Show GENERAL HUGH S JOHNSON jar V f washington D 0 TAXES AND ARMS this town Is bumming humming with two great discussions they are not related in the talk but they are in tact fact one Is the question of our financing british armament the other Is ot of the very great increases in taxes 2 to finance fully at least the regular expenses crises ot of our government perhaps nine billions a year the cost of our defense program if our world war experience means anything has not even yet been dim ly imagined general marshall once estimated that to parallel the german land armament alone would cost fortunately Y we do not have to do that if we stick to our idea of hemisphere defense but in addition to a very great land armament we have undertaken der taken the most ambitious sea program ever attempted it is profitless to try to foresee all these costs no one has ever had enough facts or taken enough trouble to make an accurate statistical of what it costs us as compared with england or germany to provide arid and maintain military and naval defense including care of participants in former wars it probably runs double as to the british and surely triple as to nazis we properly spare no costs on our defenders but even we cant escape the fact that the fiscal factor itself is Import important int in national defense it is doubtful whether we can prepare to defend the western hemisphere at a cost of less than nobody can tell what will be added to that if the present trend of administration sentiment continues and we also undertake to finance a part ot of the british effort those who advocate this policy es estimate that the british rese reserve of funds to buy in this market has h as ebbed to about if that Is true at their present rate of spending it will scarcely last Is s t tour four months and since that rate is accelerating cele rating and nobody can foresee the trend of war it might rise to figure es at least half as fantastic as our own prospective bill for national defense lets be conservative and say there are two schools of thought in n washington as to how best to m meet beet these astronomical figures w without impairing or destroying our economic structure by the time proved it no time honored explosion called inflation one says to do it Is to pay as we go that means taxes higher ta than ian we have ever dreamed of in our philosophy even by a disguised levy on present capital the theory there is that by making it practically impossible to gain profits nobody will speculate and therefore prices will remain stable the other idea is that re are plenty of other ways to control runway runaway prices such as priorities to govern supply rather than frantic counter bidding taxes on profits due to speculative buying of commodities or common stocks and it if necessary ner essary a legislative ceiling over prices with sufficient flexibility lb aty to prevent absurd results DRAFT AFTERMATH dr dykstra administrator of selective service Is alert to one of the greatest mistakes of the world war draft that had to do with the demobilization of drafted men rather than with their selection the present organization of local and appeal boards for selection follows faithfully that earlier model which worked beautifully in selection in 1918 the selective service system planned to use exactly the same ame machinery tor for returning the boys boys to civil life they were to be sent back to the boards that had bad taken them there as n h their taking they were to be clothed housed fed and receive their army pay until with the assistance si of local boards they were re employed the powers that were said nol no I 1 they wanted to liquidate the wa war r in instantly st antly the whole backbone ot of war regulation was withdrawn su ud d denly that left a structure of artificially fici ally high prices and industry P paralyzed by quick cancellation ol of billions in war contracts our whale business system went into a come coma into these economic doldrums the selected men were kicked given travel money home and there abandoned it created bitter resentment the boys found that while they had been a way away somebody else had gotten their jobs made much more jack than they ha had id and in some cases married their best garli girl aid 80 they get work their government had bad taken th them em with glittering promises they came home bome to find these were forgotten the major complaint about this draft is that it is moving too slowly th tha a same sort of criticism in 1917 forced the war department into an A almost most fatal blunder to order men to camps before they were ready to receive them lets not again be bums bum rushed into that tragic error its a lot better to take whatever criticism there may be tor for not ba having v jn g proper housing clothing and to food od and to ta tell our people the exact truth than to try to cover it up at the expense of the health and welfare of these kids it cant be cov ered long V A 1 rj |