Salt Lake Tribune | 1938-06-26 | Page 21

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE SUNDAY MORNING fr JUNE 26 1938 1 sirs m i By MEREE THORPE Editor “Nation’s Business” Washington D CL reading the address presented by Mr Merle Thorpe at the Salt Lake Tabernacle June raaiiy icqucsls have been received frpm Utah citizens for an opportunity of Bankers Association that the Associated’ Banks arid Trust Companies of Salt Lake City have deemed it advisable in the public interest to publish it 'REAT national currenta aocial and economic are sweeping away th land'-markof 150 years A revolution is under way in the United States Most of us are not alarmed because we do not hear the military bands nor see the blackshirts and bayonets But if citizens iii strictly fashion should focus their candid cameras upon the current ituation they would see tremendous changes involving their al liberties For example Congress has just resolved to investigate Fascist and Communist activities in the United States This is a popular measure Probably 99 per cent t of our people abhor Fascism and Communism Vet in seven years we have adopted more than one-ha- lf of the Italian and Russian programs ' We are officially ' urged to go the rest of the way and are dally moving in that direction Either we are hypocrites or Just plain ignorant What is the source of a dictator’s power? What would you or 1 want if we desired to be an absolute autocrat? Five controls would make any man the absolute ruler over his fellow man: First: Control of his earnings and savings Second: Control of production Third: Control of his wages Fourth: Control of his hours Of work Fifth: Control of the prices he must pay These are the fundamental ' powers which Mussolini has and rt'hich Stalin has There is no ‘ essential difference between them In Italy a small group of nine industrialists are the stooges of Mussolini and his controls are thus called the corporate state or fascism In Russia labor leaders are Stalin’s lieutenants and his controls are called the proletarian state or communism Both are autocracies In the United States we have well-nig- h turned over the first of these controls namely control of our earnings and savings to one man the Chief Executive In fact Congress yesterday declined to earmark an appropria- tion of several billions and thus keep the control in the hands at least of the people’s representa- tlves It also passed over to the Chief Executive for example the control of an appropriation voted for the investigating of monopolies by its own commit- tee! d of the comNearly bined earnings of all of us man woman and child each year are now ‘commandeered by politics and slowly but surely gravitated to the control of one man The savings of other years past and future are daily being expropri-srte- d or confiscated ’ Karl Marx was the father of Communism The first plank in his platform was control of the peoples’ capital and credit Lenin declared that with this control "the small business men”— who are always as I have often pointed oift the greatest stumbling blocks in the paths of die-tators— “may be tied hand and foot" "With capital under control”— that is the earnings and savings of the people— Lenin said at another time "we have nine- tenths of the socialist apparatus" A Fundamental Change Why is such control of earnings and savings so Important? Because It permits dictators to expend them in their own way It permits unscrupulous ones to spend the public money in order to keep themselves in power One billion is collected for example in Social Security taxes It is - expended for dams and Arthur-dale- s for tree belts and Green- - belts for outhouses and electric toasters for Fassamaquoddies and post offices The point is — and it indicates the fundamental change going on in the United States today — that political agents now determine bow the greater part of our earnings and savings are to be spent Few realize the distance we have gone down this ’ can road Whereas only ten per cent of our deposits in the banks I seven years ago was represented by government L O U’s today it is forty per ient Whatever your deposit in savings or commer clal banks you can figure that 40 per cent of it has been borrowed and expended by your - Federal Government and more of your life insurance savings the money back of your policies ' that makes them safe have like- wise been commandeered The government has 19 great lending agencies It lends our money not i perhaps as you and I would lend I it but as it sees fit to this citi- sen or group of citizens to this section or that for this under taking or the other We are taking the same course V In the other four controls Agri cultural products today are con ' trolled by the Secretary of Agri- culture an appointee of the Chief Executive Here is an ex- ample of this autocratic power: Last week he said he might after consideration reduce the penal-ties fine and imprisonment of those who disobeyed his orders Indirectly this control of pro duction is likewise being extend ad to industry Similarly wages and hours s V 3 per-zon- one-thir- ' are now under control of Miss Perkins an appointee of the Chief Executive on all materials used in governmental contracts As an illustration of this power last week she fixed wages of pottery workers at $1710 per week and hat and cap