V.gabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

Reports from everywhere indicate that the nation is coming out of the huddle it has been in. Money .shows up from everywhere. Merchants of everything from shoes to ships report that they are getting paid in greenbacks that haven't seen a bank in a long time.

tF :i :F

One real estate man sold a modest home for five thousand dollars. They drew up the papers and sent for the man to come in and sign up and pay off. He signed up, and then when it came to paying off, he pulled a small baking powder can out of his pocket and shoved it across the desk. It was full of big bills. The real estate man counted them and found four thousand dollars. "Say," he said, "there is just four thousand dollars here and the price is five thousand. How about it?" "My mistake," said the buyer; "I gave you the wrong can."

,:F {. * of Government can expenditure of money be justifiable to men who have suffered no war-connected disability or loss whatever. Still less can it be justified to the dependents of such men."

Sinclair Lewis announces that he hopes to see the return of the open saloon. I didn't think anything on earth could lower my past opinion of Mr. Lewis-but I was wrong, folks-I was wrong.

And he tells us ,n". "lr"luy] -itt the war but a few years past, we are paying to men and the dependents of men who have no war-connected disability, four hundred millions of dollars annually, and that it grows by leaps and bounds. Mr. Baruch suggests that these words added to the veterans' appropriation act, would save the country four hundred million dollars annually: "No part of the appropriation under this act shall be paid to any person except for or on account of an actual war-connected loss or disability." Who, in fairness and justice, can say "Nay" to that suggestion? For they say that at the rate this one demand upon Government is growing, it bids fair to devour us in a few years more.

The Yale "News"

,"""rLrr**lrarked

that politics of today is "no longer a decent profession," nor a fit career for a college graduate. Verily I say unto you that politics, as it is played today in these United States, would turn the stomach of a Digger Indian. And THAT tribe of Indians, I'd have you know, have SOME stomachs.

*t<*

"He who neglects his imagination allows the key of success to rust," said a wise man. True. Imagination is the architect of the business man. It lays his plans, blales his trails, directs his actions, and enlightens his mental pathway.

:N< ,N< *

Bernard M. Baruch, Chairman of President Woodrow lVilson's War Industries Board, writing in "Nation's Business," tells how easy it would be to REALLY cut down our federal budget, if we just had the intestinal fortitude to go ahead and do it, instead of weak-kneeing around the subject. He says: "No one, least of all the writer, will ever be heard to protest the amplest measure of protection, care, and compensation, to any former soldier whose full bodily or mental vigor has been impaired in the military or naval service of his country, or to those who became dependents on such men before such impairment. But under no conqeivable principle of responsibility or duty

And now, after years ", .a"J"",r"n, building will start anew. The building urge, always volatile, will do pyrotechnics. Don't doubt it ! When for years you starve the builders of this nation you but dam a food that will leap all barriers at last, and swell the higher because of its lengthy term of inhibition. And the building vacuum has been of much greater duration than in other lines. The building business had slumped painfully and visibly for two years before the depression generally had started. We've got at least five years of quietude behind the building business. When it starts you won't be able to stop it.

*

Especially home buildiJg.

The ancient love of man for his shelter has gone dorun into song and story from ages that are dim with the dust of the past. The HOME that holds for woman all the treasures of her heart and mind, will always rank with mankind's dearest possessions. ***

It's a charm that creeps into the hearts of rich and poor alike; a bond of kinship between those who labor, and those who are blessed with this world's goods. To own a home ! To say, as you return frorn your day of toilwhether it be from field of waving corn or frorn mahogany desk-THIS is MY hearthstone-is a sentiment so filled with goodness, so free from alloy, as to deserve the name of blessed.

(Continued on Page 8)