Vagabond Editoriafs

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A famous lawyer used to say that the best way on earth to beat a tough lawsuit was to laugh it out of court. That's the way to handle this business depression. A recent issue of the Saturday Evening Post had a leading article by a famous New York stage comedian discussing present business conditions. He laughed them out of courl That's good medicine. It has a thousand times the effect of a serious discussion and diagnosis of the situation.

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.I think the movies have done some good work in this line also. No business in the country has been hit harder than the movie industry. But recently a number of good comedies have been made, exaggerating business conditions so that you roar aloud at seeing and hearing them.. There's no better way to cure this condition. Laugh at it, and we lose our fear of it. ***

For THIS is by far the rnost psychological of all the business depressions this country has known. In business depressions of the past money was scarce, and the necessities of life were scarcer. Today the banks overflow with money, and the necessities and luxuries of life exist in such great quantities that they are generally credited-or c[rarged-with causing the depression. We've got everything on earth we need-and more. We have simply quit trading with each other. That's all. When we find that out, and start trading again,.the cloud will disappear in a hurry. That's why laughing at this situation can be effective. Because it's silly, anyway. * * *

I have before me a note from a distinguished lumberman. He ends up: "We have the sheriff on one side of us, and the Governmer-lt on the other. It's Hell if we do, and it's Hell if we dontt." * * {3

Correct. And we don't know which way to turn. 'We're in the fix of the countryman in the old days, who used to drive his team of oxen to town every Saturilay, get drrmk, and let the oxen pull him home sorne time in the night. One night he lay drunk in the bottom of the wagon, and the oxen after topping the rise to a down-hill haul for home, started to run. The wagon swayed wildly from one side of the road to the other. The jostling waked the farmer, who came to a sitting position, and shouted to his oxen: "Hey you Sam! H"y you Buck! Ge+if an5rthing."