V.gabond Editorials

Bv Jack Dionne

Don't think that pompous dignity, On your map should always rally, For the sign I much prefer to seeIs a grin on your Rand-McNally.

*** rf**

"The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall justle one against another in the broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like lightnings." (Nahum, Chapter 2, Verse 4). Who says our traffic conditions are strictly modern?

Socrates walked one day on the streets of Athens, the city of many gods, and one Athenian seeing him said to another: "There goes that INFIDEL Socrates-he thinks there is ONLY ONE GOD." An infidel is a rnan whose opinion disagrees with your own.

*:t*

Ah ! Those headlines again ! "Johnson Assails United States Senators" ! "Johnson Cracks Down" ! etc. Atta boy, GeneraMf you don't keep them subdued some of those Senators are going to get the idea that they are supposed to represent the American people in the halls of Congress.

***

Trying to keep up with the thinking of the hour keeps me continually dazed. .If my logic is sort of befuddled, charge it to that effort. I just can't tune my dumb mentality to fit the logic of today. I add two and two, and I get four. I subtract two from four, and I get two. Every time ! No matter how hard I try, I get the same answer. Which marks me, of course, as utterly impractical to help solve the problems of the moment-or to understand them.

'f**

The other night at a movie there was shown a short political talkie. And when some man demanded to know who is going to repay the billions of dollars we are broadcasting in this land today, almost that entire audience laughed derisively. I gathered that the answer to that is the same as the answer to the time-honored question"What's good for a cold besides whiskey?" The answer is -"!l/fus cares?"

Somehow I can't help thinking that maybe it's myself, and my children, and their children's children for all time to come, who will have to pay it. Just old-fashioned thinking, I guess. ***

Take the proposed continued reduction of maximum working hours under codes. I try in vain to make the philosophy of reducing working hours toward the vanishing point, and increasing wages toward the rnoon, fit in with my old-fashioned concepts of business. And, I just can't make it add up right. I know the mistake must be mine, but I can't do it.

The fixing of maximum hours and minirnum wages is a good philosophy, and one with which I heartily agree. But when this depression ends it will be when we create sufficient NEW jobs to take care of our people, and not by a continual multiplication of those sharing present jobs.

No matter how hard I try I always come back to the same conclusion, namely, that before this depression is all over those who survive will learn more about hard work than they ever dreamed of before. This wound will be healed by industry-not INACTMTY.

Of course we all know the type of employer Mr. Roosevelt has in mind when he speaks of the rights of the worker to a better division of the fruits of industry. He means the well-known whole-hog, better-than-thou, old-feudallord type which has flourished in every industry and in every district, who pays his labor as little as possible in order that he and his may drink deep from the wells of luxury, with no sense.whatever of the rights of ,,the other fellow," no interest in or fellowship for the under man; no idea of stewardship towards those who help build his prosperity. The world has always had these game-hogs. I pause right here to heartily indorse any reasonable method of exterrninating that breed. ***

Yet I am mindful of the New Year's statement of R. M. Farrar, a banker friend of mine (I am one of the few men left bold enough to still claim the down-trodden banker as friend) who calls our attention to the fact that in spite of the examples of injustice that abound ,,we have more comforts, conveniences, and blessings than have the people of any other land or any preceding generation." Right ! There is less disparity between rich and poor, between high and

THE CALIFORNIA LUMBER MERCHANT low, between employer and employed, than there ever was before since this old world was born. Friendship and fellowship between man and man is greater than ever before. ***

Let us now approach in our light-hearted fashion a very simple subject-money. Now THERE'S a subject ! It's a subject that very, very few people know anything about. (If I were under oath and had to tell the truth I'd say it was a subject that NOBODY knows anything about, because I know some mighty smart financiers, and they admit they. don't understand money, and I'm sure they know more about it than do 'the "absdnt-minded professors" of the brain trust, because they've had some). :k**

I won't claim that I even faintly understand our present monetary plans, or what the devaluation of the dollar means. When they voted the new law through Congress the other day, some frank Congressman offered to bet that there were not twelve men in Congress who could explain the thing to their constituents. Some men always want cinch bets ! Ten to one there isn't ONE man in Congress can do it would be a fairer wager. And, if one COULD it wouldn't make any difference because none of his constituents could understand him.

The more $nart men I talk to on the subject the dizzier f get. An unquestioned brainy man told me the other day that devaluation meant infation, and that we must have inflation, and get money in circulation, before business can revive and create millions of needed jobs. About the same' time one of the leading financiers of the nation told me emphatically that until we get "sound money', there will be no confidence on the part of the money powers, and no relaxation of the money stringency. As between the two I lean toward the second man, BECAUSE HIS GANG HAS GOT THE MONEY AND IF THEY WON'T TURN IT LOOSE BUSINESS CAN'T PICK UP MUCH MORE.

You know I've been a"rrt", lo., ,r, these columns for months that if the government would offer home builders the same proposition they offer public works builders, the depression would be over. Yes sir, every one of the millions now employed in artificial work, would get real jobs immediately. We'll have a building boom in this country the very day we find a market at low interest rates and over long terms of years, for building paper. And even at regular interest rates, a market for first-class new building mortgages would cause the business sun to shine. Take the money that is now in our savings banks and invest it in such paper, and the word "depression" would soon become obsolete. ***

I've got another fool idea that I think will help. And it looks as obvious to me as Robert Ingersoll's ans\f,er to Henry Ward Beecher. One day Beecher asked the great Agnostic what he would do if the Lord asked his help in making the world better. Ingersoll replied that he would make HEALTH CONTAGIOUS instead of disease.

**t'

The wisdom of that answer seems obvious. And, it seems just as obvious to me that our chief trouble today is that we put heavy penalties on people who invest their

(Continued on Page 8)