The sun. [volume] (Newberry, S.C.) 1937-1972, June 25, 1943, Image 5
THE NEWBERRY SUN
PAGE FIVE
Frida-/ ;v::i 1943
Spectator
An American business man of large .nterests
haw been thinking about the after-the-war prob
lems. That is a favorite topic. Millions of men
now in the fighting service, will want jobs; mil
lions of men and women, now in war work at
home, will need other jobs. That is the problem
and many minds are wrestling with it, so that we
may not have another great let-down, with all
the devastating effects of a depression. The
man I have in mind suggests as a program:
1. To revise the tax laws so as to restore re
wards for risk-taking;
2. The restoration of competition to the
fullest extent;
3. A solution of the problem of small busi
ness.
Everybody can see that a new enterprise
creates jobs; and jobs are what are needed. If,
for example, we use the lime and marl of South
Carolina and become a great cement producer,
hundreds of men will find new jobs. So any
barrier to new enterprise should be swept away.
A man may feel relatively safe in installing a
small saw-mill; but a plant costing hundreds of
thousands or millions can’t be moved about
easily. There is a great risk in pouring out the
large sums for all the preliminaries, and then for
the plant .itself. So far as this new investment is
concerned, that is the hope of the future, for
America's vast industrial spurt following the
First World War was built on and about auto
mobiles. We shall have millions of cars every
year for several years at least, but the war has
brought us synthetic rubber, as well as hundreds
of other things. We may find it desirable to
operate our automobiles on vegetable oils or
some form of annual new growth instead of de
pleting the stored wealth such as coal and pe
troleum.
Whoever introduces something new takes
heavy risks and needs a clear road. We do not
begrudge Henry Ford his fortune, for he uses his
capital in a manner which provides work. Our
Nation needs other Henry Fords—men who can
develop the possibilities of our fields and clim
ate,, while creating employment for thousands
of our people.
We have just begun to think of cotton, soy
beans and peanuts as opportunities for indus
trial chemistry within recent years suggests that
we may be at the door of larger developments
than that of even of the refining of gasoline to
1 00 octane rating. Let us encourage men to do
things which enrich the life of all of us and
which carry a full measure of comfort and en
joyment to all men.
The Chinese-American land and air victory
over the Japanese was good news. Most of us
are a little weak on war geography and think
that Japan is a short hop from China. War
geography, however, indicates that the Chinese
territory available as a base for air raids on Jap
an is quite a long way from Japan. Furthermore
air raids consume so much gasoline that there is
difficulty in storing the necessary fuel in free
parts of China.
Still, the hopes of all are revived by the ad
vance of the Chinese army and the defeat of the
recent Japanese push into free China which
threateded to remove the Chinese as military
factors of importance.
The revolution in hte Argentine was a piece of
good news. It was not exactly a revolution. Being
more a prdace uprising. It was not a great move
ment of the masses, but a revolt of the garrison
of 7,000 troops against the President. The troops
are in sympathy with us - especially since it seems
certan thiat the United Nations will win the war.
A discerning friend asked me: Well, what
good are such allies? What have the other
American nations done of military value?" Not
much, prehaps, beyond leasing or lending us
landing fields - which have considerable military
value, certainly potentially.
But Argentina is a country of strong Italian in
fluence. Its coming over will at least show us how
the wind is blowing.
The miners are back at work. They struck and
they received assurance of additional pay; they
continued on strike and were told to resume bar
gaining over the issue. Well, who won? The
miners, of course. Who lost? We, the people of
the United States. We did a lot of stern talking
„ but we yielded a little here and a little there.
The whole situation is: the miners struck, and
they receive more pay.
Now farmers, you must not strike; you must
not even ask for anything, for that would be both
unpatriotic and inflationary. This, you know, far
mers, is Labor Government.
I read a letter recently from a school teacher
in Scotland. She says little of the tragedy of
war; in fact, she treats the war as an evil to
which the. British have accustomed themselves,
mentioning only casually the brothers and other
kindred who were afloat or with the armies.
But she tells much of trade restrictions and the
calamitous effect of the military draft on one-
man business enterprises. So much of her let
ter was devoted to that business dislocation that
we see the small-town and village discriptions
which come with modern, all-out, or total, war.
War used to be fought for a little adjacent
territory, or to determine which of two rivals
was the real cock of the walk. Now we see
one nation, a great people of genius, who feel
the urge to assert their fancied superiority and
to govern the world by their ideas of what is
best. With all regard for the German thor
oughness, taeir science, music—and other con
tributions to humanity—we do not admit their
superiority. The British don’t admit it; nor do
the Russians. No one admits the right of any
nation to impose its ideas of culture on another
nation. The British owe their success as empire
rulers primarily to their hard sound sense in let
ting the people alone in their mode of living,
instead of constantly meddling with them.
