Vagabond Editorials

Bv Jack Dionne

This little strip of light, twixt night and night, Let me keep bright-today. And if tomorrow shall be sad, or never comes at all I've had-today.-Richards. *** f often wonder who actually thought out the Federd Housing Act. I would like to give him credit. Out of the dither and daze of the army of strange efforts and philosophies that have come out of Washington in the last five years, FHA stands out like a beacon light.

*'F* rnstead of plowing or,l"r-"rrl aborting and artificially trying to divert the natural laws, FHA took advantage of one of nature's grandest impulses to help bring back prosperity, namely, the love of a man for his home. ***

It is practical, sensible,, workable. It has done a world of good. It will do a world more in the next few years. So exactly the opposite in thought to so many others of the same period, one wonders how it happened.

Since home building began in this country it has been commonly and frequently agreed that any salesman could sell a world of homes if he could only arrange the finances. What the home builders of this country have utterly lacked for the past generation has be€n low rates of interest and long terms of payment. The opposite has been the rule.

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The same thing happened to actually and literally millions of home builders that happened to the darkey's money in the old story. This colored man deposited his money in a bank. A year later he went back to get it, and the crooked colored banker advised him that his money was gone-"de intrust done et it all up."

That happened. to -trr;, oJ no*", in this land from 1900 to 1930. The interest certainly ate them up. One of the things that sent this nation sliding deep into the mires of depression in 1929 and 1930 was the rate at which our citizens of small means lost their partly paid homes. Nothing hurt the general public more.

Along came FHA and through the Government offered people of small means low rates of interest and long time payments for home building. And now Congress is in the act of amending that legislation to make it even easier for the modest family to own their own home. That change will be made and in efrect in a very short time, from all appearances

*{<* some wag has recentlr- *Jr.,J",

Throughout this land the retail lumber dealer is waiting for it. If there are signs of general business pick-up and employment increase about the same time, home selling will boom. ft won't "bring back prosperity" as some thoughtless-or too optimistic-persons have said. But it will help tremendously, if at the same time the business barometcr is on the up-turn. Terms and rates of interest won't sell homes if conditions are bad.. But if things are better they will bolster the improvement.

Anyway it is a definite step in the right direction, and will help the lumber business, the brick business, the cement business, and all the lines that aid in home building.

"A bootr of tax bills 'neath the Joshua bough, One bite of bread, a jug of desert water, and ThouBeside me moaning in the Poor HouseAh, Poor House! Thou art near enough right now!"

Everybody taking ain"rlrr.l"i." ". the present tax angte. It's a prolific subject. "Figures won't lie," says the old gag, "but liars will figure." *** rF** rfd<*

Congressman John Taber; member of the appropriations committee, has figured it out that Federal taxes in this country have increased from 2E0O million dollars in 1933 to 5500 million dollars in 1937. The national income has increased in that period from 38 billion 100-cent dollars, to 68 billion 59-cent dollars. He says Mr. Roosevelt's prediction of a national income of 10O billion dollars can be achieved; by bringing the dollar down to 40 cents.

But the powers at Washington utterly ignore the tax burden in attacking the present "recession" problem. They never mention it. Yet taxation is the largest single cause of the present condition of "lack of confidence" that all men agree is here.

Lawrence Lucey, writing in "The Commonweal," a national Catholic publication, discusses taxation in most force(Continued on Page 8)

IN FACT AIJ SIGNS SEEM TO SAY THAT TTIIS YEAR WIIJ BE A