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Show Released by Western Newspaper Union. V. S. PRODUCTION' IS BASIS OF WEALTH PRODUCTION is the foundation upon which is built our ever-increasing national wealth, consisting of everything upon which a monetary value can be placed. Dividends from our national wealth, including wages, constitute our ever-increasing annual incomes. In the early years of our Republic, that annual income represented less than $150 per capita. Today it is better than $700 per capita. Year after year, decade after decade, it has been more equitably divided. It is the increase in our annual income that has raised the standard of living for all of us in America. It has made possible better homes, automobiles, radios, washing machines, telephones, tele-phones, and all those things which make living for us easier than it was for our parents and grandparents. grandpar-ents. It Is machinepower of the present as against manpower of past generations gen-erations that has made increased production possible, and at the same time, reduced the hours of labor and the cost of production. With a tractor attached to a gang plow, the farmer tills more acres and in fewer Hours than did his father with a team attached to a single plow share, turning one furrow at a time. The same thing is true in manufacturing plants. Power - driven machinery makes possible the mass production of automobiles. It reduces the cost of cars to a point where all can own them. It reduces the hours of labor and the sweat of manpower days. Production creates a demand for production to satisfy, and satisfying creates new jobs, which, in turn, create new demands. To place a limit on production in any line is but to stop progress, to break down the foundation upon which our well-being is built. Our need is not less production, but increased in-creased facilities and speed in distribution. dis-tribution. That is the problem facing fac-ing not only the economists and statesmen of America, but those of the entire world. It is a problem , which can be solved when applied to a world scale. It cannot be done by uttering idealistic phrases or by merely wishful thinking. It calls for the application of the nation's and the world's best brains, and it calls now. AMERICANS DO NOT LIKE TO BE PUSHED AROUND WAY BACK 150 years and more ago, England's German king, George III, tried to tell the American Amer-ican people what to do and when to do it, without telling them why ' and without saying "please." At Boston they slapped that German Ger-man king of England in the face and after a few years of armed controversy, con-troversy, they kicked him in the pants at Yorktown, and sent him home. That was America's first experience ex-perience with a bureaucrat. Since then the American people have selected leaders whom they expect ex-pect will lead and not drive. They expect leaders to tell them the "what," "when" and "why" of doing do-ing things, with an accompanying "please." They have never been willing to be pushed around, but have been willing and anxious to be led. Whenever their leaders have attempted to become pushers, the American people have demonstrated a habit of dispensing with the services serv-ices of those pushers, as they did with George III. They do not take kindly to bureaucratic methods or government by decree. . LOCAL OFFICIALS KNOW THE REGULATIONS RECENTLY I listened to the head of a state rationing organization attempt at-tempt to explain what rationing is all about and how it is done. After a brief statement as to the necessity of rationing, he offered to answer any questions members of the audience audi-ence might ask. The questions poured in to the speaker. They were normal inquiries, the kind for which any head of a household, anxious and willing to obey the regulations, would like an answer. The speaker could not answer one in a dozen of those questions. He had either not read the voluminous and often contradictory con-tradictory instructions, or had not interpreted them. A member of the town rationing board came to the rescue and did a satisfactory job cf imparting detailed information which fully satisfied those who asked the questions. All of the ability and wisdom is not centered in high places. The federal official was drawing a handsome salary. The local man received nothing for his work, but he was a conscientious American. SOME YEARS AGO I witnessed a farce prize fight two would-be gladiators in a ring pounding typewriters. type-writers. At the call of time, they rushed to the center and read what they were going to do. I am reminded re-minded of that at times when I read about what we and our Allies are going to do to the common enemy. More punches and less talk would bring a knockout faster. THE WORLD DEMAND for food will continue so long as America will provide it on lease-lend termi. |