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Show POLITICS AND BUSINESS ,1.,1husil',fsr?ntim'U"' t0 opci'ate at a eood level. But, as William K. Kunns, eu.ilj,- of Banking, recently observed, the real test will con: after the first of the vear The p wave of war buying s)10t the indicators up ahort time ago will in all piol.ability ti-.per oil. The most important thing to American Lusmess is domestic consumption. Basically, the stage seems to be set for a continuance of the improvement. But mere optimism will not be sufficient to dispel the political barriers to sustained recovery which are a dominant factor today, even as they have been for ten i years. As Mr. Kuhns wrote, "There are still the confidence-shaking confidence-shaking national deficits, the dizzy buying of gold, and silver, the rising pool of bank reserves, the apparent absence of any brakes on the credit machinery, and the disturbing uncertainties of an approaching election year". In other words, those strongly unfavorable factors which have so often disrupted, the hopes of the past continue to menace the future. There can be no continued business improvement in this country so long as capital must live in fear of political actions which take the profit -out of doing business. It is easy enough to criticize the profit motive, but the fact remains re-mains that the profit motive was the dominant factor in this country.'s epochal industrial progress. It was the profit motive that made men build railroads and shoe factories and power plants and grain elevators even as it is the profit motive which makes a man start a hamburger stand. It is the profit motive, based on service, which is responsible for jobs, opportunities, economic and cultural progress. There has been a lot of political talk that government wants to cooperate with business. Now it is time to turn words into actions. When congress meets again, it will have an opportunity to take sound, widely endorsed legislative steps which are necessary to the interests of business and, as a result, to the interests of labor and all of us. M |