V.gabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

The farming business must not be as bad as the farmers claim. Tell you why I think so. I've called on and visited with a whale of a lot of business men in the last few weeks, and nearly every one of them says to me before we get through talking: "Boy, how I'd like to sell this business and go out and live on a farm for the next year or so, until this thing is over." ***

So you see, the farming business can't be so very bad, or all these industrial folks wouldn't be wishing to get into it. :f*t rf {. !&

That's the way it is in this life. The farmer envies the business man, with his good clothes and private office and his many signs of luxury; and the business man envies the farmer who has no Code, no NRA, no Section 7a, no fear of taxes, no fear of infation, but who can smoke his pipe, put out the fire, call the dog, and go to bed to dreamless slumber. If his stomach is a little empty, it still beats nervous indigestion all to Hades.

Verily it is a tr,." ."yirrf, a*, an" pastures the other side of the fence always seem more green than those on our side.

Personally I'll have to take the business man's choice in this little argument. If I had a dollar in cash for every time in the last year I've tried to wish rnyself away back yonder away from telephones and newspapers, I'd be rich today beyond the fondest dreams of avarice. flowever, it looks like I'm not much of a success as a wisher. ***

A famous lawyer once said that his law firm had three departments; one for those who were in trouble and wanted to get out; one for those who were out of trouble and wanted to get in; and a third for those who were out of trouble and wanted to stay out.***

Looks like there is only one class of business men in this country today; those that are in business and can't get out. And what we need is two additional classes; one that is in and wants to SPREAD out; and one that is out and wants to get in. ,F{.*

Indecision continues to persecute the lumber industry. For rnonths past uncertainty about the future of the Lum- ber Code has kept business reduced to a minimum. It's that way again.

Every report from Washington since the retirement of General Johnson, agrees that NRA is wallowing badly, and that price fixation is doomed to be the first limb to be lopped off. The Lumber Code Authorities met in Chicago to decide about price fixing. They announced that price fixing would continue, and that enforcement would be arranged. ***

At about that same hour NRA Boss Richberg announced from Washington so that the public might read, that all price fixing would likely be dropped. Washington writers agree that President Roosevelt never believed in it. But three or four days later comes another public statement from Richberg. It may be that in the natural resource industries some form of price protection may be continued, he said. And as this is written the lumber folks sit looking at one another, and wondering "what t'Hell?"

You can imagine no* it Jn*."u"".. the sale of lumber. And with judges and courts here and there handing down decisions adverse to the enforcement of price fixing, the waters grow more and more muddled.

So it seems that the unanswered question with regard to lumber at this minute really is, shall they eliminate price fixing and let everyone cut the price, or hold onto price fixing and let only the countless army of bootleggers do it?

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A smart man told me the other day that every other man who enters his office brings some subtle suggestion for getting around the Code. I've had some offered me that weren't so dumb, either. ***

The crack-down days are over. On your way, General Hugh Johnson ! You had courage, and intelligence, and color, and loyalty, and your worst critic will cheerfully admit that you are a mighty stout fellow, and a high minded American citizen. I disagreed with you in a whole lot of things, but I admired you as a rnan who stood foresquare for his own convictions.

{i :N. *

No one can ever call you a fence rider, or doubt where you stand. God protect and keep us always from that whispering crowd of monkey-doodles they call fence riders; rJEo sit perched high on the fence of opinion, daring not to u6isper their creed until they have discovered to their comppte satisfaction which way the wind blows-and then blrows with it. You never were one of those, General !

The tax-payers' association in the District of Columbia made an investigation and discovered that ten per cent of the people on the relief rolls in Washington drove up after their rations in automobiles: a considerable number came in taxicabs.

You don't suppose those are the folks President Roosevelt was talking about in that recent radio speech when he spoke of "the privileged few" do you? **{<

And, did you hear what he said about bankers? I thought that sounded like a dirty dig when he uttered it. And, from what'I've read since in banking journals I gather I wasn't the only one that thought so.

Now, r've been pouri:, : ;** salt in the bankers' wounds myself now and then. But Mr. Roosevelt and I are "cussing" them for quite opposite reasons. He suggests that they haven't helped the Government in its recovery efforts. I thought they'd been sort of overdoing it. **tl.

I read that about two-thirds of the entire banking resources of the United States are now invested in Government securities. My word, Mr. Roosevelt, they have to keep a little cash on hand to make change with, don't they? ***

I've been thinking that if they didn't trade all their deposits for Government bonds just the minute they got hold of the money, they might some day get tired of storing it and loan some of it to someone who would put some of our unemployed to work. But I fear-in the light of presentday thinking-that that is an impractical thought.

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