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Show I. Page Four FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 1959 THE SALT LAKE TIMES Utah Foundation Reports on Beehive State Tax Payments Utahns paid a total of $437 million in federal, state and local taxes during 1958, according to a year end review of government in Utah, released today by Utah Foundation, the private, non-profit governmental research or-ganization. Taxes, both direct and hidden, took 30c out of every dollar re-ceived by Utahns last year, the study continues. The total tax burden was equal to $520 per capita or approximately $2,080 for the average family of four persons. According to the report, fed-- , eral taxes accounted for 64 per cent, state taxes 20 per cent and local taxes for 16 per cent of the total tax burden. This is almost a direct reversal of the situation in 1930 when local taxes accounted for 48, state 28, and federal taxes 24 per cent of the total taxes paid by our Utahns that year. Government continued to play an important role in the Utah economy during 1958. Nearly one out of every four non agri-cultural employees in Utah last year was working for some unit of government. The number of governmental employees in the state increased 169 per cent be-tween 1940 and 1958, compared with a rise of 83 per cent in pri-vate employment during the same period. The year 1958 was a big year for education in Utah. Utah spent more than $102.9 million for education during 1958. This amount was equivalent to 7.14 per cent of the total personal income of all individuals in the state. Most of the rise in edu-cational expenditures last year resulted from liberalization of the state school aid formula by the 1957 Utah legislature. State and local funds provided to Utah public schools exceeded $70.7 million, equal to 4.9 per cent of Utah income. Total pub-lic school revenues were up $12 million from 1957, the largest increase in any single year in Utah history. Expendtiures for other major governmental functions rose in 1958, the report continues. The recession experienced in Utah during the early months of 1958 resulted in an increase in wel-fare and unemployment costs. Also contributing to the rise in welfare expenditures last year was the establishment of an ex-panded medical care program for welfare recipients. Highway expenditures rose in the year, and it is expected that they will continue to increase during the next few years as the state swings into action on the federally sponsored national highway improvement program. Last year, $28.9 million was spent on the state highway sys-tem, $2.7 million in state aid was distributed for use on local roads, and $5.9 million in local funds were expended on city streets and county roads. Foundation officals point out that Utah is one of the fastest growing states in the nation. Utah's population, estimated at 865,000 on July 1, has increased 25.5 per cent since 1950, com-pared with a national rise of 15.0 per cent during this same period. Only seven of the 48 states have a greater relative growth than Utah. Utah's population growth trend is expected to continue. Accord-ing to the latest projections, Utah population may reach 905,-00- 0 by 1960. Personal income has also in-creased markedly in Utah with an expanding economy. Total personal income in Utah, which was $1,442,000,000 in 1957, in-creased 62 per cent since 1950 in per capita income, however. Nationally, the increase in per-sonal income was 53 per cent be-tween 1940 and 1957. Despite the relatively greateT rise in to-tal personal income, Utah's per capita personal income of $1,694 during 1957 was still 16 per cent below the per capita income of $2,027 for the entire nation. The state ranks among the 48 states and 436 per cent since 1940. h THE SALT LAKE TIMES Combined with The Salt Lake Mining & Legal News FearleSS Published Every Friday at Salt Lake City, Utah . - Entered at the postoffice at Salt Lake Gtjr as second Independent class matter August 23, 1923 under the act of March 8, 1879 Newspaper 7H South West Tempie Telephone EM t 1 GLENN BJORNN, Publisher Subscription Price $3-0- 0 per year in advance "This publication is not owned or controlled by any party, clan, clique, faction or corporation." Volume 38 Number 32 the-LE- ASED GRAPEVINE Fathers who are not support-ing their offspring are costing Utah taxpayers $148,000 each month, according to the Utah State Department of Public Wel-fare. The $148,000 is the amount padi out as assistance by the de-partment to the families of er-rant husbands or fathers. John Farr Larson, director of the de-partment's bureau of children's services this week proposed that the state set up a special bureau to put a financial pinch on the runaway providers. The Utah State Department of Public Welfare is planinng to ask the 1959 Legislature for a more lenient law regarding the treat-ment of penniless transients. Clyde S. Edwards, department chairman, said this week the de-partment now is limited to one half of one per cent of its total public assistance program for aid to transients. He said the department will ask the legis-lature to raise the limit to one per cent. Dollar volume in Salt Lake City department stores sales ran seven per cent above year ago levels for the week ended Dec. 20, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco reported this week. Dr. Glen R. Leymaster, pro-fessor and head of the depart-ment of preventive medicine at the University of Utah College of Medicine has returned to his post after 18 months as medical advisor to Thaoland. . Loans to finance $3,334,166 in real estate projects in Salt Lake City were disbursed by western home office of the Prudential Insurance Co. during the months ended Nov. 30, John E. Edwards, investments manager reported this week. Samuel (Sam) Woodhead, 73, 1277 Yale Ave., prominent Salt Lake businessman, died Sunday at 1:30 p.m. at --his residence of a heart ailment. ' The case for Weber College's expansion to a four year school was put before a group of rep-resentatives and senators of the 1959 Legislature this