The present-day German is by nature and
training (certainly by training) a narrow minded
pedant, an officious sort of person whom we
might call an annoying busy-body. A wise
teacher, a capable manager, lets a person do
things in his way, in his own way, rather than to
bawl him out all the time by compelling him to
do as the teacher or manager says. I heard a
talented young lady say recently that she quit
her work because her immediate superior would
never let her do anything according to her own
ideas. That is the German idea of government
for the world. The German starts with the
doctrine that he is the world’s prize smart man
and that he can rebuild the world on German
theories. Of course the German is not just an
idealistic missionary of culture; he is a hard-fist
ed, domineering fellow at the same time an
arragant, strutting, swashbuckling egoist, swol
len with conceit and bombast.
Even if it were true that the Germans had the
best schools and towns, the best Government,
the most intelligent and efficient people—and
everything else they claim,—the great lesson in
life is that people wish to determine for them
selves their manner of living; and they wish to
retain the power of choice in all that affects
them—within the permissible limits of a modern
idea of social life and government. In theory at
least, we Americans believe in Jefferson’s idea
that the BEST governed is the LEAST govern
ment—that men should have liberty, much lib
erty, plenty of liberty, to choose their course of
action, and should not be under the constant
“do-this”, "do-that" and *‘don’t-do-the-other ’
of a prying, spying, snooping lot of petty offi
cials.
Life isn’t a matter of efficiency. Most of us
are more or less inefficient; we manage our
affairs somewhat loosely; we don’t follow rigid
rules. True, we might make more cotton and
corn; and we might make more money; but we
are a happy people, with all our happy-go-lucky
methods, or lack of methods. Happiness,—
wholesome, hearty, cheerful living—is one of
the great foals of life. What are you working
for? Are you toiling merely to produce more
cotton; or are you pouring out the energy of
your being in order to live "more abundantly ,
as the Nazarene spoke? Men want to do
things for themselves and set up—within reason,
their own standards, within the general over-all
standards of the community or the nation. And
so the German purpose of imposing the German
idea on other people finds the slow-moving,
stolid Britisher implacably against it; and the
more emotional American, even with a joke on
his lips, will shed his last drop of blood to live
in the tonic atmosphere of individual initiative
and individual judgment.
We cannot make other people happy or pros
perous by hand-outs. Neither is one man's idea
of education or wellbeing acceptable to all other
men. One man is happy, though unlearned,
while another may have all the miseries of life
flourishing along with all the learning of a sav
ant; so one is happy, though living from hand to
mouth, while another is wretched amidst an
abundance of things. Let every man have a
fair chance to earn a livelihood and large op
portunity to enjoy it. One man may join an
opera; another might prefer a day in jail to
three hours of opera; one man dreams of a day
with hook and line (with a few fat worms) ;
while to another fishing is time wasted and bor
ing in the extreme. Of course this anti-fishing
bird does not live in Summerton or Manning,
where fishing stands first on the daily program
of everybody.
WITH C. D. COLEMAN CO.
E. E. Westwood, formerly of Chicago, has
accepted a position with C. D. Coleman Co. as
bookkeeper, taking the place of William Peery,
who resigned to enter the Lutheran Seminary at
Columbia this fall, after spending the summer
with relatives in North Carolina.
Mr. and Mrs. Westwood are making their
home with Mrs. Westwood's parents. Mr. and
Mrs. W. T. Harrell, on Fair street.
FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF
U. S. Treasury
Payroll Savings Buys Comfort
For Your Fighting Relatives
i
Not all of your payroll sav
ings and other War Bond pur
chases are used for tanks,
planes and gunpowder. A part
of your investment goes for the
comfort of your father, brother,
son or friend.
Put your war bond buying
through your payroll savings
plan on a family basis to do the
most effective job in providing
for the care and safety of your
men in the armed forces. Fig
ure it out for yourself how much
beyond 10 per cent of the ag
gregate income of your family
you can put into war bonds
above the cost of the necessities
of life.
Remember a single S18.7S
war bond will buy for a fighting
soldier on the front: Two cot
ton undershirts at 44 cents; two
pairs of cotton shorts at 76
cents; two pairs of cotton socks
at 34 cents; one pair of shoes
at S4.31; a cotton khaki shirt
at $4.64; pair twill trousers at
$4.16; one web waist belt at 23
cents; tw'o cotton neckties at 44
cents; 2 khaki caps at $1.26
and one twill jacket at $2.16.