makers at $26 The Wages and Hours bill will carry this control still further Prices of food products from wheat to rice from meat to potatoes are set by Washington as well as prices of gold and silver —and the price’ for the use of money The surplus commodity control is one agency of price fixing- as when it buys eggs or prunes or cotton Of course as in Italy the fixing of prices must follow the fixing of wages and hours It is a operation Politics In the Ascendancy So we may wake up some morning to find life on the American plan completely changed the discovery will be made to no accompaniment of pomp and circumstance We shall have been beaten not through a test of courage but by our own apathy and indiffer-- " - goose-steppi- ence Revolution we shall learn need not be bloody to be overThe forces moving turning toward absolutism well know how to use the devices of “subterfuge" as Mr Tugwell put it and well do they know how to temper the rigor of their purposes with the soft accents of a The presumptious fellowship sweet notes of their allurements lull the citizens into a false security Once the individual yields his freedom there is no security What poses for security against the ravages of time and change and Mother Nature is conditioned upon the administrative conscience It is disturbing to realize that economics is in eclipse Politics is in the ascendancy Business is merely marking time We are selling birthrights trading in the futures of Americans instead of dealing in goods and services for this generation It is as though we had been asked "What will you take to stand still?” end the answer is a mess of pottage— "Give us the cash and let the credit go” The populace cries out “Look look Aladdin and his wonderful lamp!” But unfortunately there is no Aladdin Salvation will come only through the old way the hard way that made this nation a golden text for an Old World wishful of success and praying for the formula to attain it We must make up our minds to this: There can be no land of milk and honey without an expenditure of sweat Fashions in ruling have rung the changes on autocracy oligarchy monarchy and democracy But whatever the style in government somebody has had to put in hard licks to keep things going Showmanship may ornament the top At the base is travail and sacrifice Would you have leisure? Then there must be labor Would you have relaxation? Then there must be stress and strain 'Centuries of experimentation have revealed no soft way to enduring national greatness Hear how a great savior Benito Mussolini speaks to his people: "I know you well 1 read in your eyes what are your most intimate hopes I know you are not looking for a comfortable life Therefore I announce to you the approach of a hard period Raise up your muskets! Give a cheer for work!” Work both by men and dollars is what we shall have to come to no matter what magic may be invoked by Washington That is why every day— in fact every hour of the day— we hear that “capital’’ is needed Econo- mists point out the lack of new money politicians accuse "hoarders” and propose loans to small railroads business dt cetera Leonard Ayres calls it "financial anemia” Congressman Maverick indicts "big money" as the “criminal’ Commissioner Hanes states that unless investment bankers the capital the government would have to do it and Senator Pepper has introduced a bill pro viding for such loans Fewer Free Dollars It is a fact that from 1900 to 1930 three billions each year of free capital or savings went into the development of new ’things and another three billion Into the expansion of industries already established Eighteen of these new things such as automobiles radio rayoir today furnish employment to nearly ten million of the total number of those employed In gainful occupations Since 1930 less than of three each year has ventured in this way Why? There are fewer free dollars for one thing Political agencies have collected in taxes from the people 65 billions in these seven years and placed a "charge” by borrowing another 20 billions None of these dollars enwent into terprises that' make for the continuous employment of men and women This fact may have soma bearing upon our continuing un house-builde- rs fur-nis- wage-earne- rs one-four- th one-ten- th wealth-produci- ng dollar bill from my pocket Let’s hear what it has to say Ask the Dollar It says right at the start that it doesn't want to talk for publication but upon our promise that what it says will be held confidential that its name will not be used Bor its address given it sets forth its state of mind: "You want me to go to work? What is the job? How risky is it? How long do you want me to work? A new enterprise? The public may not accept the product and I’ll lose my life I'll want more for that job “What are the conditions of employment? Are the workmen who are to use the tools I’ll furnish satisfied? Have you the power to negotiate with them? You haven’t? A political board? Well that’s bad! "What assurance have you as to the item of tax expense? A promise of a deficit Increased eight such promises in two years? Furthermore I knowj must stand ready to help pay the forty billion debt and the interest on it “Are the national rules written out in black and white on statute books so that we’ll know where we are going? Or will some Bureau make