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Show Baffle Creek I 1 Breeze By K. B. The recent announcement by Mr. Truman that he intends to turn the Washington house - cleaning chores over to Attorney General Howard McGrath, comes as a mild surprise; especially after the President's loud and vociferous threats to forcibly oust the wrongdoers wrong-doers in the national political bureaus. The whole sordid mess has been festering under the nose of Mr. McGrath for lo, these many years, and he has done little about it. How Mr. Truman could expect any change is a mystery to any clear thinking person. The graft and thievery rampant r i f J in the ranks ' of the national administrati o n is bad enough; but not nearly as serious as the public apathy apa-thy which con- dones and tol-I tol-I erates these "goings - on." Perhaps the average American Amer-ican is now doing so well financially, that he doesn't care how much public money is stolen, lost, or wasted; so long as the present war-time prosperity continues. This all reminds me of the stories about the great Comstock Lode in Virginia City, Nevada. Old times have told me of the careless operation of the world's richest gold and silver mine. It seems that the ore was so rich and so easily obtained, that the miners would carry out each day nuggets and dust worth many times their daily wages. All this was common knowledge, but the owners of the Comstock were becoming be-coming so fabulously rich that they could not be bothered with such a trivial matter. As one of them said, "Who gives a damn? There's more where this came from." Their greedy indifference was short-sighted however; the lode petered out, the owners became bankrupt, the pilfering miners lost their lucrative jobs, and proud, boisterous Virginia City rapidly degenerated into a deserted ghost town. With intelligent and thrifty management, the Comstock Lode could have continued as a profitable profit-able venture for many years; but waste, dishonesty, and indifference indiffer-ence had taken their toll. ' How long America can continue as a solvent enterprise under the preesnt kind of management is an open question. Perhaps too many of us are like the owners of the Comstock, we think, if we do not say, "Who gives a damn? There's more where this came from." So long 'til Friday. r |