V.gabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

Not a bank failure in the United States since the first of the year. Fine! But then-how could they?

we've got deposit".. ;";;e now. That is, we've got one kind. But we've overlooked an important one. Bank depositors today are seriously in need of insurance against having their hoarded money bust through the overtaxed sides of the banks of its own weight, and splash all over the near-by streets.

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A lot of our banks are going to have to further reinforce their vaults and side-walls to guard against such a catastrophe.

I wish something would happen to break that financial ja*. Why won't intelligent people understand that money intelligently loaned on a home intelligently financed and built, is the out-and-out best storage for cash in this country ?

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Lots of friends from lots of places tell me that they can sense evidences of awakening of cash owners to that very fact. It's the safest investment possible. It confers benefits on the builder, and on the town. It puts people to work in honorable and useful employment. It puts money in circulation.

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A few thousand dollars loaned to a good man on a good home really circulates. It goes frona one bank account to another; from one pocket to many others. It goes to work. And, working money to hire working men is the thing that must eventually GENUINELY get rid of depression. *** t*t<>k

When the Government-or the individual investorgoes to buying home mortgages, I hope they will use the intelligence to make both the principal and the interest on same PAYABLE MONTHLY; not annually, or semiannually, or even quarter-annually. Men of small means should meet their outstanding obligations divided into pmaller units EVERY MONTH. Any smart man can ,tell you the wisdom of that.

I believe that Governm,ental assistance to home builders and remodelers is going to do a lot of good. I believe it will be the means of interesting more individual investors in that sort of paper.

I read the other day in a financial publication the opinion that "commodity prices are going to advance stoutly by the coming fall." But what we want is DEMAND. Shucks, we've got prices plenty high enough on most commodities now, but we're shy the necessary DEMAND to make the prices safe and sound. We don't need sharp advances in commodity prices; we need buyers. The price will ndver worry us when we get the business.

Clarence Darrow and his committee gave NRA unshirted Hell. Surely no one who knows Darrow expected anything else. I can't help wondering why President Roosevelt gave him the appointment. He MUST have known what Darrow reas going to say. Everyone else did.

I'm not saying there isn't a lot of truth in Darrow's report. I'm simply saying that it was an absolute cinch that was the sort of report the old giant-killer was going to rnake. I've been watching that old boy too long not to realize that he was going to attack anything any guy of the General Hugh Johnson type was doing. The supreme arrogance of Johnson is to a man of Darrow's type, what the proverbial red rag is to the snorting he-bovine.

The autocracy of the doughty General, and the decided leanings to the left of the Brain Trust, are the two great hurdles that NRA must take on its highway toward accomplishment. The first arouses our normal American com,bativeness; the qecond sends a slight chill up our backs.

I've always believed that in the beginning it was the intent and purpose of President Roosevelt to apply codes to the several great national industries that employ the rnost people, and that the thing broke loose and got away; running into all the little lanes and by-ways throughout the country. Then they imposed a severe sentence on a poor little foreigner in New Eirgland for cutting the price of pants pressing a nickle; and a roar went up that is still echoing throughout the country. Somehow or other the people of this country just don't believe that such actions are the true functions of this great and glorious Government'

The o'ther day they had a meeting in Washington to fix a code for the operators of toll-bridges. Believe it or not, it's a fact. Just where the fool-killer can be when such things are being done, is difficult to understand. The angleworm diggers have not yet been codefied, but it probably won't be long.

Recovery that lasts *rU O" ,J"o.r"r, that aims to work WIT,H the comrnonly accepted laws of nature, and not AGAINST them.

I shrink from reading the very words "government ownership." Government ownership, naturally, means government operation. And, government operation means political operation. And, political operation nreans looseness, crookedness, graft, chicanery, unintelligence, inefficiencylack of most things worth while. Wise men will oppose government ownership and political rnanagement of everything in this country that means anything. ***

Henry Ford showed up in Chicago the other day, and when interviewed he uttered some opinions much like those that have frequently appeared in this column of late. He said that "conapetition is a basic necessity. There must be competition in price, quality, and production." Right ! Remove competition and efficiency dies, initiative disappears, and virility becomes only a name.

He said also, "there will be greater scientific progress in the next fifty years than there has been in the last one thousand; there will be almost alarming discoveries in all lines of industrial and scientific urork." You said it, Henry ! Only the whangdoodle mourneth because of the crimes of progress ! This thinking nation has only gotten well started on the highway to a greater tofixorrow. Only the first rung of the ladder to the heights above, have our footsteps touched. Let the persistently pestiferous pessimists scrap their machines and go back to the bear-skin and the cave. The wise ones are pressing forward, and upward, courage in their hearts and a litany on t[eir lips, ready to wring from the future the greatness they know it possesses.

Had a kidding note the other day from a friend who used to sell California White Pine, but now, under recent court decisions, doesn't know what to call what he sells. He asks what I would think of their calling their lumber "Pale Pine for Particular People" ? O.K. "Pinus Ponderosa for Ponderous Purposes" would probably suit the botanists better; but we don't sell lumber to botanists.

Our modern civilization turns naturally to extravagance and overdoing. We long since changed Christmas from a day of peaceful happiness, well-do,ing, and well-wishing, into a pagan holiday, substituting in place of sweet sentiments a system of gorging, sousing, and foolish spendittg. The founder of Mother's Day, just past, undoubtedly held in her heart a beautiful sentiment. But we've changed that also, into a spending racket, under the exploitive urging of merchants with unessentials to sell.

Last issue I jumped on the growing tendency toward indecency in the movies. Since then I saw one of the most advertised pictures of the hour, a musical revue of the most extravagant sort. flere's a sample of humor of the thing: a bedroon:r scene in the old days in the country, comes on the screen. The man jumps out of bed, grabs a lantern, starts for the door in a hurry, shouting to his wife"'Where's that catalogue?" Thus do our modern movies cast their sweet humor upon a waiting world.

Northern Directors Meet in S. F.

The board of directors of the Northern District, California Retail Lumbermen's Association, met in the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, May 18.

President Harry Lake presided. The directors devoted part of their time to the discussion of the proposed bond issue sponsored by the American Legion.

It was decided to hold the Association's annual convention in November. Details are to be worked out in August.

N(}TICE I(} AtI, PERS()NS ENGAGID IN THE IIIANUFACTURE, DISTRIBUTI(}N, SAI.E

()F I.UIIIBER AI{D TIiIBER PRODUCTS:

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Use

Notice is hereby given that the Lumber Code Authority will convene in open session at the Drake Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, on June I I for the purpose

. Of hearing any interelted penon who har complaintr, criticirmr, ruggestions, cornnrentr or Gornmendation in rerpect of the Lurnber and Timber Products Code and the rnanner in which it ir being adminirtered.

In calling this open session it is the desire of the Authority to secure- as nearly as may be, a reffection of the views of interested parties concerning the Code and its operation. If required, the Authority will be divided into several comrnittees so that every person may have an opportunity to present his views to the meeting.

Following the meeting a committee will be appointed to analyze and digest the testimony and present the subject matter thereof to the Authority with recommendations for appropriate action.

The members of the [.trmber C,ode Authority representing the National Recovery Administration and their advisors have been invited to attend this meeting'