Vagabond Editoriafs

By Jack Dionne this

Don

I have often contended that the three finest things in the heart and mind of man that make tihe world go round and a swell place to live in, are UNDERSTANDING, LOYALTY, and HELPFULNESS. So I little quotation from "Warp and W tten by Blanding: rt**

Do not carve on stone or "He was honest" or Write in smoke on a good." breeze

Seven words, and words are these: (Telling all that could)

"He lived-he he understood.f'

I am grateful to 'ltrt Blanding for writing that little verse. I like it mucho muiho. I shall keep it around. When we get a world where a corisiderable portion of our people live, and laugh, and undersl4nd-1yqn't it be swell? ***

I've been wondering lately, with many a chuckle, if Mahatma Ghandi, with his campaign of passive resistance, wasn't right after all. I'll tell yonr why. It's this new Federal income tax on corporations that threatens to make me a convert of the old boy in the bed sheet.

!ttl*

Several weeks ago a veritable bomb-shell burst in Washington with the announcement of the proposed new corporation tax; something really new that would eliminate the present method of corporation taxing, and place a huge -almost confiscatory-tax on the undivided profits of corporations. It chased everything else off the front page for days. Conjecture rose mountain high regarding what the big corporations-which are unquestionably the targets of the proposed measure-would do to protect themselves. What had happened when they had tried to protect themselves from the Power proposal was well in mind.

*:f:*

They drafted the thought into a bill of enormous size and ponderousness. Then they called out the army, the navy, the marines, and the National Guard-figuratively speaking-to protect the measure while it was. being made into a law. When, lo and behold, what happened? The expected wild-eyed, vituperative, fag-waving, life-saving opposition NEVER SHOWED UP. The bill went through the House like a greased eel, with nothing to slow it down but its own size, and they sent it on to the Senate. But by this time the apparent total indifference of those who were supposed to be gouged and scream with pain, had its efrect. It had a million times more effect than entrenched and furious resistance. In fact, it had such an effect that it killed the plan. ri :* :f

As this is written the Senate Committee has entirely revised it. They have drafted a fat income tax bill, with increased schedules and rates; but patterned exactly after our present-day law. There is a sub-head, providing for a modest tax on undividcd profits, but the big thought is gone. Kilted. Killed by thunders of silence. I recall reading a story years ago concerning an ambitious man whose opponents destroyed him by conspiring not to combat him or fight him-but to forget him. They arranged that a wall of silence be dropped around him. Nothing he did, said, thought, or wrote was printed or quoted. And the thunders of silence destroyed him. The thunders of silence on the part of those who were supposed to be disemboweled by the undivided profits plan, killed the plan. At least it seems mighty, mighty dead right now.

It might be worth *r*-O"rtr. For the past several years the more business fought against proposed laws they thought irnjust or unconstitutional, the faster they were passed. Had business swarmed to Washington to protest that the undivided profits tax would destroy them, that plan would be the law today. Mahatma Ghandi, you're a wise old bird ! I salute you ! ***

Maybe that's the way to do it, after all. Naturally, when something comes up that excites oqr indignation and arouses our dander, we're inclined to rush in and fight for what we consider justice. But maybe in times like these, the smart fellow is the "meek little geek" in the rhyme that goes something like this:

'ff've no cure to suggest when the world goes awry, But sometimes I think that the happiest guy Is the meek little geek who complacently goes With his tongue in his cheek and his thumb to his nose." ***

Help the farmer ! That has been the slogan of this nation most of the time for the past thirty years. It has been obvious most of that time that the economic position of the

American farmer was neither safe nor sound, and, since we all agree that restoration-or perhaps creation, for I'm not entirely certain that the American farmer ever did occupy any very enviable position economically-of farm prosperity is one of the vital necessities, we've given a lot of attention to the problem. At least we've devoted plenty of talk and printers ink to it.

*'8*

And is he a hard guy to help? He REALLY is. I'm not sure that the only answer to the problerri isn't the same one the preacher received in that age-old story of the church service and the baseball game, that were functioning side by side one Sunday morning, the services being inside the church, and the ball game in the vacant lot across the way. The preacher was waxing eloquent in his discourse on sin- ners and their salvation, and at his climax he drew himself up to his full height and demanded in stentorian voice"What shall we do to be saved?" And from across the way there came a roar from the bleachers-"Slide, damn you, slide !" Maybe that's the answer to the question of how to save the farmers.

Frave you, by any "n"rrJ", jool ,""uurs and friends, read or heard the figures furnished by the United States Government on the exports and imports of foodstufrs into this country of late? Well, they'll make you scratch that thin spot on your hair quite a considerable bit thinner. You know, of course, that we have been making efrorts-dramatic efforts you might say-in recent years to help the farmer. By experimentation we've been trying all sorts of things to artificially help the farmer get a better price for what he raises and sells. We HAVE increased his prices, and we've done it by decreasing his production.

