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Show fPPtj 1 ffififflmflffl -Hi IteleaKd by Wtitcrn Newspaper Union. A TYPICAL MARINE WHO WANTED A FIGHT THE TWO THINGS from which Lieut Col. Kink Beecher, United States marines, derived greatest pleasure was to fish and to fight. He could spend long days on a favorite fa-vorite Wisconsin lake, and while he preferred a black bass, he did not despise the lowly perch. But even better than fishing, to Kink, was a good scrap. Fighting with him is an avocation, as well as a vocation. He is a "from the ranks" officer and has fought with the marines in France, in Nicaragua, China, Haiti, and other places. The last time I saw him was at Quantico, the marine ma-rine barracks near Washington, where he was unhappy because there was no prospect of a fight. I last heard from him at Shanghai. He left there for Manila some two weeks before Pearl Harbor. I trust he still lives even though he may be a prisoner of the Japs, but to be out of the fight would be the greatest hardship that could befall him. Tc me Lieut. Col. Kink Beecher typifies typi-fies the United States marine corps. GOVERNMENT BONDS IN WAR TIME WE HAVE IN AMERICA today considerably more than twice as much currency in circulation as we had during World War I, and we then had some slight inflation, but not enough to be ruinous. During World War I the public purchased the greater. portion of the Liberty bonds issued by the government, as a result of special sales drives, with a house to house canvass. Within the past ten years most of the government bonds issued have been sold to the banks, with a smaller small-er percentage to the insurance companies com-panies and the public. When the banks buy, they, in turn, use them as a basis for additional bank note currency, and that accounts for our ever-increasing money in circulation. Every increase in the amount of our circulating currency increases the danger of inflation. The banks cannot can-not take up the government issues without turning them into increased bank note currency. That is one of the reasons for the effort to sell the bonds to the public instead of to the banks. The other reason is to take out of the hands of the public money people would otherwise use in the purchase of commodities. We cannot produce a sufficient amount of consumer commodities to meet such a demand. When the public has money to buy more commodities commodi-ties than can be produced it pushes the prices up to inflationary levels. The only other remedy is fixed prices, and fixed prices will leave money in the hands of the people. AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND THE COMING PEACE MRS. ROOSEVELT, in the Ameri-can Ameri-can Magazine, tells us we are fighting fight-ing for the privilege of revolutionizing revolution-izing the world on the lines of democracy, de-mocracy, rather than permitting Hitler Hit-ler to revolutionize it on the lines of German totalitarianism. She says the war is but the first step in that revolution. She does not say what the final step is to be. Governor Stasscn of Minnesota, in a recent interview, proposes several plans for the purpose, he says, of making the Roosevelt-Churchill Atlantic At-lantic program a reality at the peace conference. Both give America something to think about, and we should be a unit as to what we want by the time that peace conference meets a few months or a few years from now. To help us in the thinking it would be well if Sumner Blossom, editor of the American Magazine, would find someone to Interpret the type of world Mrs. Roosevelt is expecting expect-ing the revolution to produce. IN 1941 THERE WERE on the roads of America 27,300,000 of what the government considers non-priority cars. That is, cars the government gov-ernment would not permit being replaced re-placed during the war. Government experts figure that should the war last until 1945 three more years the number of non-priority cars then in operation would be down to 3,900,-000. 3,900,-000. What a dead place America would be under such conditions. Let us hope the Huns, the Japs, and the Wops are licked long before we reach such a point. THERE IS ONE WAY of insuring retreads for your automobile tires. Get a job as an official of a labor union. They are considered essential essen-tial to the war effort, but farmers, salesmen, merchants, and others of the common people, including workers, work-ers, may walk. CLASS-CONSCIOUSNESS OUT OF THE WAR we will achieve a freedom for which we are not fighting the Huns or the Japs. Out of the war we will achieve a freedom from that growing class-consciousness. class-consciousness. There were those with selfish pur-poses pur-poses encouraging a recognition of class and class distinctions. Any effort ef-fort along such lines is subversive to our ideals. It has been only in recent years that we have recognized, recog-nized, even in a small way, any class distinctions. |