new rules from day to day? I'd like to work and I’ll take chances' —I always have— but condiy tions must be right “Will our courts protect me against expropriation against confiscation against blind resentment if I’m successful?” Ask the dollar in your own ence expended by political agencies in theSb two periods is the difference in the number of dollars going into the development of new industries and into the expansion of old three billion each Such discussion as we are having tonight will be futile if not approached in a spirit of seeking light rather than of generat- ing heat No Intelligent appraisal nor intelligent decision will be reached in an atmosphere of political partisanship nor by indulging in personalities Principles are paramount and sincerity must be attributed to proponent and opponent alike Who says it matters little what is said alone Reserves analysis and consideration We can’t have our cake and eat it Surely there is nothing partisan in such a simple axiom -- of arithmetic Even admitting for the moment that what we are doing is necessary that we would not change it if we could the fact would still remain a fact as devoid of emotion and exhortation as the multiplication table Ten dollars of a family’s savings will buy ten hens which Vill lay eggs for the table and reproduce The same ten dollars will buy movie tickets or gas for a Sunday trip but provide no chickens or eggs for the ice box Both may be desirable But the point is the ten dollars will not buy both for the family We can’t take six billions from American families and expend them for political purposes and still have the six billions to put into wealth-producin- g -- half-wa- enter- prises No magic no fine idealism can eat the cake and have it too ’ We can take savings from the workers — the producers — and construct a public building In our enthusiasm we may exclaim “See it is making work for men” But when the building is erected it does not produce work for those men rathef it must go back to them and tax those very carpenters and stone masons for the maintenance of the building and the government activity naturally expanded lodged there Such expenditure therefore does not of itself and within itself make for the continuous employment of men But when we take savings from the workers—the producers and savers— to erect a building and finance an operation to make things the people want and if the operation is successfully managed those wants will provide work the next year and the following years Eighteen new industries born and developed in the last fifty years today endploy one Quarter of those in gainful occupations in the United States In passing it should be pointed out that in addition to the syphoning of free capital by the tax route this year another billion will be taken by Social Security most of which would naturally go into the development of business undertakings But what of the remaining “free” dollars not taken by the government you say? They are fewer and naturally more cautious Why are they less eager than ever before in the United States to put on overalls and go to work? Are they sulking? Cowardly? If so why? What We Like to Hear It would be easy to give the answer that human nature would like to hear We might quote the former Ambassador to Great Britain who said that the bankers and brokers were driving stocks down in order to discredit the administration We might summarize the reason given by a public official who recently broadcast from coast to coast "The recession is simple to understand It’s the Hoover boy again Newspaper editors won’t print the truth Monopolists raised prices so that the public can’t pay Big business is making the ession-because it’s sore now that control has been taken Business is away from it responsible for the increase in unemployment Big money So let’s get is the criminal to work in Congress and hit ’’ ’em again That’s what we like to hear It doesn’t matter if the names and addresses of the big business men and bankers who are cutting off their noses in order to say to their faces "I told you so" are never given No matter so long as there is a ready answer and a villain A straw man will depr- do The realistic1 answer to the question of why capital Is idle which lacks melodrama and therefore won’t make the newspaper headlines is this: It' takes 8000 dollars to pro-vltools and materials to give one man a job in industry The man with $8000 or any part of them which he has' earned knows how hard It is to corral a dollar In this respect he is unlike public servants He knows how difficult it is to persuade a dollar to risk its life in working ASSOCIATED First National Bank of Salt Lake Utah Savings & Trust Company a year for three pr four cents Dollars are that way in the earner’s pocket Ask one! I take this employment problem As against this 10 billion per year tax levy 1930-19there was only a four billion average per year tag from 1900 to 1930 (which included the great war) It la no coincidence that the six billion dollar differ- de BANKS pocket! The thoughtless fail to under- stand that the dollar represents' something It represents a sacrifice that someone has made someone who has consumed a little less than he has produced It is no more than a certificate of credit to this effect a due bill a token of something produced and not consumed