**rl.

And then we American people who are shouldering the bill for this artificial assistance to the farmer, turn right around and begin buying the very things we are at home aborting, and buying them in quantities never dreamed of before. Fact. We get the farm products prices up, and ihun -" buy foreign goods because they're cheaper. Aren't we funny folks?

*,t*

Just as an example, now, take hogs and their products. In order to raise hog prices we killed off hogs, aborted them, and paid our farmers NOT to raise them. And then we turned round and deliberately bought, imported and consumed, a perfectly tremendous amount of foreign hog products in the past year. The figures will probably amaze you.

***

In 1932, the year before we began working on hog prices, we imported into this country just 28,875 pounds of hogs. In 1935 we imported 3,4L4,3I7 pounds of hogs. We jumped from twenty-eight thousand to neady three and one-half million pounds in that short time, hogs we bought from outside our borders. But that is only a small part of our pork figures. That was just hogs. ln 1932 we imported 1,657,500 pounds of fresh pork into this country. In 1935 we imported 3,922,609 pounds of fresh pork. In 1932 we bought from out$ide sources 3,015,489 pounds of ham and bacon. In 1935 we imported 5,297,335 pounds of ham and bacon.

When You Sell

STRUCIUNAT

You may jump to the conclusion that pork was an isolated case for some reason or other. Not at all. Most of our other foodstuff figures tell the same sort of story. We got our American prices up, so we started buying our supplies abroad. Take corn. Tn L93? we imported just 347,627 bushels of corn into this country. In 1935 we imported 43,242,296 bushels of corn. The increase is so huge both in bushels and percentages, as to defy figures. We didn't consume all of the 200 million bushels of corn we produced here at home, mind you, but we sent out and bought over 43 million bushels.

***

Canned meats, butter, eggs, barley, wheat, rye, tapioca, hides, soy beans, oats, all took huge increases in our import lists. Some of them jumped from nothing to large amounts between 1932 and 1935. Even cottonseed cakes and meal, mind you, took the same route. We imported only one million pounds of cottonseed meal and cakes into this country in 1932, and in 1935 we imported 59 million pounds. And all the time raising cotton and cotton products we didn't know what to do with.

**rt

What do we learn from these startling figures? Durned if I know. I'm a little dizzy most of the time, anyway, and economics, tariffs, and sich like, make me a whole lot dizzier. I can come to just one conclusion from such figures and facts as I have just quoted, to-wit: At the rate we're saving the American farmer, the answer to the question, "'What are we doing for the farmer?" nray be-"We're eliminating him, and raising our grub in other countries." Sorta looks that way.

Carl Bahr Elected Presidcnt Califiornia Redwood Association

Carl Bahr was elected president of the California Redwood Association at a meeting of the directors held in San Francisco, May 11.

Henry M. Hink, Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Co., is vicepresident of the Association, and J. W. Williams is secretary.

\(/ill Show Redwood Sound Picturc

"California Giants," the California Redwood Association's new sound moving picture, will be shown at the meeting of Lumbermen's Post, No. 4O3, American Legion, to be held at the Army and Navy Club, llth and Broadway, Los Angeles, Tuesday evening, June 9. The meeting is called for 6:30 p.m. and the dinner charge is 77 'cents. Lumberrnen who are interested in seeing the picture are invited to attend the meeting and can make their reservation through Leo Hubbard, Hayward Lumber & Investment Co., Los Angeles, telephone CApitol 6191.

H. B. HEWES BACK IN CALIFORNIA

H. B. Hewes, nationally known lumberman, president of the Clover Valley Lumber Company, arrived in San Francisco May 13 after spending several months at his old home in Jeanerette, La.

In speaking of the improvement in the lumber business Mr. Hewes remarked that he has rarely seen a more optimistic bunch of lumbermen than those he met at the recent Southern Pine convention in New Orleans.

Formerly known in the South as the "Cypress King," Mr. Hewes still takes a great interest in the Cypress industry, which he says is doing well, due to its consistent trade promotion and advertising policy.

W. T. WHITE ON EASTERN TRIP

W. T. White, president of White Brothers, San Francisco, left May 31, accompanied by Mrs. White to attend the wedding of their niece, Miss Claire Faitoute to Mr. John White at Short Hills, N. J., on June 15.

While in the East Mr. White will call on some of his company's connections and will visit a number of the hardwood dealers in New York and Chicago. He expects to be home about June 25.

A. S. MURPHY IN EAST

A. S. Murphy, president of The Pacifi,c Lumber Company, San Francisco, left May 2A on a business trip to the Eastern States. He expects to be back about the middle of June.

Visits Hammond Plants

George Windeler, president, and Fred Windeler, vicepresident, of George Windeler Co., Ltd., San Francisco, manufacturers of wood tanks, accompanied R. E. (Bob) Caldwell on a trip to the Hammond & Little River Redwood Company's plants at Samoa and Fairhaven around May 1.