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Show tion of the national debt in the future is a debatable question, depending on whether one thinks that the present generation should pay all the war debt or whether following the plan adopt-ted adopt-ted after the Civil War, some of this burden should! be handed on to the future. It will be recalled that the leaders of Mr. Rogers' political party once ran a national campaign with a treasury treas-ury surplus as an issue, the argument argu-ment being offered that too much money in the treasury was a temptation tempta-tion to Congress to increase appropriations. approp-riations. Anyway, Will Rogers, will have to get better posted on the national debt before he will be in a position to give Secretary Mellon valuable advice on national finance. His own income puts him in the 'plutocrat class, but his big fortune has been won not as the result of financial genius, but as the world's greatest wise-cracker and amusement trust. STICK TO YOI R LAST, BILL. Will Rogers should stick to clowning, clown-ing, at which he is very clever, although al-though there is sometimes an unconscious un-conscious humor in his efforts to be serious. In .a recent article the versatile vaudeville star, rope thrower, movie actor and author says that no one has suggested that the $18!,000,000 surplus accumulated in the United States Treasury on July 1st, should be applied on the national debt, which is over thirty billion dollars." Rogers continues: "They will take this little dub and try to buy some party votes with it in the way of lower taxes. You wouldn't see Mellon doing that if it applied to his personal affairs. He would get his debt paid off before he started handing anybody anything, but that's just why so many of our individuals are so much richer than our government." Bill .should spend some time communing com-muning with the government debt statistics. The gross ' debt of the United States is not ''over thirty billion bil-lion dollars," but little more than half of that. It was $17,004 293,201 on July 1, 1928 a reduction of more than nine hundred millions in that fiscal year, and doubtless Mr. Mellon has clipped off another billion since. Moreover, by refunding operations, Mr. Mellon reduced the interest on the national debt from 3.90 per cent to 3.87 per cent during the fiscal year 1927-28. Our national debt has been decreased nearly ten billion dollars dol-lars since it was at its peak of approximately ap-proximately twenty-six and a half billions in mid-summer of 1919. Most of this reduction has been effected under the management of the Secretary Secre-tary of the Treasury Mellon. If we could collect from our Eurorjcan debt- ors our net national debt would be less than ten billion dollars. It is doubtful if Mr. Mellon needs any expert ex-pert financial advice from a profes-sinal profes-sinal humorist. The receipts of the national government govern-ment annually are about four billion dollars. If Mr. Mellon were running private business of that magnitude, he would not consider a four and a half per cent surplus at the beginning begin-ning of a fiscal year as an unnecessary unneces-sary safeguard. The receipts of the government cannot accurately be estimated es-timated in advance for any fiscal year. It is stated that the government received unexpectedly large income tax revenues as the result of the speculative activity on a Wall Street bull market last year. Such receipts might shrink heavily, and this chance applies to other sources of revenue. Secretary Mellon has proceeded on the theory that every dollar safely available should be applied in reducing reduc-ing the national debt. Whether or not there should be a more rapid reduc- |