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Pm** Four THE CLINTON CHRONICLE By SPECTATOR... COMMENTS on MEN AND THINGS You are not interested in such dull subjecs as taxation, are you? It is serious, you know; and quite burdensome. We Americana seem to think that every time someone has a bright idea the Congress, or our Legslature should pass a law end then put on a tax. Glancing over an advertise ment recently I was surprised by these two items: Federal taxes, Social Security, Property tax, and other State and Local taxes $54,953,000. In addition, Excise taxes amounting to $5.83 a share. This company paid its common stockhoders $1.35 a share. There you have it; paid in taxes $5.83 a share; paid stockholders $1.35 a share How would you like to do business on that basis? Inciden tally that was not the heaviest taxpayer in the by any means If we could bring in 500 more enterprises would not the State, school apd local taxes repay whatever reduction might in duce them to come? Would not the payroll of 500 more enter, prises raise the economic level it our State? Would not the wages flow into the channels of busi ness? • • • Swashbucklers may serve a useful purpose, sometimes; they may focus attention on a con dition or a problem; they may glamorize it and make it com- peling in its impact on our minds or our consciences Sober-minded men are not swashbucklers; in fact, sober- minded men would rather en dure the evils they know about rather than run risks they know not of. You recall that Shakes- United States, 1 peare discussed that in Hamlet, as I recall—that never-to-be-for- I do not know who of our pco- gotten “to be or not to be,” and pie pays the most to the Federal, so on. State and local governments, but In a day of conservative think- I cited last week the case of one | ing and acting one does not taxpayer, a South Carolina Cor- “stick out his neck.” This, of poration, which paid about six' course, is not a conservatve age; and a half million dollars last this is the glorious era of “go- nr Thmiftfr, April T.lfM year It's really got STARTIN’ QUALITY gee**** r. LOADED I* • iMntr • VITAMIN t • nonius • Mina ais antibiotics "SO” Chick Starter has everything it takes to get chicks off to a strong, fast start. And every bite is balanced ... to make it count! C-W-S Guano Co. 103 N. Adair Street Phone 62 Your "SO” Feeds Dealer" getters.” Go-getters are those who venture out into the deep and then haul in the great draught of fishes, while the tim 'd souls stay on the beach and fear that their feet may get wet. I’ve been wondering if the States must glamorize their rghts by disregarding Federal man dates. Ireland refused to bow to England and England finally had the sound judgment to rec ognize a condition that she could not maintain. Of course so many of us have our fingers in the pie that we are not willing to stop eating pie just for the sake of a principle. Automation—a new word, or at least just becoming popular. Automation is old stuff. I recall attending a conference of very able men, called together one night by the late Bishop Finley. It was called to discuss the evils of “technological unemploy- ment.” That was the same as the so-called, or immediate evils, of automation Is this an evil? The farmer I with a tractor is doing more j work than sixmen. So five are i cut of work. Many years ago Ben M. Sawyer, then Chief High way Commissiiner, told me that he had employed several hun dred men at a dollar a day to do i ordinary ditching and loading dirt. Work was scarce and fifty cents a day was average pay. j The men were glad to get a dol lar a day; it meant bread and meat when everything was cheap and money as scarce as manna in the wilderness on the Sabbath. But the law forbade this; to the Highway Department bought machines, each doing the wirk of 20 men. What happened to fif teen or sixteen men? Far back, in the Middle Ages, the monks were the newspaper men, journalists and publishers. The monks wrote the news, as it was gathered by them from visi tor!. How large a paper was that? And how often was it sent out? If we assume that a monk would write five of these letters s day and that the monk re ceived twenty-five cents a day you observe that the letter was about the equivalent of one col umn in your county paper, and that the news was necessarily confined to rumors and gossip, for the most part. Today even the county paper carries news from all over the world; and one issue of your county paper is larger than all the letters from the Monastery in a whole year! And for just two or three dollars for fifty-two issues! Now what is the result? More people get jobs on the newspa pers of the United States every year than were engaged in writ ing those letters from the dawn of the Christian era to this very day. Suppose you had to pay for a hand-made car, what would it cost? Machinery supplants men for a time, ’but so reduces the unit cost that more people can. buy the product. Finally several times as many men are employed as were formerly employed at that kind of job. This technological progress is at the root of modern progress, prosperity and good living. There is a reducton in the force, for a time, but in a few years the old story of progress is repeated. Suppose we did not have type- settng machines? Supposed great paper were set by hand. And suppose the papers were printed by a Washington hand press!! Suppose you went from room to room and looked for a lamp in each room, as well as a lantern to take to the bam, instead of touching a switch for all the rooms, the yard and the bam!! That’s what grandpa and grand ma did. a a a Well now here's a pretty kettle of fish After a concern has paid its 1954 taxes, according to law, shall Congress in 1955 increase those 1954 taxes? I quote a great National daily: “By now we are all pretty much inured to the Govern ment’s sorry practice of chang ing its tax rules against us in mid-stream. But we have not yet come up against the still worse practice of changing today the rules by which we paid our taxes yesterday! It’s bad enough to figure one January that in the current year you can, say, deduct $600 for each dependent and then find the following September that Congress has reduced this to $500, making you have to dig up the extra tax money. That sort of thing has happened in the past with tax laws and probably will again. But suppose that Congress should not only change the de pendency rules for the current after you had already paid your year but for the year before also, taxes. Would you think It either just, or honorable, for the Gov ernment to demand now that you pay extra taxes on your 1954 income because the Government in 1955 changed the 1954 rules? Yet, in effect; that Is what Sec retary of Treasury Humphrey is asking Congress to do with some of the tax provisions cover ing 1954 income. And Congress considering it good politics, is disposed to go along. Two particular provisions in the tax law in 1954 are involved. One says that a company would not be taxed on income, such as advance rental payments until the income was actually earned. The other permits a company to set up non-taxed reserves to take care of estimated expenses fall ing due in later years. The Treasury has decided that these are bad privisons. They cost the Treasury more taxes than it figured on in 1954. It wants them repealed. More, it wants them repealed not only for the present and the future but it wants Congress to repeal them now, in 1955, for the taxes levied last year, 1954. It wants to make every company that computed its 1954 taxes on these rules recompute its taxes on the changed rules and pay the differencei Now whether these are such ‘loophoes’ as the Treasury claims is a debatable matter; what the Treasury loses one year it should collect another because a tax credit taken once is a credit that cannot be claimed later. Yet be that as it may — if Congress thinks they should be repealed, let them be repealed. But what is this business of in creasing 1954 taxes in 1955? If Congress this year is going to change the tax rates for 1954, why not for 1953 or 1952 or any year? If Congress can do it to business, why not to you? There is a prohibition in ourj Constitution against ex post fac to laws, which perhaps the Su preme Court will remember if Congress forgets. But it is not the Consttution alone that argues against this way of law making. The Government owes a moral obligation to its citizens that its tax laws shall, for the duration of their term, be fixed so that every citizen shall know what his obligation is. If the Govern ment is to be capricious and de cide tomorrow on yestrday’s tax es no man will ever know where he stands and the affairs of every man will be reduced to confus- Clemson Issues Bulletin On Pork Handling A revised edition of Bulletin 77, Pork for Carolim Farmers, is now being distributed by the Clemson Extension Service. It was prepared by A. L. DuRant, leader, Clemson Livestock Ex tension Work, Florence and R. F. Wheeler, associate professor of animal husbandry, Clemson. Topics dealing with slaughter ing of hogs and curing of meats discussed in the circular include the most desirable weight bogs, best killing temperature, killing and bleeding, scalding and clean ing, dressing, cutting and trim ming, curing, smoking and dry ing, and ripening and aging hams. The circular also contains directions for canning pork, for making sausage, scrapple, head cheese, and pickled pigs' feet, and for rendering lard and mak ing soap. The authors suggest that farm, ers on family-sized farms learn the art of slaughtering the hogs they grow for needed pork, lard, and pork products. They pointed out that the constantly increasing difference between the value of livestock on the farm and the retail price of meat when purchased makes raising hogs for the family’s meat of greater importance than ever be fore. It also emphasizes the im portance of using proper meth ods of conserving the meat by curing, canning, and freezing. “Pork is the most popular and generally used of all kind of meat on the farm.” the authors state. "It tastes good to most peo ple in both the fresh and the cured state. Hogs can be produc- lon. Dr. Fred E. Holcombe OPTOMETRIST Offices at 200 Sooth Broad St Phone «B8 Office Hem 9:M to IM ed more economically end under condi more diverse lUone than other meet afinpalt. The Else el the oarcam Andr tty earn, with which a large varied of attrac tive products am ha pmand and ooneerved from it make pork suitable for the farm faqdly. However, freeh pork is a highly perishable product, Hie hogs should be slaughtered, the car casses chilled and cut, and the meat nad its products handled and conserved to that the maxi mum namfcer ot food result from antaelt" they Copies of the circular are avail able at the offices of county afenta andat the demaon Pub- licationa Department Cof Population In This State Jumps 25,000 Columbia.—The growing num ber of highways of 1W 49 State tistical table today. The state than ago. hk the a PEWTER TREND New pieces of pewter are re produced in old colonial patterns. There is a bigger demand for It today than in recant ilm. RippPl MiMi K - ■ «'$< slPifilliP Apply ARCADIAN fUtrogsw Solutions in the row from a tank behind your tractor. Save all bag-lifting or fussing with high-pressure tanka. ARCADIAN FERAN* non pressure Nitrogen Solution spreads fast from dribble tubes to the soil surface. ARCADIAN NITRANA* low- pressure Nitrogen Solution feeds crops quickly when you apply it 2 to 4 inches deep. Both FERAN and NITRANA give your crops quick-acting nitrate nitrogen and long- lasting ammonia nitrogen for a big yield boost at low cost Add FERAN Solution to Irrigation water and let water do the work of carrying nitrogen to the crop roots. A hose to the suction side of the irrigation pump pulls ARCADIAN FERAN Solution from a tank or drum into the irrigation system. UK YOUR NCAR9Y SUmiKR for low-cost, labor-saving ARCADIAN FRAN or NITRANA Nltrogon Solutions. Uso Hi* modem nitrogen side dressing that saves back aches while it builds profitable yields. : * NITROGEN DIVISION AKSsd Chemical Ji Dye Corporation ."'TROGES S0LUTI0HS Nsw Yert S, N. T. • Nspswell, Vs. • Atlsati 3, to. e 1, t. C. REVERSIBLE SKIRT A new felt skirt is silver strip ed on one side so that it may go from daytime to evening wear just by turning it iraide out. J. R. Crawford SURVEYING CLINTON, 8. 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