Vagabond Editorials

(Continued from Page 6) up the consumer pays it. And the consumer in this country can't stand any more taxes. Therefore we m,ust cut the expense.

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Do you know what our debts are? In 1919 our national dbbt reached its high point, $26,000,000,000. But the state and municipal debts totalled only $4,000,000000. We cut the national debt to $16,500,000;000 in 1929, but in the meantirne the states and municipalities had gone on a spree and owed $13,500;000O00. That's what they owe today, and our national debt has crept back to $18,000,000,000, so that we now owe about $31,500,000,000. That's more than we owed in 1919 when our national debt was at its peak.

Yes, Sir !I don't know how long our present troubles are likely to last. But one thing I DO know, and that is that if we want them to last forever-with ten per cent added for good measure-all we have to do is to raise taxes instead of cutting expenses. The higher the tax, the less the buying power of the individual, and the higher the cost to industry. And the only way out of our present tro,uble is increased buying power for the individual, and lower cost to manufacturers.

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The incorrigible economic ass who would raise our tax burden to balance our budget, instead of understanding that only by relieving us of that already unbearable and unreasonable load can we rise from our present condition, should be prornptly tapped for the simples, and relegated to some position where his financial folly cannot harm his neighbors. We shall never again sail the sapphire seas of prosperity unless we dismiss and dethronre navigators of such hopeless incapacity.

God pity the railroads ! In your business, Mr. Business Man, you can use and are using every form of human ingenuity of which you are capable, turning, twisting, cutting, fitting, zigging, and zagging, without restrictions of lhtidtrde or lbngitude in your effort to save, safeguard, and preserve your business existence. You are finding the going to be rough, and the hills to be high, even under the mbst favorable conditions.

On top and in addition to all these acts of providence that try strangle holds on you from all sides, how would you like to be required to ask permission before yo.u could perform any and every act of self-preservation? THAT is what the railroads are up against. They are told what they can and ca[not. do; what trains they shall run; ]vhat Serv- ice they shall make, etc., etc., etc. Trying to walk a tightrope across Niagara Falls with a millstone around your neck would be a simple feat compared with what the railroads are up against in times like these.

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And men who should know are frank to proclaim that in this'time of emergency when the Justice of an Aristides, the Wisdom: of a Solomon, and the Understanding of a Franklin would be sorely tried and strained to meet the inevitable trials and tribulations that must be confronted, the justice, the wisdorn, the understanding, and the helpfullness of the fnterstates Commerce Commission is anything but corrnnensurate with the necessities of the hour. *** t** t(*rf

Every man capable of reasoning from cause to effect believes that in times like these there belongs to the railroads, as to other lines of effort and industry, an inalienable right to attempt their own self-preservation with something of the liberties granted to other men and other business. They can't swim this current with handcuffs and footshackles.

B. C. Forbes, in his magazine of business, discussing,the attitude the I.C.C. has assumed in refusing to sanction certain loans to railroads which had been agreed upon by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, declares that "the commissioners have miserably fallen down on their job;" that "they have been strangulators rather than regulators;" and offers the opinion that "it is inconceivable that ways and nr,eans will not be found to check the Interstate Commerce Commissioners' ruinous course and clothe the R.F.C. with adequate power to accomplish the vitally important task assigned to it."

Poor old railroads !I shalt never forget when-during the war-we turned the railroads over to the Government to run. There shall not soon be.erased from my memory the vision of the announcement cards that were printed, and placed upon the end walls inside every passenger coach. The wording of the announcement is long forgotten. But at the bottom of each card, printed in huge type so that the dimmest eye could not fail to read it even the full length of the car was the name of-W. G. McAdoo. That name was always printed in type several times as large as any other on the card. f trust that the railroads have carefully preserved some of those cards. They should be posted where posterity could,look-and ponder.