Total $18.74.
An $18.75 war bond should
make a marine comfortable for
the night with a 23-pound mat
tress at $4.20; two blankets at
S13.54; a pillow at 56 cents and
two pillow cases at 30 cents.
Total $18.60.
Or he could be provided with
a rubber poncho at S4.77; a hel
met with its lining and other
items of its assembly at S5.62;
a rifle cartridge belt at S2.15;
a marine corps pack consisting
of haversack, knapsack and
suspenders at $5.10; a canteen
and its cover at $1.05. Total
$18.69.
Those of you wlio worry about
the comfort of your boy in serv
ice can help insure his comfort
by buying war bonds. And 10
years from now you’ll take back
$25 for every $18.75 you put in.
U. S. Treasury Department
Listen to Morgenthau-Marshall
Tell Power of Payroll Savings!
Washington, D. C.—How important is the average worker’s
war bond purchases out of his pay every payday in the grand
strategy of the Allied High Command? Does the extent of his,
or her War Bond allotment have a part in
determining when, where and the strength of
our military blows?
Any worker listening in on a recent con
versation between General George C. Marshall,
President Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff, and Secre
tary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr.,
learned the answers to these questions.
Said General Marshall:
“Mr. Secretary, I want you to answer a
question for me and to answer it with complete
frankness. Can we military leaders plan to fight
this war in an orderly way—in the surest and most effective man
ner—or must we take extraordinary risks for fear the money will
not hold out?”
Replied Secretary Morgenthau:
“General, the American public will take
care of that. What they have done in the
Second War Loan drive—the money they have
produced and the spirit they have shown—is
proof enough for me that they will not let our
fighters suffer from lack of support until we
achieve complete victory, no matter how long
that may be nor how much it may cost.”
Up your War Bond allotment out of your
wages today. Figure it out for yourself how
much above 10 per cent it should be.
U. S. Treasury Department
George C. Marshall
Henry
Morgenthau, Jr.
These Women
“All right, dear, I’ll meet you at the Villi Nova
for dinner at 6:30 your time—7:45 my time.”
★ ★
What yo* Buy WitU
WAR BONDS
Torpedo Junction
“Awash amidship!”
“Sparks,” the radio operator, has
sent his final message from another
U-boat victim. The lifeboats are
pulling away from the doomed ves
sel as millions of dollars’ worth of
food, supplies and munitions settle
to the ocean bottom in another al
lied catastrophe in the Battle of
the Atlantic.
Millions of dollars’ worth of ma
terial that was paid for by the dol
lars we saved and invested in War
Bonds. Thousands of man hours
have been lost.
We can have but one answer;
work harder, save more and invest
more frequently in War Bonds.
U. S. Treasury Department
It’s A People’s War
We are paying more in taxes
than ever before . . . and likely
will pay more. But we cannot
rely on taxes to finance the war.
It would not be fair to base a
tax on the average single fam
ily income when many families
have more than one income.
We could borrow all the money
from the banks, but for both
economic and social reasons
this is undesirable. The gov
ernment would then sacrifice
its greatest dam against infla
tion. This is a People’s War
and the people should finance
it. The people WANT to finance
it. Sale of War Bonds has
mounted consistently since
Pearl Harbor.
They give their lives . . . You
lend your money.
★ ★
Wltai Buy hi/itU
WAR BONDS
Free the Seas
Before we win the final battle with
Hitler’s Nazis all navy men are
agreed we must win the battle of
the Atlantic; that is to free the sea
lanes of the German U-boats.
A year ago we were building
54 cruisers and nearly 200 destroy
ers or just about enough for a two
ocean navy.
Now we have come to realize that
this war is to the finish, “winner
take all,” and our Government is
building a five ocean navy.
That is why we are being asked
to increase our subscriptions for
War Bonds. That is why we must
it. U. S. Treasury Department
What Is Inflation?
Do you have excess cash?
You will answer, “No.” But
the fact remains that you do.
For almost every wage earner
these days has an income, in
checkbook or pocketbook, well
above the cost of his living,
taxes, insurance and debt re
payments.
You never actually “bid”
against anybody for a porter- »
house steak, but when you take !
the spending of all average
Americans as a group, it’s a
different story. So it is im
portant that excess money be
saved rather than used collec
tively to bid up prices. If it is '
spent, instead of saved, prices
soar. . . That’s inflation.
Ideally, it should be invested
in Government securities dur
ing the Second War Loan.
“They give their lives . . .
You lend your money.”
U. S. Treasury Department