No less an authority than the President of the United States has said that every dollar comes from the sweat of someone’s brow The dollars know this The dollar knows how it came into being It was no twilight sleep-This why it is cautious It loves life at It takes as few hazards as possible It wants to work Like humans it has the urge to repro- duce itself When it adventures boldly again like humans it does so in the hope of reward and acclaim Where many dollars are found in one pocket there is less caution The Bingle dollar in a thousand pockets cannot afford to take thq larger risks Trustees of depositors’ dollars your dollars must be doubly cautious Why are dollars less eager than ever before in the United States to put on overalls Why? Dollars — and the men who manage them—have heretofore in the United States of America had an incentive to take chances in thousands of Industrial undertakings Dollars— and the men who manage them—gave us our industrial stride because we permitted them to see far down the road by giving them a government of laws and not as in other countries and as we are doing today a government of men Straws In the Wind Dollars — and the men who manage them— gave us our industrial supremacy because our courts under the Constitution through a dozen stormy periods of stress gave protection from the demagogues and their attack upon success with the accompanying confiscation of income and property Straws in the wind indicate that we may bring back incen tive to men and dollars by restoring the American practice of written law and by refusing to punish success by tax and oth er measures In the meantime the dollars —and the men who manage them— wait before they don the overalls Business in the long run will continue to get worse jobs will grow scarcer standards of living fall the cost of living increase until the horse sense for which the American people were once famed returns That horse sense will tell us that more governmental spend ing will leave us worse off in the end The experience of seven years each year spending more than the preceding ought to prove that burden of proof upon the spenders In this period po litical agencies state local and Federal have spent sixty-seve- n billions collected in taxes and twenty billions more borrowed by the Federal Government from depositors of banks and policy holders of insurance companies Spending has not fulfilled a single recovery promise It has not added a single dollar to the working wealth of the nation nor has it added a single per manent job All it has added are heavier tax1 burdens kpon the workers of today and the coming generations and one million more ' on government payrolls Yes both of these additions will be permanent Horse sense will tell us that our Federal Government strong and powerful as it is cannot of Itself create a single thin dime Before it can spend a dime it must extract it from the individual What irony to see a great public works project labeled in tig letters “Built by Governor and Federal AdminThree words istrator should be added to each one of these across the country: Built “with your money” Horse sense eome day will return and scotch the foolish fallacy that this greatest spending spree of all time should not be opposed for fear that men and women would starve Contrary to political representations no one starved prior to 1933 there was no malnutrition as health records show America had always taken care of its destitute and resourceless But heretofore1!! did not glorify the man out of a job nor demand strawberries for him In January nor convert him to the easy belief that some unchristian neighbor was responsible for his circumstances Nor did it claim that our frontiers of prosperity were gone that the American plan was through that life was so "complex” today that the earlier methods of thrift and sacrifice belonged only to a "simple” life Historians will be perplexed as they record the "simple” life of an earlier generation where buffalo chips furnished the fire to heat creek water and the sod bouse In the name of- relief ("you Wouldn’t let people starve would you?”) we have loaded a yearly tax expense upon the backs of the workers-produceof the country that is wholly unconnected with rollef or unemployment Only one dollar out of six goes for relief One would be hard put to it to point out a single one of the hundred new bureaus boards commissions and authorities which has helped business to recover For nine years now we have prayed for recovery Let us now add a prayer for the recovery of our famed American horse sense It will show us the folly of expecting prosperity by magic It may arouse an old-tiindignation and anger against the wicked extravagance of the Washington rain makers Then — if in this mood we issue orders to our Congressional “servants" —and back them up— we shall start upon the slow and hard road toward regaining that nag tional which was once the envy of the rest of the world Not Enough Producers Let’s not kid ourselves It is extremely doubtful if we in the United States will ever enjoy the prosperity of the past It is not in the cards We can’t have our cake and eat 'it too We have built up a society of too many spenders and not enough producers The spenders won’t allow the producers to produce because If they did they would get out of and bask again