V.gabond Editorials

Bv Jack Dionne

An advertising magazine says that a certain'advertising agency is contemplating a campaign of burlesque advertising for a certain brand of cigarettes. Great Scott, Man ! Do you mean to tell me that ALL cigarette advertising isn't burlesque ?

4<**

It is said that on January first, 1928, there were five million people in the United States engaged in the business of selling things, and on January first, 1933, there were only one million. Well, I'd like to see all of those people employed again, but I doubt if it is entirely necessary that they go back to selling. Something tells me we were slightly over-sold. '***

Talk about advertising ! The big oil companies all over the country are spending millions of dollars for advertising, trying to get the people to accept all the free service they give, without kicking.

Decentralization of n"n;";"".rs becoming measureable. Uncle Sam says that there are a million rnore people on the farms of this country today than there were a year ago. And the rate of acceleration from the city to the farm is going to increase in the next year or so, and will continue for years to come. Which means that the country is going to have to be rebuilt. Let us get ready for the rebuilding.

{c**

There is one prophecy I unhesitatingly make, and that is that you can look for the doggondest tide of repairing and replacing and repainting business in this country in the immediate future that you ever saw or heard of. Buildings that are not kept up, run down at the heel very rapidly. So do fences, and all the building things that surround homes. And not only have we built practically nothing for six years, but we have done almost no repairing. **!t

There has never been a time in the history of this country when there was one third as much crying and manifest need for actual repairs as there is at this very minute. And before we build we are going to do this big repair job. Get your thinking caps on, you folks who sell repairing materials, and think how you can best supply this ireed, give the kind of service that will best fit the occasion, and bring home the building bacon. This work has actu- ally GOT to be done. You can help to get it started properly, and to do it skilfully.

{<**

It doesn't require a skilled salesman to convince people that they NEED repairs. And just the minute they get to where they can pay for repairs, they are going to have them. The paint business should encounter a tide of prosperity immediately following the depression that will make their best past sales volume look puny. For the country is run down, and crying for repairs and paint.

*{s*

Folks, it looks like the lumber market-. But let's wait a little. Let's not brag just yet. But, honest to g,oodness, it DOES look like rnre've climbed out of the well, and that the good old lumber business was doing a REAL comeback.

***

They are buying lumber-everywhere. Prices are forging slowly upward. And the lumber isn't being bought for speculative purposes-it's being used.

*** t<**

A whale of an immediate demand for lumber is going to unloose itself the minute this huge Governmental program to put men to work becomes operative. And it will form a nucleus for all the other thousand and one sorts of lumber demand that is now manifesting itself in the ordinary channels.

{< ,8 {.

But so many matters .of almost incalculable importance having to do with our Government's efiort to save business, save industry-yes-save the whole works, are before us at the present time, that it would be a waste of opportunity to use these columns at this time for any other purpose than a calm discussion of the mighty drama in which we are both actors and audience.

I can't help Sppreciating the service Mr. Roosevelt is giving me. In this colunn on April first I said: ,.I'm watching the papers every day hoping to see him suggest to Congress and to the nation at large, modification of the anti-trust laws along intelligent lines in keeping with the times we are living in. The anti-trust laws of our states are no more fit to be applied to business today than the old Mosaic laws are to our present civilization. No longer do we smear our big toes, thumbs, and ears with the blood of a bullock in order to approach the temple of Goil, as Moses cornmanded his priests. But such barbaric rites are as applicable to our present mode of thinking as our age-old anti-trust laws are to our present business conditions."

More than that, Lo*lu"l"u*,hat when Congress had made our needed Federal adjustments, the sovereign states follow suit and do likewise, giving business a chance to breathe. I note with pride that such action is also contemplated in many states throughout the union. No great use in having the Federal Government try to save business and put men back to work unless the state laws are likewise amended or suspended to permit the same sort of associated activity. The Federal action would be largely nullified without state cooperation. When Mr. Roosevelt issued his rules and regulations by which business will be enabled to depart from the strict code of the Sherman Act, every state in the union should immediately follow suit. That is, if they want to share in the prosperity such action will inevitably assist in developing, they should so act. I believe they will.

General, Hugh Johnson, whom President Roosevelt has made director of industrial activities under the new national recovery act, has asked that the various states pass measures providing that during the present emergency it shall not be unlawful "our present anti-trust laws to the contrary notwithstanding, for any citizen or institution to do those things which may be approved by the President in connection with his national recovery program." Any state that fails to follow suit and match its legal relaxation with those rules promulgated by the President for national relief, cannot hope to secure the full measure of relief that would otherwise accrue. ***

Everything the Government is trying to do and the foundation of all that it hopes to accomplish in the present amazing campaign in which one hundred and twenty million people are active participants-and astounded audience at the same time-can be summed up in one magic word-JOBS. That's the whole business. Everything else is artificial. We can have no genuine return toward prosperity until we put millions upon millions of men to work, earning an honorable living, providing for their loved ones, winning back their long-threatened morale.

Any sign of improvement based on anything except increased employment-is false-work. We must rebuild our industrial, economic, and financial structure upon a foundation of employment for our citizenship. When every man who is willing and able to work for a living is doing so,then we'll be home again.

(Continued on Page 8)