V.gabond Editorials

Bv Jack Dionne

I DID have in mind promoting a Federal law forbidding too-rapid divorcing and re-marrying in this country, but since the Roosevelt family seems to out-Hollywood even the motion picture stars when it comes to getting rid of mates and getting new ones, I fear my law would be doorned'to Presidential veto.

Got a new angle on how the dole works. A friend of mine just back from England says he asked an Englishman who said he had been on the dole for several years, if he ever got a chance to take a job and get ofi the dole. The man said yes, he did; said that just the week before he had been offered a job. When my friend asked him why he didn't take the job he said: "Well, I get l0 shillings on the dole, and the job only offered me L2 shillings, and you know a man can't afford to work for 2 shillings." Which explains very well indeed how difficult it is to get a man ofr the dole, once he gets on..

Feeding the worthy needy is a blessed duty; but putting a premium on poverty and thus creating a perrnanent pauper class, is a terrible mistake. **:N.

Looks like the Lese Majeste days are over, so far as the White House is concerned. f've heard almost as many stories recently told on both Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt, as I have on Mae West. Even Will Rogers, whose chief business in life is catering to the great, pulled one on Mrs. Roosevelt the other day. He said he wanted to send her a New Year's message, but didn't know where to reach her. Her travels, and talks, and writings, and the fact that she is getting more in the limelight even than her husband, is getting her plenty of cute digs from all directions.

Itaty has a "brain trust" too. And, believe me, when he speaks, they listen. * * 4.

Some wise man warned us a year or so ago that ,.bureaucracy is a creeping sickness." It DOES seem that bureaus breed and multiply almost as fast as rabbits. The difference is that rabbits can be eaten, while bureaus have to be fed.

*t:1.

The pessimist and the optimist were talking politics. The pessimist spoke of a recently elected politician, whose entire lack of intelligence, ability, and character he proclaimed in unmeasured terms. "But," said the optimist, ..there is one thing that must be said in favor of his election.,, ,.And, what can that be pray ?" asked the pessimist. ,,IIis successr,' said the optimist, "will be an eternal inspiration to every ignorant, worthless rascal that aspires to run for public office.,, And so, you see, he who seeks for good may find it anywhere.

***,

We hear a lot about "the forgotten man" and everyone seems to have a favorite entry for .'the forgotten man', handicap. To me the most thoroughly ,.forgotten man" seems to be the worker in a plant where a strike has been called who wants to keep on working. The right to strike has been ably defended by many; the right to work is one privilege that seems without a real champion at the present time. Yet we hear much of unemployment ! rF** whatever you may ;J ol nt* otherwise, General Johnson is a magnificent writer, and he puts his thoughts into words that crash right into your think-tank. He starts right off by giving his successor in NRA a light lacing. He says that when Richberg recently warned industry that unless it re-employed the idle millions, Government would, hesmacked of the modern cave-man "who wooed the object of his affections with the statement: 'Love h€, - - - - you, or f'll beat you to death !' " ***

General Hugh Johnson, giving his recent gang-the Federal Administration-unshirted Hades in The Saturday Evening Post, says that he never rnet anyone and never heard of anyone who knew anything much about money. Since the doughty General knows all the gang that has been trifling with the money situation at Washington, am f assuming too much when I venture the suggestion that he means the big boys are trifling with a brand of dynamite they know nothing about?

"To demand," he says on this subject, "that industry at once give employment to 10p00,0fi) men is a demand that it produce far more goods than it can sell, or increase its plant capacity when there is no market for its product. No responsible management can do this." Again he says: .,No amount of belaboring business by men who never conducted a business in their lives is going to change these essential responsibilities."

"Men can't go back to work," he says, "until money goes back to work, and money won't go back to work until those who have or are responsible for money to inve'st in creating work know that, once it is out of their hands, no magic is going to frisk it away like fairy gold turning into crisp and colored autumn leaves. It is perfectly clear that recovery in a big and quick and powerful wave av'aits only an impeccable assurance.in d.eeds, and not words, that no such thing will happen. That is all there is to it. It could be done immediately. And unless it is done promptly, there is no end in sight."

He tells of a certain J ; ,lo*, personally who is so situated that if he made a dollar, 83 cents of it would go to city, county, state, and national taxes. "It is going to be pretty hard," says General Johnson, "to convince him that he ought to take any kind of a risk at all to make a dollar," when he loses it all if he loses, but gets only 17 per cent of it if he wins.

The Generat is ,,uttinj if t": versatile. He gives the President a pat on the back here, and a kick in the pants a minute later. He says Mr. Roosevelt is O' K' but that most of his recovery efforts are a lot of hooey, etc', etc' IIe finally remarks that with a little display of intelligence we would have this depression over in ninety days.

Personally, I hail Johnson's writings for two reasons' First, I like to read stuff that has dynamite in it, and is logical at the same time. Secondly, I think one of the surest signs of recovery in this country will come when men begin to speak out in meeting. We've done so doggone much "yessing" in this country in the past two years that it almost gives a guy the screaming meanies sometimes, waiting for someone with a mind of his own to say something. When everyone begins kicking about everything you will know the depression is over. It is fear that makes men tongue-tied. A nation is just a group of men' And, when a man is sick and bed-ridden and frightened he is going to die'(and most sick men are terrible cowards), he is meek, and tractible, and awfully low spirited. But when you see him cross and quarrelsome you will know he has thrown off his fear and is getting well. Nations are the same wa''

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General Hugh Johnson is right when he says that few if any people really understand money. I know because I explained the money situation thoreughly in the past year or so to groups of business men which included many bankers, yet when I had finished not a man in the house understood it. Just goes to show what a deep problem it really is. ***

We need three rnajor codes in this country, and if we had ' (Continued on Page 8)