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Show A Proposal to Defer the Chain Store Tax Referendum in the Interest of a United War Effort This letter is published for the information of the public and especially the 54,263 qualified Utah voters who signed petitions referring the proposed special tax on chain stores to a vote of the people at the General Election Nov. 3, 1942 Jl February 14, 1942. Mr. A. D. Stewart, President, UTAH RETAIL GROCERS ASSOCIATION, INC Salt Lake City, Utah. Dear Mr. Stewart: The retail chain stores of Utah have authorized me to place before your Association a proposal for cooperation in a joint action in connection connec-tion with the referendum on Senate Bill 44 (the chain store tax). Under existing Utah law, this issue will be voted upon by the people at the general election on November 3rd, next. We assume that your Association, as the publicly acknowledged sponsor of S. B. 44, will, undertake a campaign to persuade the public to vote for your bill. And since S. B. 44 is aimed 'solely at chain stores, and would be a .sentence of slow death for chain stores, our members have no alternative but to defend themselves, to the best of their ability, before the bar of public opinion. In arranging for the passage of S. B. 44 you undoubtedly believed that it was of great importance to the competitive interests of your members. We may also assume that the 54,263 qualified Utah voters ! who signed referendum petitions did so in the belief that a complete air ing of the facts, culminating with a vote by the people of Utah, would be in the public interest. We fully acknowledge that our members have a "life and death" interest lin the decision of the voters. However, we cannot help but believe that all of these interests in this issue have become less important since December 7, 1941. There is only one issue now confronting us, as Americans, today the necessity of '" conducting ah 'all-out defense of our nation '' in' its 'hour tf greatest ' " - -jeopardy. At a time when American soil is under invasion and American lives . I are being sacrificed in its defense, we believe, as we are confident that you do, that in a period of such grave national peril we should submerge our internal differences and meet unitedly the emergency that faces us. , The present war is total war. It is a conflict in which all of us have a place, and which demands of each of us the utmost in time, money, and energy. It is a struggle in which it would be criminal to do less than our best. Both independent and chain retailers have an important task in this war. We are depended upon to assure the steady flow of available avail-able supplies so that production may proceed unhampered, and civilian morale be maintained at a high level. Our contribution is distribution. We are in the army of supply. For these reasons, we propose that your Utah Retail Grocers Association Associa-tion unite with us in a petition to Honorable Herbert B. Maw, Governor of Utah, requesting that he place before the Utah legislature, if a special session meets prior to August 1st, 1942, a recommendation that the legislature legis-lature act to suspend the vote upon S. B. 44 until a general election following fol-lowing the cessation of hostilities. Counsel assure us that this is entirely feasible, and that the rights of your Association, those of the public, and of ourselves, will be in no way injured by the postponement. Acting upon the assumption that your membership would prefer, as ours does, to be free during the time of trial ahead to devote full attention atten-tion to the war effort, we are submitting for your consideration an . opinion covering the question of the legislature's constitutional authority author-ity to order the. postponement, together with a suggested measure to accomplish this objective. A copy of this letter, with attachments, is being forwarded to Governor Gover-nor Maw for his information and because this proposal has been substantially sub-stantially inspired by his many splendid statements regarding the necessity for complete undivided effort in marshalling all of Utahs facilities for the job of winning the war. This letter is being published as a paid advertisement so that the 54,263 Utah citizens, in every county of the state, who signed referendum petitions on S. B. 44 may also be informed of our proposal. We sincerely hope that you will accept S?0.1 that our joint petition will result in favorable legislative action and that it will be possible to arrange for further whoIeh;a;ednP"hn between us in any and all ways by which we can itedly and lfish-ly lfish-ly carry out our responsibilities and dunes to Utah and the nation. Yours very truly, (Signed) H. T. Fowler, President, UTAH CHAIN STORES ASSOCIATION, INC. ADAM HAT STORES NATIONAL SHIRT ' SHOPS, Inc. BAKER'S SHOE COMPANY J- J- NEWBER Z CHANDLER SHOE COMPANY OWL DRUG COMPANY W. T. GRANT COMPANY h C PENNEY OX S. H. KRESS & COMPANY SEARS, EBUCKJ CO. LERNER SHOPS OF UTAH, Inc. SAFEWAY STORES Inc. THOM McAN SHOE CO. TrH m MONTGOMERY WARD CO. F. W. ' NATIONAL DOLLAR STORES WALGREEN DRUG CO. WESTERN AUTO SUPPLY CO. |
