Vagabond Editorials

(Continued from Page 6) in the prohibition of liquor, and his brother replied that he certainly did-he believed in putting whiskey where nobody could get it but himself. He says our exporters in this country-he was talking to such a group-sharpen their pencils and indulge in lightningJike cerebral convulsions trying to figure how to shade the basis, get the business, and still make a nice profit on sales abroad. "And, what do you think the fellow across the hall, or in Liverpool, Cairo, Bombay, or Rio is doing?" asks Mr. Talley. "When we are piling up .a surplus of 13,000,000 bales of cotton do you think that every foreign spinner is so altruistic that he is impelled to burn up the cables with offers in order to relieve us so that our export figures may be maintained at a high level?"

**1.

Here is a smart little idea he utters, explaining how and why people can go so long without buying lots of things: "Progress in the inventive field, coupled with close competition, has so improved the quality of goods of all kinds that the interval before replacement grows constantly greater; therefore the reassertion of demand is delayed longer after each period of depression. Even the average life of the old bus is now eight and one-half years, and a new suit for father is a real event in the family."

"Economics," he says, lr" *""t sort of bird. ft flies in a straight line; it is the science of continuing events. If I were called upon to describe the term, I would say it is the perpetual competitive force between contending groups. Where do we get by arguing something that cannot be settled by the argument, when cause is followed by effect, and efiect is produced by what the human mass does and we as human beings constitute the mass? There is only one \ /ay, to adopt the philosophy of Christ and eliminate human issues, and I have an oil painting of our doing that ! Do you think that issues between one section of the country and another, those between races, religions, buyer and seller, capital and labor, employer and employee, debtor and creditor, producer and consumer, nation and nation can be prevented from controlling our daily activities and calculations? Well, not for another 5,000 years, anyway." ***

He says that most of our theories today are being advanced by politicians, economists, philosophers, the clergy, socialists, communists, fascists, Democrats, Republicans, progressives, brain trusters, and the whole gamut of our social classifications, "some of whom probably never really earned a dollar in their lives."

Mr. Talley thinks we are getting well, slowly perhaps, but getting well nevertheless, and that perhaps the most certain sign of returning health is the general tide of criticism that is being directed against the recovery ,program. He thinks Americans are too impatient, and want the Government to change its plans before those plans have a thorough try-out. He doesn't approve of the philosophy of Japan but thinks the fine economic position of Japan today, with no unemployment and goods outselling and underselling other goods the world over, is due to the fidelity with which the Japanese have stuck to their Government's approved business philosophies. He thinks we must continue to crlrtail our productivity, while we gradually beat our way b'ack to the point where we won't have to; but that that point has not yet been reached. And, he tells why in a most human and interesting fashion.

I imagine the Eskimo , "n"0" "U in the beginning of this discourse would understand the Japanese plan of fighting world depression'much better than he would ours. Our plan seems to be based on reducing production to raise prices. Japan has aimed to increase production to the nth degree, keep everybody WorkinB, get costs down, and sell her own and the world markets at prices that defy competition from other lands. Of course that shocks our American ideals by making the masses. work for most meager pay-but they ARE working.

I recall the old -"r, o*riro ** Urt"*, and. who said to his pastor who sat at his bedside: "Parson, I've lived a long life, and worked hard, and all I ever got for it was my victuals and clothes, and the victuals didn't agree with me, and my clothes didn't fit." When it's all said and done, what do any of us get out of this world in physical things anyway, but our "victuals and clothes" ?

West Coast Elect Officets

W. B. Nettleton, president of the Nettleton Lumber Co., Seattle, Wash., was elected president of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association at a meeting of the board of trustees held in Seattle on March 8.

F. R. Titcomb, Weyerhaeuser Timber Co., Tacoma, Wash., who was acting president since the last annual n.reeting of the Association, was elected vice president for Washington. Victor Larsen, Forcia & Larsen Lumber Co., Noti, Ore., was named vice president for Oregon. R. W. Condon of the Chas. R. McCormick Lumber Co.. Seattle. Wash., was elected treasurer.