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Show Taxes . . . So What? By RUTH TAYLOR It IS hard to make ends meet today and often taxes spell the difference between comfort and just living. All the little luxuries that make life so pleasant have had to go by the board. But when I hear complaints about taxes, I think of what I heard a Norwegian seaman say a couple of years ago: ''We, who would not, or could not create security against fear and famine among the under privileged, pri-vileged, have een rich and poor alike reduced to a destitution far worse than that of our most wretched slums of yesterday. "We, who squabbled in our own household over ancient prejudices of race or religion and over petty differences of politics or trade, have learned that sectional boundaries boun-daries cannot isolate a people to the furious force of Nazi assault and persecution. "We, who saw the class struggle blind capitalist and labor to the fury of the gathering storm know now that both lost in their folly more than either had ever hoped to gain." This we too have learned in the past two years. Are we going to take that lesson to heart? Are we going to realize that paying taxes for this war is our one hope of not paying tribute? That whatwe give up we would lose forever x if men did not work and fight and die for the protection of our rights as free men? We, who shut our eyes to the sore spots of the world found those plague centers too close for comfort com-fort to our own homes. We, who said it was none of our business have learned that cruelty, persecution persecu-tion and hatred are like a forest fire, spreading, past its own boundaries boun-daries and seeking what it may devour. We, who generalized in our conversation, con-versation, setting group against group, do not realize that this was how the whole thing started. The despots of today were those who felt themselves the "have' nots" of yesterday. A frank discussion of common objectives, a voluntary cooperation now is far better than arbitrary regimentation later on. I like to think " what one man who was an American by choice told me. He said, "I am a poor man today but I am a very rich man. I paid my taxes but oh, so thankfully. Unless you have lived whore I have lived, you do not know how rich a thing it is to be en American and able to help America Am-erica with what she has given you." Taxes so what? |