The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, December 20, 1937, Page 4

An Independent Newspaper THE STATE’S OLDEST NEWSPAPER (Established 1873) bea State, City and County Official Newspaper Published daily except Sunday by The Bismarck Tribune Company, Bis- ymarck, N. D., and entered at the postoffice at Bismarck as second class mai} matter. Mrs. Stella 1. Mann President and Treasurer Archie O. Johnson W. Simons ‘Vice Pres. and Gen’l. Manager Secretary and Editor Subscription Rates Payable in Advance Member of Audit Bureau of Circulation Member of the Associated Press The Associated Press is exclusively entitied to the use for republica- tion of the news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this Newspaper and also the local news of spontaneous origin published herein. All rights of republication of all other matter herein are also reserved. Each Side Knows the Numbers Politicians regularly try to “kid” the people and big busi- ness regularly tries to “kid” the government but in their inner- most thoughts they are all reasonable people. Each class knows what it wants and tries to get it. That is why they sometimes make public statements which seem to be not justified by the facts, What politics really thinks about the current economic situ- ‘ation is not immediately apparent, but what business thinks is fairly well presented by the Administrative and Research cor- poration, employed by many businessmen to tell it what is go- (ng on. Says this group of business analysts: “From all recent indications and pro! dent, Cummings and Wallace, the administ onus of recovery on and business, holding the administration largely responsible for the slump, is challenged to take a freer hand in correction. This helps govern- ment to hold back on expenditures; helps business to show what it can do with relaxed government supervision, Runaway congress may be brought back into line by the White House again should its ‘work tangle and produce little, as present trend indicates. Thus, administration strategy is still one up on congress and business. Immediate prospect is for sluggishness, confusion, further credit expansion and further budget unbalance. Relief and agriculture will need more federal spending during the balance of the winter. “Early next year, however, business will feel the spur of four major influences: buying, utility construction, relaxed taxes and housing activity. 4 Bi between ‘Railroad Buying: The I. C. C. is expected to 10% to 12% rate increases (15% asked), effective April 1. Decision may be handed in before the end of February. Roads will not wait ‘to release flood of accumulated buying orders. “Utility Construction: New understanding with administration promoted by Powermen Willkie and Carlisle promises to unfasten utility purse strings for part of the 2.6 billion dollar building backlog. Seen: Lower rates, revision of valuation bases, curtailing of holding company set-ups and leas government competition. “Tax Revision: As good as done early in regular session. Scale- down on corporate profits and capital gains levy with allowances ‘and exemptions, Making changes retroactive to apply to ‘37 in- comes, urged by R. F. C.’s Jesse Jones, may indicate new disposition of administration. “Housing: 50 million dollars was allocated to four American cities this week by the housing authority which may soon issue 100 million dollars in securities to finance more building in the near future. Speed now seems to be governing housing efforts ‘and funds may move into building activity a few months sooner than the most sanguine be- lieved possible. 4 That is neither ‘a low moan of anguish or a propaganda statement intended to influence political action or thinking. It is an estimate of a situation by men of more than average ability with better than average means of obtaining information. All the Way on Taxes Senator Carter Glass is sponsoring a law aimed to give the government some of the income which it now loses through tax-exempt bonds. His plan calls for an increase in taxes of a man who holds such bonds; more exactly, it would require such ® man to pay surtaxes on his total income, including interest from tax-exempt bonds. This would considerably increase the flow of revenue to the government, and would provide a neat and painless method of getting at least part way around the tax-exempts. But while we are about it, why not go all the way and elim- {nate the tax-exempts entirely? That would take a constitu- tional amendment, to be sure; but the job would be.done once and for all, and it would be done right. If we are going to tackle the problem at all we might as well go all the way with it. ; Into a Better Job It is not surprising that A. F. Yeager, who recently re- wigned from the North Dakota Agricultural college because he was dissatisfied with conditions there, should have obtained a better job at a higher salary. Yeager was outstanding in his field and even in these days men of marked merit can obtain recognition. A good many of those who left our institutions of learning because of low sal- aries or for other reasons now are drawing better salaries than they dreamed of while in North Dakota. Dr. Yeager has “a way” with plants, just as some physi- i cians are said to have “healing hands.” He understands them and he accomplished marvels in working with them. He benefitted this state as few men have done and was a peculiar glory to it. North Dakota is sorry to lose him. j They Want Our Airplanes During the first nine months of 1987 this nation manu- factured 2,757 airplanes, of which 1,821 were for domestic civil use, 484 for the military services and 452 for export. This is # 25 per cent increase over 1986, Z ind t he SCENES Washington Questions Raised by Business Slump Find No Ready Answers by Con- wervatives or Progressives; Both Seem to Have Lost Faith in Pet Remedies; Outlook Is Foggy. By RODNEY DUTCHER (Tribune Washington Correspondent) Washington, Dec. 20.