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Show "QUOTES" COMMENTS ON CURRENT TOPICS BY NATIONAL CHARACTERS GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP By L. C. PROBERT Vice President Chesapeake and Ohio Lines. IT IS reasonable to calculate that government ownership would cost every man, woman and child In the United States a minimum of 20 cents a day In taxes. Railroads now pay in taxes, local, state and national, almost $1,000,000 a day in the high peak of prosperity prosper-ity they paid more. The tax bill of the railroads for 1934 would pay all the expenses of the Dnited States government from 17S9 to 1S14, covering cov-ering the administrations of Washington, Wash-ington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison. Mad-ison. The sum Is about one-half the annual Interest on the present public pub-lic debt From it millions go to local communities for maintenance of public schools. Forty-five per cent of all taxes paid by railroads goes to pay for free public education. educa-tion. Then, $43,000,000 annually goes to build and maintain highways high-ways for some of the wildcat competitors com-petitors to run over and destroy. A remaining $125,000,000 goes for "general public purposes," which Includes a contribution to the expense ex-pense of making waterways out of streams which nature made too thick to navigate and too thin to cultivate. When the railroads stop paying these taxes, as they will if the government gov-ernment owns them, the taxpayers will begin. Not a single community in the United States can escape the new tax burden. There will, of course, be an operating deficit. A deficit of as little as $350,000,000 a year would be a pleasant surprise, and that's another million dollars a day. A total additional tax burden of 20 cents a day for everybody for the pleasure of owning the railroads rail-roads would be a minimum prospect (The New Outlook). A RECOVERY FORECAST By EDWARD A. FILENB Merchant and Economist. BUSINESS is pledging cooperation co-operation with the President, Presi-dent, and there is undoubtedly a more widespread understanding that .prosperity, both for consumer goods industries and durable goods Industries, depends basically upon the buying power of the masses. There Is no telling, however, how far this promised co-operation will go, and we cannot expect rapid Improvement Im-provement until business generally acts upon this new understanding. Congress will arrange for nationwide nation-wide unemployment insurance, thoroughly thor-oughly sound business measures, and millions of Americans will begin be-gin to spend money which they have not dared to spend before, satisfying satisfy-ing their long-accustomed wants and immediately stimulating business, busi-ness, and providing more employment employ-ment and more buying power. On the other hand, congress may more than undo all this good work by flirting with unsound radical legislation, legisla-tion, particularly currency inflation. BUILDING CHARACTER By H. G. CAMPBELL New York Educator IS OUR youth tody so weak that he will fall easily into crime delinquency if school is not nicely adjusted to his tastes? If he Is, our job is to make him strong, not cater to his weakness by putting him on a diet of educational milk toast. Perseverance was, and still Is, I hope, the motto that hangs In every classroom. It must not be taken down and replaced by defeatism. In measuring the capabilities of children chil-dren let us not jump at conclusions or make quick decisions. Let us not mistake laziness or willfulness for lack of ability. By all means let us seek out individual in-dividual interests and measure individual in-dividual abilities, but at the same time let us not lose sight of the fact that throughout life things distasteful dis-tasteful and things difficult must be faced, and faced manfully. BETTER TIMES AHEAD By HENRY I. HARRIMAN U. S. Chamber of Commerce. THERE is much ground fot encouragement in present business conditions. With 2,-000,000 2,-000,000 less unemployed than at the beginning of 1934, with farm income in-come $1,000,000,000 more than in 1933 and $1,500,000,000 more than la 1922, signs are hopeful. MORE BUILDING NEEDED By JESSE H. JONES R. F. C. Chairman. WHAT is needed to revive industry, and what is almost al-most certain to come during the next 12 months, Is a great amount of building. There is a great backwater of building projects that have been held up during the Inst few years. The dam has about reached the breaking point, and the backwater will be released in 1935. It cannot be held back any longer. There Is plenty of capital avail able for It and the fear of usini: it for that purpose is disappearing |