OCR Text |
Show U. S. Bond Purchases Are BetterThan ForcedSavings Federal Taxes Unable to Cover Total of Present War Expenses; Transport Planes' Importance Growing. v r i By BAUKIIAGE News Analyst and Commentator, WNU Service, 1343 H Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. Washington, which never hesitates hesi-tates more at offending the electorate elec-torate than in election year, today is faced with doing that most offensive of-fensive thing of all taking away the people's money. The President's anti-inflation program pro-gram has not been carried out and nobody dares take the first cruel step to put it into force. The love of money may be the root of all evil, but the presence of too much money in too many pockets pock-ets has become an evil, too. The two methods of rooting out this evil are to stop the money coming into all these pockets and to take it away after it gets there. I have had an interesting glimpse into plans for the taking away process through the eyes of some of the men who have some very decided views on that subject. My story begins in a very ornate corner of the Capitol building just off the senate floor. Senator Z was opposite me. I always al-ways call on him when I want an idea in a couple of pungent paragraphs. para-graphs. He was once a newspaper man himself, and as a timid representative repre-sentative of a news syndicate many years ago I used to beard him in his news den. "Senator," I said, "what are you going to do about taxes?" Senator Z's eyes lighted up." He shifted his cigar. "Baukhage," he said and slapped my adjacent knee, "I am not going to do anything now. When the time comes I am going to do a lot. Let me tell you something. Last January Secretary Morgenthau came and talked to some of us. He said: 'I know it's hard for you folks to vote for a big tax bill in election year. But it's got to be done. And I'll tell you what I want. I want the country to pay for the war two-thirds of the way as we go. I want you men here to make a team and agree to that. Taxes to equal two-thirds of expenditures.' ex-penditures.' "So we agreed. But in the five months since then the expenditures have increased so that the balance has been thrown completely out. Instead In-stead of paying with taxes two-thirds two-thirds of current expenses we will be lucky if we can pay one-third. "And let me tell you this: It is a lot better to make the taxes lower, to leave some money in the taxpayers taxpay-ers pocket and force him to buy bonds. I'm not coming out for compulsory savings now for that would defeat itself. I am going to wait until Joe Doaks begins to realize real-ize what is happening. "And let me tell you this!" "When this war Is over, unless the money to fund the war debt is still in Joe Doak's pocket, Joe is going to lose it and the whole economic framework of the country will go to pot. Joe doesn't know that. He thinks . the money in the bank is still his. It isn't. It's the bank's. Now Joe won't keep the actual ' money in his pocket. He'll spend it. Eventually the bank will get it if he does. But If be buys a government bond and puts that in his pocket, he will be safe. So will the country." "Well," I asked the senator, "when are you going to do something some-thing about this, are you going to come out for compulsory savings?" "No," he said, "but I have a plan, and when Joe Doaks realizes that Henry Morgenthau's voluntary purchase of bonds has fallen down I'll be ready." Americans Show They Can Do It Nobody dislikes anything compulsory compul-sory more than red-blooded Americans, Ameri-cans, but when an emergency arises, if they feel it is a real, national emergency, they will do what they are told and do it willingly. Three million men did it willingly in the last war when they were told they had to go and fight. Millions are preparing to do it in this war. Now saving is something that Americans talk about but never have done so much about In the piping times of peace the insurance agents used to tell me that 90 per cent of the American people had no estate at all when they died and were utterly dependent when they quit work. Working men and farmers are two of the most independent thinking classes in America today. But strangely enough, the same day that I talked with Senator X in the overstuffed over-stuffed chair in the senate anteroom I ran into P. P is a great friend of the oppressed. He is also a great friend of the laboring man, oppressed op-pressed or otherwise. After an exchange of greetings I said to him: i "How do you fellows expect the farmer to be willing to let farm prices be curtailed in any way when wage6 aren't frozen?" "I don't," he said, "but I have a great idea. I have been working on Phil Murray about it. It is simple, i Let all wage raises from now on be paid in non-negotiable war-bonds, j That will stop inflation, for it will keep the money out of circulation." Well, as I say, I'm no economist but after those two experiences I have begun to get ready to sign up right now for so many bonds a month. Military Transport Planet For Troop Movements "Which would you rather try to lick? One wild cat or a swarm of hornets?" Naturally, I chose, not too willingly will-ingly even for a purely mental combat, the wildcat. "So would the Germans!" My lunch partner leaned across the frail restaurant table and pounded it until un-til the tomato-juice cocktails leapt into the air and frightened war-workers war-workers looked at us apprehensively. "You could take a million men across the English channel in ten ays in small planes that could be built in six months. They would be as thick as hornets hor-nets Those planes could be built without the slightest strain on our war effort." "That's just an example," my friend went on, "of what we could do with planes if we could get these fossils to build them. Check my figures with the Civil Bureau of Aeronautics if you want to. "What I am really getting at is this" my friend went on and then stopped to absorb the agitated tomato to-mato juice. Soon he was off again on a most interesting exposition concerning air-power. I tried to keep up with him. It is hard for a layman to assay these enthusiasts. What they say is always studded with figures quoted quot-ed from official records. And they usually can quote volumes to prove that people who disagree with them said the same things about Billy Mitchell's ideas all of which have been proved correct. What my friend was getting at was this: That military transport has been woefully neglected. That only now are we beginning to build transport planes on a scale to meet the demands. Germany has 10,000 transport planes in service. We only have five plying between China and India. But even a plane carrying IVz tons could do the work of a hundred and fifty trucks over the Burma road. I had just heard the surprising word from the lips of a Chinese general that even before the Burma road was destroyed, China was getting get-ting very little more in the way of supplies than she is today. Why didn't we begin plane transport then? I thought of the couplet by Pope: Be not the first by whom the new is tried Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. I though we had gone a long way in transport already. Our transports or ferries are over every continent except Antarctica. The Pan American Amer-ican Airlines, which established a regular service across Africa, transporting trans-porting its own supplies and men to equip the fields, is about to be taken over by the army. But, according to my friend, we would have been much further along if it hadn't been for "Brass hats who think only in terms of text books that don't even contain the words 'dive-bomber,' or 'glider' or more than passing mention of any aircraft air-craft except balloons." I don't know perhaps it is time "to lay the old aside." |