in the the good graces of the public and then the spenders would be kicked out American spenders are worse than the Old World spenders European spenders go in for navies and armies and armament That’s tough on the producers but not as tough as the American way We spend on bureaus which employ thousands and thousands who keep their jobs by nagging the producers under the guise of policing them So they must keep the public constantly convinced that the producers need policing and as a result the producers are always in hot water The spenders in other countries for war machines realize that they must get their taxes from the producers so they help the producers make more money so they can take it away from them The point is we are rapidly the totalitarian approaching state where everything We do will be ordered in detail from a man or men in Washington It will be just as much tyranny for citizens as if they were made to do the lock-ste- p in the public square each morning I have said that we in Washington know everything That was an exaggeration There are two or three vital fundamentals we in political life do not know We do not know what motivates and stimulates trade Indeed I sometimes wonder if we understand what trade is what it Is that for nine years we- - have been praying to “recover”—the exchange of goods services and labor This business activity — trade —is brought about solely by the hope of the individual’s improvin other ing his well-beiwords the despised “profit" motive An Individual Ability Furthermore business activity is stimulated by a small group of men and women who have a peculiar and individual ability to encourage us to make these busia particular ness exchanges quality that some High Authority gave to a certain group of men just as it gave to other groups of men an ability to paint to preach to teach or to perform miracles in surgery May I for a minute or two discuss this fact because our denial of this fact leads to one of - rs well-bein- dog-hou- high-spirit- the peculiar phenomena in - our national psychosis today When we read in the papers a year or so ago that Will Rogers had made a million dollars did we rise up and say “Why isn’t that Isn’t that the most shocking! thing we have in the United States! Think of the millions of tired men and women who after their hard day of toil need to get a little relaxation and here Will Rogers takes twenty and thirty and forty cents away from them and from their pennies makes a million dollars!” Did we say that? No We said ’’Good old' Will Rogers hope he makes two million next year” And when we think of the Mayo Brothers in Rochester with an outstanding ability in1 surgery an ability denied to millions of us do we envy and anathematize the Mayo Brothers? No Do we envy the Sargent who can paint marvelous portraits? No We admit he can do it better than we can do it That doesn’t make any difference A Frits Kreisler who plays the violin better than you or I do we envy and penalize him? No But a Walter Chrysler ah that is something else again The man with the ability to dream a dream and to organize with the ability to bring together friends and acquaintances in teamwork and with their savings to produce his brain-modand introduce it to the public to see if the people will live with it he today is at a discount Gone are the success magazines and the Captains of Industry We are not ready to admit that there is an ability in business so success must be penalized as As a resomething sult we hear in Washington today one of the strangest doctrines of all—that the nation must bend every effort to restore democracy to the people to deprive the economic royalists of their blighting autocracy And I submit that of all the poppycock that has oppressed a free and vigorous people in a generation this is it Where do these royalists come from? How does economic royalty reproduce itself? Who are its Crown Princes? It is well to investigate Where Do They Come From? Whence came this new captain of a great steel company last month? Born in a coal miner's hut Where did economic autocracy go the other day to get the new president of a great packing company? An office boy thirty years ago Where did a Chicago store find its leader who died in November? In a college class-rooFrom what economic loins sprang the presidents of our biggest railroads? More than 100 came up from the ranks of telegtransit-carrie- rs raphers clerks— from the humblest of positions Some time ago a casual Inquiry showed that half the New York bankers were born in the Middle West and most of them on farms The presidents- of the Bell Telephone Companies all began at the bottom not one earning $20 a week at the start Where did this grasping dynasty get the head of the world’s greatest automobile corporation? An immigrant boy who stepped off the k in New York at the age of 18 And his competitors? One whose first name 1s Henry was a bicycle repair man in an alley shop and the other Walter a mechanic in a railroad shop at Ellis Kansas Well If this be flouting democracy give us more of it To our untutored mind America's industrial system is democracy's finest fruit and flower Where since the world’ began has a youth unknown to fame and fortune had greater opportunon-soci- under-privileg- el non-soci- al world-renown- track-walke- rs gang-plan- nity? Much talk there is of youth and its movement Very well then put the question unvarnished to youth Let the poor boys answer those who are coming up without heritage Of riches or influence let them have their say Ask them this question! "Do you want a place in America’s industrial sun by your own efforts as has been the case in the past? Or do you prefer to take chances upon politically-minde- d Washington to discover ’ you appraise your ability ity and respect? The way or the political way?” The answer of Young America —and its parents!