least as great a normal surplus as any other industry; perhaps a greater normal surplus than any other industry. you can close all the other oil fields of the world, and the East Texas field could supply all the petroleum needs of the people of this earth. The Kettleman Hills field in California could probably do the same. Yet, with both these fields and scores of other big fields and innumerable little fields all producing oil, the oil industry prospers. The answer is, of course, the legalized conservation that the thinkers of the petroleum industry have themselves promoted. The conservation authorities can now regulate the production of oil to a point where not a single barrel need be produced that there is not a market for. Isn't that an amazing thing to think of?

I listened with intere.a ""U ,J"n""a the other day while another business leader, a deep thinking man, discussed this matter of living w^th surpluses. He uttered the opinion that every device and every machine that was created that took from the shoulders of the laborer some portion of his sweat and toil, should be a blessing, and NOT a curse, to that laborer. Yet here we find ourselves in an apparent position where the development of those long-lauded "labor-saving" devices have apparently brought the laborer to the verge of chaos. "ff we are one-half as intelligent as we think we are," remarked this gentleman I am now quoting; "we will certainly be able to solve this problem and make this machine-age a blessing rather than a curse to those who labor. If we can't do that, then indeed our boasted civilization is a barren and useless th:'ng."

Certainly we must say Amen to such an enlightened opinion. For years we boasted to the skies every time sorne ingenious person announced some new device to take the place of human labor. We called them blessed' And now they appear to have boomeranged and struck us prostrate. Surely the opinion quoted above is sound, and we will intensify our efforts to the end that mechanically powered things shall take the agony from human shoulders and human souls, and leave peace, and happiness, and leisure in its wake, rather than hunger, and want, and despair. There can be no earthly doubt but that THAT is humanity's big problem for the immediate future.

"This," said Mr. Shakespeare, "is the winter of our discontent.'l Sure ! The FOURTH winter of our discontent, as a matter of fact.

you've naturally g"t ti;a:. to the automobile makers for that good old intestinal fortitude. The grand fight they are making against the paralysis of depression is a magnificent thing to watch. Truly they refuse to take their licking lying down. They have made more improvements in their products in the last year than in the previous ten. And they are out there with such advertising and selling and trade promotion work as would make you think it was a boom period effort you were witnessing. Any man who loves a fighter has got to take his hat off to these automobile boys.

And listen, Mister, ta U"*"'l -"0" any difference who or where or what you are, you can get down on your knees and thank God for the nerve of the auto industry ! Think it over ! Suppose they hadn't taken it this way. Suppose they had run for cover, cut expenses, closed down, laid off the enormous overhead of engineers, etc. What do you suppose would happen to YOU? Do you know how many men are employed in the manufacture of automobiles? In the transportation, sale, distribution, and servicing of automobiles? In the production, distribution, sale, and service of the gas, oil, and other regular supplies of automobiles? In advertising, insuring, financing automobiles? Have you any idea what would happen to this country if THAT industry, with its countless MILLIONS of dependents should collapse-or should vastly retrench? No? Well, don't investigate. The prospect of such a thing w^ll scare you out of your wits. But you can thank God with an earnest heart for the fight the automobile folks are making. If THEY fail, it's back to the farm for all of us, and don't you doubt it !