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Show Howe About: More Holidays Taxes Bad Habits j , boll Syndicate. WNU Service. T t l..t-.t. , , , , ,,,,. ( By ED HOWE WHAT the people are really trying try-ing to achieve is for every day to be the Fourth of July, Christmas, Christ-mas, Labor day, Washington's birthday, birth-day, Sunday, Mother's day, New Year's day holidays merging into each other; every morning's sun to light up a new day when we will have nothing to do but get into our cars and attend a picnic, liberty rally, or show. Of course, a few must work, to operate filling sta- ' tlons, hot dog stands and the like. That can be attended to by making slaves of the rich we capture and putting them to work. The excuse for public extravagance extrava-gance in the United States is that ' only the well-to-do pay taxes, and that taxation is the quick and prop- ; er punishment for scoundrels. . . . If the reader will call on me I will show him the poorest man I have ever known. He lost his home lately through a tax sale after paying $S36 in taxes on It during a long and struggling ownership, lie had eight lots. They were assessed as-sessed at $100 each, although he originally paid only 560 for all of them; at no time during his ownership own-ership were the lots worth half the amount at which they were assessed year after year. I do not know how much longer I shall be here. I have a shorter expectation ex-pectation than many others, being older, but I am determined while here to pursue the course best calculated cal-culated to produce most comfort. I am still able to keep my hands out of the Are and prevent unnecessary unneces-sary and painful burns; I am still able to avoid shooting those of my neighbors with whom 1 disagree, or breaking Into their houses. Such actions would land me in jail where accommodations are poor; I can better afford to practice honesty and remain at home with all its natural nat-ural discomforts. I hope to continue to the end to avoid other bad habits hab-its which do not pay; gormandizing, gormandiz-ing, swearing, drunkenness, cheating, cheat-ing, Idleness. I do not much fear punishment after I am dead, but have lively appreciation ap-preciation of the punishment threatening threat-ening during the remaining days of my journey. If I am extremely practical It Is what life has taught me; I have encountered en-countered nothing to cause me to greatly respect visionary things. In the old days, when there was a disaster at sea, the women and children were first given seats In the life boats (It has never made much difference what happened to men). Moderns are forgetting that gallantry. In Iowa mobs of armed farmers blocked the roads and would not let milk wagons pass on the way to town with necessary supplies sup-plies for the women and children. There were plenty of food supplies in the country, town people were willing to pay for them, and farmers farm-ers needed the money, but the farmers farm-ers were mad and determined to starve women and children to show their Indignation. We are becoming worse than the Russians. The ltusslan peasants have always been willing to sell food supplies to town women and children, If paid for; the Russian town men went out into the country coun-try and took tilings before the peasants peas-ants rebelled. I believe tiie American farmers should rebel, but In the name of common sense why don't they jump on the politicians who have robbed them, Instead of Innocent women and children? God hasn't deserted us; it is our senses. The Russians, In enjoyment of perfect freedom to net without Interference In-terference from capitalists, have not done very well; their average comfort Is probably lower than in any other country In tho world. . . . So I do not believe the capitalistic system Is as great a scourge as has been charged by radicals ever since I can remember. Even now, when we are In our deepest slough of do-spondoncy, do-spondoncy, we are doing far better on an average than tho Russians; no radical writer has returned from that country with a different story. . . . The Russian experl- nient Is founded on a bonk, not on human experience, nnd nations have never been well managed by books. ... q human creatures are said to I be the best specimens of lMug things. The greatest of our tiny ambitions should be to make tha most creditable history possible for future professors to write about. Will readers who consider us a thousand or a million years la tho j future say we did reasonably well, or will they say we played the game i badly? In the distant future a man may find your skull, and carry it to : colleges, museums and laboratories j for examination. What will the pro-j pro-j fessors say thousands of years in I the future of the lfKU man? Will j they speak as well of us as our pro-j pro-j fessors now speak of the old Oreeks? |