— to this is the answer to another and more disturbing and important question: Is the stock of pioneer America deteriorating? The Free Way Faith in ourselves hard beset at times leads to the belief that America will choose the independent way because it Is the free way In turning over this stimulating and planning of industrial enterprise to political agencies we blithely Ignore the fact that no political agency since the world began ever created and self-relia- nt AND TRUST COMPANIES OF SALT Walker Bank & Trust Company Zion's Savings Bank & Trust Company The Continental National Bank and Trust Company Tracy Loan & Trust Company v - a single enterprise that makes for the continuous employment of men In this we may get the answer to our present unemployment problem still with us even after the expenditure of billions and billions of dollars Politics never has and never will provide creative employment I haven’t the time to go into that But as you walk to your work tomorrow from here look around See if you can find a single enterprise that did not come about through the cooperative effort of individuals banded together and led by some daring enterpriser The telephone wires the telegraph poles the truck delivering coal the power plant the street railway the railroad the department store the airplane overhead the motion picture house the radio aerial ships the oil derrick the automobile not one created by politics Each one of these and everything else jin the industrial system has been brought forth by the voluntary cooperation of individuals stimulated by and spurred on by the enterprisers The bank developed from the jeweler’s service in safeguarding his customers' cash The insurance company came about by the pooling of risks by traders themselves The water works utyler the city was conceived by individuals who gathered together the money and put the water works there until municipalities took them over Even the post office in Great Britain and in America was pioneered by individuals who undertook to collect and distribute the mail American enterprisers with our earnings have developed thousands of discoveries and inventions and eighteen of them1 for example in the last fifty years have grown into great industries employing between nine and nine and one-hamillion men and women— one quarter of all those gainfully employed today in eighteen industries that existed only as dreams in the minds of some enterprising men fifty years ago No great enterprise of similar size has been developed in any other of the 59 countries of the world during this same period In 1890 five cents of each income dollar in the United States Was taken for all governmental purposes state federal and local Today government agencies spend 35 cents of each earned dollar The United States was leagues ahead of other nations in its of government the economy nearest rival spending four times as much the great majority of nations spending from 30 to 35 cents or one-thitheir Income The people Of the United States had as a result 95 cents out of each dollar earned to pay for bread and butter and shelter Stimulating the Stimulators We had so much' left over that we could put our hands in our pockets and say to the enterpriser “sure I will take a chance on that new thing” This nation could dare to speculate as former President Hadley of Yale once put it as no other nation could dare to do ' Thousands of new things from patent offices and laboratories were given & chance to live with us because we stimulated the stimulators the enterprisers with both moral and material developed wealth-produci- wealth-produci- ng lf rd support Today with only 65 cents of each earned dollar left for chance taking by individuals with the “free money” of former years now allocated by political agen” cies can we hope to develop in the next 50 years say another g 18 great enterprises providing continuous employment? From 1900 to 1930 as I have said three billions of “free money” went into new industries and into the expansion of old since 1930 only that amount Perhaps America which has the reputation of breaking precedents will be able to do what never has been done before— dewealth-producin- one-ten- th velop enter- wealth-produci- prises through political agen' cies But all the evidence points the other way Fifty years ago a great New York newspaper- editorially said that there ‘was a crack-brai- n named Edison over in West Orange who had a fool idea he could supplant gas for lighting in homes with an electrio bulb or something A few years later the British Parliament in discussing the old carbon arc lamp streets asked the commit for the tee: " “Have you the views of Mr Edison on this?” And the reply was: “Mr Edison has no standing in scientific circles” If a political agency had had the omniscience to