week, Ira A. Huggins, former legislator of Ogden, and chairman of the Weber College Advisory Council welcomed the two-doze- n council guests at a dinner in Hotel Utah. Department of fish and game spokesmen this week listed Jan. 10 as the final registration date for muskrat trappers planning to trap any of the six state owned waterfowl refugees. All registra-tions should be made with the conservation officers in charge as listed in the 1958-5- 9 furbearer proclamation. In the event the number of trappers registered exceeds the number believed to be in the best interest of the management of the marsh a drawing will be held on January 17 at 10:00 a.m. at the respective marsh head-quarters. The six refuges are Locomotive Springs, tthe Public Shooting Grounds, Stewart Lake, Clear Lake, Ogden Bay and Farming-to- n Bay. Progress vs. Tradition lives of Utahns through its power of routing highways and free-ways. The recent widening of Fourth South Street is a good ex-ample. This once rather shaded street is being made wider. But in the process virtually every tree along its curbs had to be cut down. It may move more cars but it looks like the devil. N Few people who drive down the new Seventh East will not agree that it is a nice thing to have a broad north-sout- h highway through town. But what of all the people who had to give up their homes along the way and those who will have to give them up before the road is completed? These people had no say in the matter. The road was going through and they had to give up their property at the state's price. Condemnation is, of course, necessary in the public interest. But one sometimes wonders if official bodies such as the road commission always gives proper consideration to the human side of these projects. One wonders if they really try to find the route which will do the best job, yet hurt the fewest people. There is talk once more of putting a bridge across Memory Park to serve the increased traffic expected to flow from the new state office building and the proposed federal building in the area. The bridge would empty traffic onto one of the avenues which, of course, would mean that one of these narrow, resi-dential streets would be torn open, houses ruined or torn down, property values hurt and the whole area started on its way to becoming another slum. A bridge across unique Memory Park will no nothing to enhance the beauty of that island of peacefulness in our fast-expandi- ng concrete desert. It would seem that men of imagination if any there be in the Republican-dominate- d state capitol could find some way to solve traffic problems without creating new problems in other fields, without wrecking lives and property. Progress is fine and necessary, but progress tempered with tradition and proven values is better. retired. He had tours of duty in the Far East from 1923 to 1935, was Deputy Chief of the Southeast Asia Command in 1943 and Commanding General of the U. S. Forces in China from 1944 to 1946. Gen. Wedemeyer believes that the best way to avoid war with China is by taking a firm stand, and being prepared to back it up with whatever it takes. Any signs of weakness or inde-cision, he thinks, would be an invitation to invade Formosa. "Probably," he writes, "the truth is that the Red Chinese leaders, who are shrewd men, genuinely believe that America is a paper tiger which can be bluffed into compromise or retreat. "Are they wrong? What does it look. like, as we read the papers and listen to the pronouncements of politicians ? It looks as though unreadiness and lack of knowledge and a natural de-sire for peace could ruin a too-lon- g delayed strong policy." Few Americans, Gen. Wedemeyer thinks, have more than a vague idea of what is going on in that "vast and terrible experi-ment which is Communism in China." Reliable information reveals that 97 per cent of all Chinese farming families have lost their land and stock and are now paid simply as laborers. They have been made into a new class of serfs. "They are the slaves of an all-powerf-ul, totalitarian, ruth-less state. The people of China have not accepted this brutal regime, but like the people of Hungary, Poland and East Ger-many are in continued revulsion against it. "The great question that faces our country and the world is: What shall be our attitude toward this appalling tyranny, Com-munism? At stake is our courage, fortitude and fitness to lead the forces of freedom. "At stake also is our own freedom and possibly our sur-vival. In the balance is decency in all human relationships." GOP Foreign Policy Mess Although things at the moment seem to be good by com-parison with a few months ago, American foreign policy under the Eisenhower administration still is in trouble. Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, just back from a visit with top Russian officials, noted in a recent speech in Congress-m- ade before his historic trip to the Kremlin that "Our position of world leadership has been weakened by inept and faltering direction." This is especially true in the case of the Mid East and China. Take Red China for instance: The threat of war with Communist China is believed by many military and diplomatic experts to be greater than between the U. S. and Russia. They disagree, however, on how serious the threat is in both cases. What Red China has been trying to find out by shelling Quemoy and by other war-lik- e actions is whether the U. S. really means it when Secretary Dulles and President Eisenhower say we will defend Formosa. Some Americans think that Formosa is not worth an all-o- ut war, Chinese leaders flnow that, but what they don't know is how many feel that way and what their influence might be over Con-gress and the President. Some Far Eastern experts think China may decide to gamble by sending troops across the Formosa Strait, just as they did in Korea. The thing that may be delaying such action could be the lack of assurance that Russia would join in such a war. Few Americans who are in a position to speak out freely on China know that country as well as Gen. Albert Wedemeyer, |