—This is not one of those periods when anyone whose function it is to prophesy what's going to happen next in government, Politics, business and other national affairs finds himself having very much fun. Under influence of a downward business curve which has been almost mdicular for many months, the velt formula of government by zigzgg has reached the point of zig- zagging so rapidly that it often js impossible to tell a zig from a zag, partly because the quickness of both zigs and zags deceives the eye. ‘Yet there probably is no more con- fusion inside the government as to the future than there is on the out- side—and probably nowhere near as much. The question of who or what started this depression has given way to debate on which forces are now most scared—the adminisration’s or those of “Big Business”? Faith in the curative powers of tax revision bud- get-balencing, attempts to stimulate building and other measures is ebbing. x * * Faith Is Shaken There appears to be real worry in New York that the situation can’t be saved simply by tearing down the New Deal, that private captial can’t and won't take over during a depression, and that no one really knows the answers, Conservatives who believed in an “independent congress” and a balanced budget are now not quite so sure, especially after observing con- gress in its special session. The con- viction grows in Washington that gov- ernment spending is going to have to be used to halt the economic spiral, but that isn’t official because no one will admit it. Proposals from the National Asso- ciation of Manufacturers that govern- ment co-operate with business toward recovery caused hardly a ripple in Washington, perhaps because of a deep-seated conviction that the N.AM is an incorrigible enemy of the New Deal. There are tugs of war between various sets of administration ad- visers as to the nature and extent of “concessions to business,” but these only accentuate confusion. An example of this confusion is the complete uncertainty as to what ex- tent the corporation surplus profits tax will be modified, in view of Roose- velt’s insistence on retaining its prin- ciple in the face of widespread de- mand for repeal. see Assorted Advisers Probability that Chairman Joe Kennedy of the Maritime commission will be made ambassador to England has started everyone guessing whether this is a bad sign inasmuch as it gets perhaps the preside! closest con- servative adviser far away from the White House, or whether it isn’t good sign when Roosevelt demon- strates his faith in his closest con- servative adviser. Almost simultaneously Roosevelt has thrown a package of mingled good news and bad news to both conserva- tives and progressives by appoint- ments of Jerome Frank, liberal law- iyer, and John M. Hanes, Wall Street broker, to the SEC. Dr. Rex Tugwell has just visited Roosevelt at the White House (for lunch) for the first time since he quit the New Deal. Arch-conservative Congressman Bruce Barton of New York, advertising mangate, has ad- vised the N.A.M, to get interested in low-cost housing on the ground that one gesture of “social consciousness” will do more good than all the resolu- tions in the world. * * Rev. Gerald Doing Well The political picture continues to be complicated by the third-term Specter, and there are rumors that High Commissioner-to-the-Philippines | Paul McNut will seek a coalition nom- ination for 1940. The Republican executive commit- tee meets at St. Louis to name a pro- gram committee’ which will be just as much mixed up on the program ques- tion as everyone else. The Republican governors of Vermont and New Hamp- shire, who are expected to be seldom seen and never heard, have both (Copyright, 1937, NEA Service, Inc.) -—__________» | SOTHEYSAY | If these boys, at such a young age, are starting out on a life of crime, it The record is a good one and indicates the strength of this i fast-growing industry, but many will wonder about those ex- ported planes. ___ Some, doubtless, already have been destroyed by the fight- ing in Spain and China. Others are being used as models: by other nations seeking to keep pace with America in military plane design. : There’s a Reason Experts for the American Petroleum association have| ld, held for thefts, 4 * * I want you to know that I was lucky to beat him.—Babe Ruth, who says he has beaten John Montague, “wonder” golfer, four times. 