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Show Throttling of Small Business Can Kill Democratic System By BAUKHAGE Notes Analyst and Commentator WASHINGTON. Over in England, where the majority voted to accept socialism because they felt the 400-year-old "capitalistic experiment" had been a failure, they are finding that you can't vote yourself into a prosperity any more than you can vote yourself into morality. There are still a lot of Britons who think they have been voted out of the frying pan into the fire. Prime Minister Clement Attlee, in a recent re-cent report to the Labor party, admitted that conversion into socialist democracy was a long hard task, longer than they had imagined. "We are engaged in a great venture," ven-ture," Attlee said, "We are trying to build up a great, free, socialist democracy." He warned that a so- ciety changed by I ( I ' it ( : ..,::.Ji u n d e m o c ratic methods is apt to lose the "habits of democracy." I suppose he meant by that that socialism so-cialism had to come by evolution, evolu-tion, which is an ancient axiom of the more conservative conser-vative socialists. Communists say it can come only their prognostications and studies, and they feel that the trend for all business now is up. But listen to what the people surveyed sur-veyed by Kiplinger say: A food wholesaler in Iowa: "Bread sales are extremely high, also flour sales are good and the sale of rolled oats is good, as people apparently are filling up on these nutritious foods in preference to more expensive items." A baker in Ohio: "We are selling fewer cakes and pies." Women are doing more sewing at home, with clothing prices so high. An Illinois businessman said: "The local high school decided to have a night school on sewing. The first registration was 135 women." Young woman in Wisconsin: "I'm not the only working girl in this community who doesn't have the new look." Illinois farmwoman: "We planned to buy some new furniture, but the price is too high. I am making slipcovers." Even electrical items, dreamed of by housewives as an after-the-war necessity, are not selling well. Said an Iowa dealer: "The edge is defi- 1 nitely off on hard goods, such as refrigerators, washers, radios, stoves, etc. Prices too high." A traveling salesman covering the small towns finds the going tough: "I cover New York staje and I am working twice as hard for half the business." Many little signs of hard times were reported by Kiplinger's survey. sur-vey. Examples: A Texas housewife: "I am feeding feed-ing tramps for the first time since before the war." . A deacon: "Collections are off at our church." A loan company man: "More borrowing from small loan companies." com-panies." A village cobbler: "My shoe repair business is good." As the Kiplinger magazine puts it: "The folks in the small towns are harder up. Their incomes haven't gone up as much as the prices they pay." In other words, according to the survey, the wealth is getting out of the hands of the consumer. And whether this survey or the commerce com-merce department's optimistic prediction pre-diction are more nearly correct, (congress abolished the small business busi-ness section), this much at least can be said: You can redistribute the wealth by the socialistic intervention of government. That kills capitalism. Or you can redistribute it by permitting per-mitting full and free competition-competition competition-competition on the part of the producers pro-ducers of raw materials, competition competi-tion on the part of labor, (an expensive ex-pensive item), competition on the part of processors. Industrial or labor monopoly, as I said before, will kill capitalism in the end as effectively as the Communist with his little red hatchet. Even Russians Get Re-oriented This Item was passed along to me by a friend. A high officer in one of the armies which fought against Russia was visiting this country, and told this story: Recently in Berlin, he was entertaining enter-taining a high Russian officer stationed sta-tioned there. It was a farewell party as the Russian and bis wife had been ordered to return to Moscow. Mos-cow. The host remarked that it was nice that the Russian could take his wife back from the rigors of occupation life in Germany. The Russian had dined well, and perhaps was indiscreet. Anyway, he confessed that he was anything but pleased; that he was dreading the period he and his wife must pass in the "camp." Then he explained that every Russian, before be was allowed to return to the Soviet Union, had to pass through a re-education center, and be indoctrinated with Just what he should say to his friends and relatives. I repeat this item . because It oomes to me in a direct, intimate manner; not a part of any organized or-ganized propaganda. It's as hard to reach an agreement agree-ment with 16 lawyers haggling ovei every word in a labor controversy as it is to get into heaven with 16 theologians haggling over how many angels can stand on the head of a pin. Good pastures save grain, says department of agriculture. Yes, and around about foreclosing time, good grain will save pastures. by revolution. Attlee also said that socialism was a way of life not an economic theory. That will be questlond by some people. Ha added that social-Ism social-Ism demanded a higher standard of citizenship than does capitalism. Some people will quarrel with that too. Many will say that it Isn't that capitalism doesn't demand a higher standard of citizenship, but simply that capitalism (or any other known system, for that matter) mat-ter) doesn't always get it. Capitalism fails, when it does fail, not because there is anything any-thing wrong with free enterprise or competition, but because sometimes some-times the standard of morality or standard of citizenship if you will, running the system, bogs down. Then free enterprise Is shackled and competition destroyed. The anti-trust laws were passed to punish people who tried to check free enterprise by killing competition. compe-tition. Those laws wouldn't be needed, government intervention wouldn't be needed. If the standard of morality, mor-ality, of citizenship, were high enough among the people who control con-trol enterprise. Long before the war, and increasingly so when shortages began to appear later, big business began crowding small business out of existence. Because of war conditions and the powerful Influence of big business, busi-ness, the small buyer couldn't compete. com-pete. He wasn't able to get the raw materials. Small business is the keystone of capitalism. According to the Committee Com-mittee on Economic Development, 88 per cent of the business units in this country employ 50 people or less. Those "business units" of course aren't limited to manufacturing manufac-turing firms they include the roadside road-side hotdog stand, the one-woman hand laundry, the tea room, and the country store as well as the business busi-ness men producing manufactured items on a small scale. If this 98 per cent of a capitalistic capi-talistic country's business isn't prosperous, capitalism can't succeed. suc-ceed. In fact yon can't have capitalism when big Industrial groups monopolize business any -more than you can have it when the state monopolizes business. What is happening to small business busi-ness today? It can't compete. Big business is making big profits, paying pay-ing big wages (regardless of whether the take-home pay of the workers is equal to cover high prices or not). Small business can't afford to pay the big wages, and the small town merchant is not making mak-ing sales and profits because the consumers in his company haven't the money to spend. A recent issue of the Kiplinger magazine made a survey of conditions condi-tions in small towns as reported in a thousand letters from small businessmen, busi-nessmen, teachers, preachers, doctors, doc-tors, lawyers, housewives, working-men working-men and working women In those towns. The net of the survey was that there was a definite letdown In business after January of this year, and that the people surveyed sur-veyed believed that there is a further letdown in prospect. There is evidence of reduced consuming con-suming power which is the first sign of a depression. A sign that the wealth of the nation is getting out of the buyers' hands. Now that's a pretty gloomy picture pic-ture and not wholly subscribed to by commerce department people here. They will tell you that business busi-ness everywhere, large and small, showed a tendency to level off after January of this year, that there was a definite weakening in the first quarter of the year. But they believe be-lieve that was a temporary trend, that It's over now, that business will reverse itself, and that the general trend Is now upward again. They make no differentiation between be-tween large and small businesses jn |