Vagabond Editorials

By Jock Dionne

The best critic story I have heard recently is that of the college student who listened while the professor lectured on the story of the famous she-wolf who found, adopted, protected, suckled, and raised as her own, the two loet baby boys, Romulus and Remus, who afterward became the founders of Rome, thus making the she-wolf a great contributor to human history. When the professor finished this guy yawned and remarked, "Oh, yes, but they tell me she never amounted to anything much afterwards."

Every intelligent man knows that the world will sit on a volcano until Germany is disarmed, dismembered, and dis-Hitlerized. With a blood-mad, degenerate ego-maniac cracking a huge whip ip Europe, the world may well shudder. And, men die crying-"Hail Hitler!" Strange world ! *,f+ we mustn't expect aoo -J"n*of codes. Remember the Code Moses brought down the mountain. It was the shortest, wisest, most useful Code in all human history. It ,was written by that Power that made a billion solar systems, and by that Law that holds them in their places. rfrft

At the rate this modern monster is killing off his critics and enemies without trial or opportunity for defense, he will soon be in the position of the fierce Spaniard of the olden days who lay dying. The priest said to him, "Be. fore you die you must forgive your enemies." "I have not an enemy o,n earth," replied the dying Spaniard. "What?" said the priest, who knew the man's fierce nature, "no enemies?" "Not a one," replied the dying man with deep satisfaction in his voice; "I killed the last one 'yesterday."

Yet at the end of thousands of years this perfect Codein spite of all the efforts of men to enforce it-hasn't really .gotten very far. Millions of people who have subscribed ito its provisions continue to "chisel" on every one of its ten short paragraphs, every day.

In one of the big strikes going on today one of the demands of the workers is LONGER hours per week than their present code-guaranteed. They have found that it isn't the wage scale that counts, it's the amount of cash in the weekly pay envelope.

In my scrapbook of expressive remarks goes the statement I heard made the other day about the New Deal: "The New Deal," it said, "contains some things that are new, and some things that are good; but the good things aren't new, and the new things aren't good."

*rttt

Robert B. Doane, writing in the August.'New Outlook,', declares that a recently completed and dependable survey shows that instead of over-production we are actually running short of our national needs in the production of food and housing requirements, and talles the position that provable figures show that our recent governmental estimates indicating over-production of necessities, are entirely false and erroneous.

:f*t

He says we have recently been falling short of our food requirements production, and that as to housing ..it wiU take the American people fifteen years or an annual outlay of $1O,(X)0,(XX),fi)0 to bring our housing facilities up to a reasonable level."

I would respectfully "t, ,"* attention to one Henry Ford-of the Free and Unafraid City of Detroit. Right now he occupies a more unique position, I believe, than any other American citizen. Here's how. ti*,t

Ever since we began airing our plans for raising prices by reducing products, Mr. Ford has been declaring in most of his public utterances that "there is no such thing as over-production." He has been saying "Mankind should produce forever more; never yet in the world's history has enough of any good thing been produced."

. General Hugh 1orrr,"ol'" trouble is that he doesn't seem to be able to difrerentiate between NRA and ihis pet Blue Eagle. The first is a live and throbbing subject everywbere; the latter is as forgotten as a last year's .:bird nest. The only time you ever hear of it is when the "General bursts into print,

The wise guys laughed loud and raucously at such a wierd phitosophy. And we went ahead and killed off and aborted our food and other vital crops. And now comes the drought-simply Mother Nature throwing rocks at those who would set aside her natural laws-and Henry Ford could well point to his continuous public utterances, and ask, in the famous words of a well known New Yorker of other days-"Who's looney now?"

"That cry of orrur-nrodL",a"l *r. Ford has been saying, "is a money cry, not a human cry." Is there anyone who wishes to rise and debate that statement in the face of things we are looking at now?

>F >i >F

There were plenty of simple country boys like myself who wondered-and asked-last year when crop-killing started, why, instead of destroying or aborting the necessities of life, we didn't produce them and give them away or sell them cheap to the millions of people who were desperately in need of them? That is one question, I imagine, that will never be answered. ***

Still speaking of Mr. Ford: If you are interested in signs of the times, consider his business this year. He has been harassed because he wouldn't sign away what he considered his liberties; if adverse publicity could have hurt hfun, his business would have been destroyed; instead of which the American people have opened their purses as never before, and, in the face of all this official criticism given him the biggest business year in his history. Think that over ! There evidently is still a reward for bowels and brains in this country.

*{(!t t<*t<

It wouldn't surprise me lf Mr. Ford became more famous as a sound and homely philosopher of the Ben Franklin type, even than as an industrialist who has done more to raise wages than any other man in history. He said just the other day that "Americanism is going to save America," and that the greatness of this country is built on its abitity to solve problems "that don't have any answer in the back of the book."

His remarks about our present educational system will probably find a vote of assent in the mind of the average college graduate. He says that turning out millions of graduates into the world looking for EVERY kind of a job when they aren't fitted for ANY kind of a job, is all wrong. "Every child," he says, "has some natural bentr" and should be trained with head and hands along that line.

And, when you read ;" ;i": sayings or rr"rr.y nora, don't overlook the fact that you get better business advice from bees than you do from bed bugs. ***

One of my banker friends wants to know if I think a bank should loan ANYBODY who asks for it? Not at all. Not at all. But I DO think they might haul off and make a loan every now and then, just to keep in practice.

*:t*

In the old days the banks used to advertise-"Pay by check," and they encouraged the housewife and other small fry to have a little bank account, and handle their small business affairs in business fashion. Look what they do today. If your wife keeps her small household account in the bank, and pays her bills by check, here is how it works. They charge at least a dollar a month for "service." If she writes ten checks a month, that means 10 cents per check. Then she pays the 2 cents per check federal tax, and, 2 cents to mail each bill. Those, with a penny for an envelope, makes it cost her 15 cents per check to use the bank-as they used to urge her to do-and pay her bills by check.

:F**

If that isn't teaching people-more than that, it's FORCING people-to get along without banks, I'll make you a watch. She could deliver her bill payments in cash in a taxicab cheaper than by check. It doesn't cost any more to service small accounts today than it did in the old days. Loaning rnoney for business purposes; and promoting thrift by inducing small depositors to have a bank account; were once two well defined purposes for which banks were operated. One balanced the other. Having practically terminated the first, they naturally have to place prohibitions against the second.