2 * * ** & looked deeply into the American economic picture and now}..Whstever business men may come up with the news that motorists driving used cars have : &pproximately one-third more children than those who drive ~ Bew ones. about the superiority of private enter- it-regulated and that today the governmnt is in busi- ness.—Ernest Weir, head of National Copyright 1937, by The Baltimore WPA—CAN WE KEEP IT UP? It is,of course, true, as Mr. Marriner Eccles told a Senate committee, that if the business slump continues, &ny- thing like the approximate budget bal- ance promised by the President next year is impossible, However, Mr. Ec- cles, who was the first advocate of the ‘New Deal theory, now so sick, of spending our way back to prosperity, did not touch upon the main cause for this undoubted fact—to wit, the routine, recognized reason for the in- creasingly precarious state of our na- tional finances. The difference, in good times or bad, between income and outgo is largely the cost of Federal relief. No matter what other economies are made, so long as relief costs ap- proximate two billion a year, financial equilibrium cannot be recovered, and year by year we will continue to sink deeper into the mire, Every posted man in Washington knows this to be true—and most of them know why. ‘The business slump which, it is esti- mated, will have added 2,000,000 to the roll of the unemployed by February, certainly will greatly increase e weight and cost of the relief load. Mayors of every big city are insisting upon heavier appropriations, vehe- mently protesting any cut. Obviously, if there are more men out of work, more money will be needed to take care of them—that is if the present system of dispensing and distributing relief is adhered to. That is really the heart of the whole question, and there is very little use in Mr. Eccles or the President or anyone else promising a budget balance, s0 long as the present policy is continued. Even if the business slump is checked, ‘barring a great revival and expansion | of industry, no - balance can be achieved. That was shown last year when business was booming and in- dustry putting on men by the thou- sands without appreciably reducing the total cost of relief. All of which comes down to this—with the Presi- Welch’s Spur | dent and practically every aide he has regarding a budget balance as vital, the certainty that tht relief load will be increased next year means that de- Spite all other possible savings, we will be plunged still deeper in the deficit hole than before. Everybody agrees that that involves great danger. Another year of un- diminished deficit and increasing debt will put federal finances so far out that a facing of the facts by the ad- ministration, by and by people is inevitable. And the out- standing fact is that the system of relief which the administration has adopted is the most costly and least efficient of any. There denial of that. It is admitted straight dole would cost half to two-thirds less, It ted that it would be easier minister. It is admitted that it cut down the enormous pense of the WPA, reduce roll and eliminate a great many holders, . sist In defense of the WPA are arguments that it better ‘country to provide some sort of wi for those whom the government support and better for morale of those who have to be sup- ported. For these reasons the ad- ministration has taken the stand that the straight dole is “unthinkable” for American citizens and that the WPA ‘WP: is nee L i REFUSES TO The Great Game of POLITICS fake startet A i YIELD SLAM es Deprived of Certain Club Contract, Declarer Shifts to Spadi Makes It, Redoubled : geneli “eis Heacecai “enough was enough” by doubling. SOLUTION TO PREVIOUS CONTRACT PROBLEM @4Q10987 93 o3 | HAK987 orth, with a freak two-suiter, de- cided that the probable penalty was Not enough and elected to play the pend tneieed, and, pollecs. (he, slr z Be BEE ! | j f : He i il Fie si & | E E | ; E : i g Ly g g ry any i z= z 3 t : fre BE Your Personal Health By William Brady, M. D. Dr. Brady will answer questions pertaining to healt! ease or diagnosis, Write le briefly and in ink. Addi in care of The Tribune, All queries must be accompanied self-addressed envelope. In many cases of chronic bronchiti coughing with expectoration of a large quantity of sputum there is i i de EE physema, (ballooning of air-cells in the lungs) or asthma belly breathing regularly, a half dozen inflations at a seance, “The next time you go to the-barber I want to sit higher up in the chair!” race : Coat of Arms HORIZONTAL _— Answer te Previous Pussia L LCA MESIT JCMIRIUF IE} DA AASNE R iA OOH 0 GL Acie} Y The figures are news but the facts always have been ap- parent. There is a reason why those with few, if any, children can drive better automobiles. ; The fathers and mothers of large families know full well {what that reason is. i Bteel Corp. —— ** * Mf. and Mrs. Gus Hogue, Sr., were Tve read of people committing sul- | guests of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Hogue use . % i bi ‘Where are we. tn ‘Sush for raw materials, almost nation would = 7 os Ee RE any sell ite birth- | ment for __ Mow. titxedo season is fully in, clothes will make the man Jong