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Show rffirLE Creek ' With the turning of the leaves of the maples, oaks and aspens, literally thousands of Utah hunters hun-ters are looking to their shootin' irons in anticipation of the deer hunting safari just around the corner. "Open Season," is only a matter of weeks away now. All this will be a mite rough on the deer. But at worst it lasts only a few weeks. The remainder of the year, the bucks and does come and go pretty much as they please. However, such is not the happy lot of another class of God's creatures. And this group includes in-cludes pretty much all of us. The down-trodden and persecuted clan to which reference is hereby made, is known by the universally univer-sally popular name of "Car Owners." Own-ers." It's always open season on them. Whenover more revenue is thought to be needed by our tax dollar spenders, the first object upon which they focus their avaricious eyes is the pocketbook of the automobile owner. Surh again is currently the case. J. C. Newman, conunissioner of public safety, told Uie Utah Legislative Leg-islative Council last week tlvat $681,156 could be picked up each two years just by an increase in the fees for driver licenses. "This would place license control on a pay-as-you-go basis," he said. It's hard to understand what Mr. Newman means by a change to pay-as-you-go. In our opinion, the car owner always pays as he goes and often continues such payments after he gets back. Anyway, Mr. Newman proposes to increase the cost of all driver licenses new, renewal and also the "Granddaddy," by about a dollar each. The bill, if enacted by the 1961 Legislature, would also al-so take another swipe at the oldsters by making renewals necessary nec-essary each three instead of each five years, as of now. What it all adds up to is the fact that the operation of the old gas buggy is becoming almost prohibitive. There are taxes on gasoline (10 cents per gallon), tires, tubes, accessories and property. prop-erty. Counting the original cost and depreciation it all amounts to quite a parcel of money each year. A recent survey conducted in Carbon County reveals that automobiles auto-mobiles and the maintenance and operation thereof, are costing the families 25 cents out of each dollar dol-lar they spend. According to the statistics, 18 eents goes for food, 2 cents for ' home furnishings and 2 cents for clothing. Come haiL or high water, it seems almost a certainty that a bill to increase the cost of Utah driver licenses will be introduced in the coming session of Uie Legislature. Leg-islature. It will pass, too, unless car owners rise up in a belliger-ant belliger-ant body and shout it down. There was a time when a bunch of blue-bellied Yankees did something some-thing about an added tax on tea. Well sir, we all don't drink tea; but we all drive automobiles. Perhaps we could revive the "Spirit of '76," dress up in Indian costumes and stage a war dance of protest around the statue of Chief Massasoit on the State Capitol Cap-itol grounds. After all it might be an open winter. So long 'til T'au '.ay. |