V.gabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

There are a lot of commercial, industrial, agricultural, and financial signs right now that definitely point UPWARD. You don't suppose, do you -? ***

Students of history are bursting into print every day now in our magazines and newspapers, striving to comfort us with the declaration based on the history of all previous civilizations, that too great prosperity enervates, degenerates, debilitates, and destroys; while times of adversity strengthen, inspire, enthuse, and elevate.

Quote me saying that if this be true, f have been strengthened, inspired, enthused, and elevated in the past two years to an absolutely alarrniing degree.

Does advertising pay? Ask the coffee man. Every bum that hits you for a dime wants it to buy "a cup of coffee." I'll say it pays !

Every now and then some guy tells the truth about a subject so directly artd simply that it is more forceful than any rhetoric. I was just reading one of the speeches ot this interesting fellow He4ry Field, the countryman who has been nominated for U. S. Senator in Iowa on the Republican ticket (the late J. P. Dolliver used to say that "Iowa will go Democrat when Hell goes Methodist"), and this is what he said about Government in business:

"The Government never got into business of any kind without messing it up. They messed up the railroads. They messed up the shipping business. And they messed up the grain prices and most everything they ever touched. The Government can't even build a battleship economically. They tried to build one in competition with an.other ship on exactly the same plan built by a private shipyard, and the Government-built ship cost 30 per cent more to build and took four months longer to complete, although they didn't pay a cent of taxes or overhead." Three cheers for pJain. talking Mr. Field ! ***

Most poliiician orators sit blinking on the dead limb of political heredity, hooting the same hoots that have been hooted ever since politics began. Once in a while, though, someone climbs out of the rut aqd utters something that repays you for your listening effort. The other day I heard one politican flaying another, and I gurgled with delight when he uttered this potent play on words and logic: "Some good and wibe men will probably vote for him," said the speaker, "but my observation is that the GOOD who db so, are NOT WISE, and the WISE who do so, are NOT GOOD." That paid me for my time. ***

There are tens of thousands of dog hospitals, dog doctors, and dog nurses all over the land today, charging the sissified owners of anaemic modernized and spoiled dogs millions upon millions of dollars annually for doctoring, nursing, and pampering the present-day degenerate descendents of the good old dog of years gone by. A pampered and spoiled generation of people have carried their ideas of modernis- e.'en to their dogs, and as a result we find them lazy, spoiled, expensive, unhealthy, far less alert physically and mentally than the dog of ye olden time. Even the dogs have gone to the dogs. rt** rlt**

One state in the union has passed a law reguiring every drug store to employ a registered pharmacist. Ridiculous ! Since when did making and serving toast, near-chicken, and Coca Cola require a chemist?

If the railroads do not receive some business soon, there'll be receivers. But then, if the feceivers do not receive any business-what?

*,1 *

It's vacation season. And, while a few fortunate ones are enjoying themselves, ALL the rest of us are waiting for Old Man Depression to take HIS. ***

The fellow who counters every suggestion or prediction of better times with the question "what can you point to that is going to make conditions better?" continues to be persistently pestiferous. He doesn't stop to consider that if his agnostic measuring stick be built on truth, things can NEVER recover. ***

THIS f know, and from it I take continual encouragement; for thousands of invulnerable reasons we HAD to HAVE a panic; we've got a panic; and when it has run its course, the panic will pass. Some day we will say to

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