OCR Text |
Show JlljgaiL Moral Courage By GEORGE S.BENSON President of Harding College Searcy.Arkansas ONLY three clangers seem big enough to threaten America's direct di-rect course to post-war prosperity. prosper-ity. They are (1) scarcity of capital, (2) loss of foreign markets mar-kets and (3) government bungling In matters of business. Two previous pre-vious chapters of "Looking ' Ahead" discussed the first two obstacles. ob-stacles. Either of them could i wreck America's hope of world 'leadership; both can be avoided. The courage of our people to brave the first two hazards depends de-pends on knowing what government govern-ment means to do about the third. By investing the cost of six months of war, industry can create cre-ate the 7 to 10 million new jobs needed. American workers can make these jobs pay good wages and returns on the investment. Industry and labor can succeed with favorable government regulations. regu-lations. Tax Relief STALLING and de-Must de-Must Come laying at the war's end may, in three ways, stop all progress of labor and industry back toward prosperity. pros-perity. Indeed one obstruction can keep recovery from even starting, might wreck Private Enterprise completely. Taxation is the dead-, dead-, ly tool. No new laws are necessary. neces-sary. Many a small industrial plant will never turn a wheel after af-ter the emergency until present tax laws are changed. A factory in Texas works 150 men. I know the owner. His taxes ran $1,000 a day last year, about the same as his pay-roll. He manages man-ages today because the govern ment takes his complete output; no risks to run, no selling to do. After the war it will be different: Uncertain demands, sure selling costs, competition to meet. Without With-out tax relief he does not see how he can afford to take such risks. Government THE CASE is typi-Competition typi-Competition cal. Most manufacturers manufac-turers believe tax revisions will come, but they fear delay. If work starts on a new tax bill after V-Day, it will be a year in the making and a serious, business depression can get under un-der way in that time. Sabotage is government's second fear to remove. re-move. Many, new-made Americans believe anything that injures their employer helps them. Arson, violence vio-lence and vandalism should be restrained re-strained in peace-time as now. Something else business men can't wait for too long: News about government competition. The U. S. owns- outright 25 of . the nation's manufacturing plants and equipment. Will these be sold into private ownership, or what? If supported by taxes, such plants could make anything from foot-valves foot-valves to lightning rods and leave the employees of bankrupt competitors com-petitors weeping in the streets. The world's only free people must stay free. No sane baseball player would go to bat with two strikes on him, and, by the same token, America's rational business men deserve an open statement of government policy on three things: (1) taxation, (2) law-enforcement law-enforcement and (3) government . competition. If government will clear the track, industry , will come through. |