pick out of 50000 inventions and discoveries of that year this one thing at West Orange would it have been possible for that political agency to take money by taxation to promote and develop something that was under derision and ridicule by the people themselves? It must be recalled that Parliament responding to public clamor passed a law forbidding - LAKE ri A ap- point you and upon confirmation of the Senate of the United States raise you overnight to a position of 'business responsibil- 4 under the auspices of the Utah ' The text follows: the laying of a track upon which Stephenson's engine was to run In the United States we cast derision upon a professor who set out to fly through the air the officials called a man haunting the Patent Office with a pneumatic tire “the fool who would ride on air” the Post Office Department refused to accept Morse's telegraph on the ground that it could never be made practical That is why it is doubtful if a political agency can take this 35 cents that we are now turning over to it and get any develenopment of terprises that may in the next 50 years take care of another 10 000000 of our citizens in gainful occupations All we may expect from politics is the taking over of industries already pioneered America Is a Magnet America has' made amazing progress With T per cent of the earth’s population it has created In 150 years more than one-haof the world’s wealth and despite the soap box orators and political distributors our system of free enterprise has distributed that wealth so widely that the condition of the average man in America is a magnet for the na tionals of 59 other countries Let down the Immigration barriers for twenty-fou- r hours provide ships and passage money and a hundred million people could flock to these shores in that twenty-fou- r hours so the magnet is still here even If we Americans fail to appreciate our good fortune The Ambassador from Brazil at Cleveland a few months ago in suggesting that we were responsible for the unrest throughout the world said ’Your national Income per capita is $500 the average income of almost 2 billion other people is only 30 dollars per capita” The Citizen's Responsibility The final fact Our system of government is responsible for our favored position because it held out an incentive to daring souls to take chances in these Industrial undertakings and secondly it gave us small govern-- ! ment expenses until we began to tamper with the Constitution changing the election of senators to direct vote and incorporating that income tax the direct primary Up to then our small government expenses left us able to supply enterprises with the wherewithal to plan boldly Furthermore it gave us a government of laws and not as in Other countries a government of men thus permitting American enterprisers td see farther ahead than their competitors overseas When we realize that there are bureaus in Washington today issuing more laws in the form of regulations in' 24 hours carrying penalties of imprisonment and fines than Congress passes all session we get a quick picture of government by administrative law a hitherto strange procedure in the United States Finally our court system pre- -' served-througtimes of stress protection to the individual enterpriser and to the Individual Income-producprotecting both from the masses the one from the blind attack on success and the other from confiscatory levies upon income and property reforms through centralization and expansion of political authority may not bring about violent revolution here but they are attended by grave dangers— dangers no less real because Intangible They furnish the tragic spectacle of free men forging their own chains —the tragic spectacle of planning the less- abundant life the tragic spectacle of demoting the gen eral welfare of lowering our standards of living to those of countries of other politics-ridde- n the world Liberty freedom of action are being whittled away by subtle and seductive promises of benefits to come 8uch liberties we know from history can only be regained by long and arduous effort by sacrifice often of blood We also know that many times once lost they have never been regained What is needed is an Intelligent appraisal of the State of the Union a spirit aroused to the active support of our institutions the citizen awakened to the realities that he alone Is the custodian of his own destiny and that this responsibility has not been and cannot be delegated to anyone else Each of you to whom - America has given so much banker and depositor— yes and those who expect to be depositors — must rededicate himself to the faith in our time-trie- d Institutions Faith without 'works is as pothing So each of us in his or her own circle of influence must crusade as our forefathers of old If we really mean it we must give more than lip service to the American idea and ideal that progress comes not from the top down but from the bottom up and that eternal vigilance still remains the price of liberty This responsibility is indeed great If the citizen fails the American tradition of ordered liberty under law the culmina--tio- n of man’s greatest effort to be a free spirit will In very truth be homeless it will be a tradition without a country wealth-produci- lf er CITY Utah State National Bank First Security Trust Company V