5 minute read
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Last year 53 vessels lifted C. D. Johnson lumber cargoes from company port facilities on Yaquina Bay. These cargoes... easy to check, unload and dispatch... reached destination in the same prime condition in which they were shipped.
Monuloclurer: PlCltlC C0IST tUt8tl
Mills: T0Ltll0, 0tt. Shipmenfs: lllI lt0 Ulf tt
SlttS 0fflCtS: tltllCtll ltlll( lUltDlt0, P0lIlttll 5. 0rt30l extravagance. We have 2,200,000 civilian employees, and we are adding 2200 every day. I am willing to vote for taxes for national defense, but I don't like the idea of placing great additional burdens on an already overburdened people for wasteful political spending." He said that Federal expenditures next fiscal year would be 72 billion dollars, against tax receipts of 58 billion leaving a deficit of t4 billion dollars for the year. And that when we add the expenditures of the states and other governmental subdivisions we wiil find ourselves spending nearly 100 billions of dollars for the cost of government; which is more than forty per cent of the total national income. For making statements like this, the gang tried to kill off Senator Byrd's Committee.
Not one item of ni" -.;.J program has Mr. Truman offered to eliminate because of the huge demands of the re-arming program. Not a dollar of dl the billions we have been spending for nonessential matters, is marked for saving. Politics must go on as usual, handouts must not be curtailed, and even the most shocking items of waste and extravagance are marked*for continuation.
As an example, the other day one of the better known Washington reporters made a special investigation of the subject, and announced that there are exactly 25,670 chauffeurs driving Government bureaucrats in this country, all paid by the Government. Nobody has even suggested contradicting the statement. Keep that sweet fact in mind, Junior, when considering the tax situation. If I had my way-that is if I were a free man and could do as I pleased with what f earn-I would cut 25,670 of those chauffeurs off the Government payroll-pronto. Columnist George Dixon says that some of the. most no-account bums in Washington have a chauffeur and limousine at their command.
There are literally thousands of people in Washington getting salaries, etc., from the Federal Government, who have nothing to do but create and distribute propaganda to convince the taxpayers of this nation that they should continue payrng the sort of taxes the gang of Missouri small-fry in Washington decide to take from us. It is costing incalculable sums of money to support those parasitical insects. I would see that not one dollar was ever spent again for such purposes. ft is only a few years since not a single dollar was spent by the Federal Government for any such activities. But in those days we had Governments .that did not need eternal axe g*rinding to stay in power.
Remember this, Junior; Bureaucracy lives for but two purposes; first to .entrench itself; second to perpetuate itself. It has no other ambitions, lmows no other Gods. If we could rid ourselves of the expense of useless and valueless Bureaucracy and its attendant evils, we could finance our present rearming effort with less taxes than we are now paying.
Take our State Department. Its budget now before Congress calls f.or 264 million dollars for next year. It employs
24,000 people. (The number of employees is supposed to be down a liftle since their public announcements that they had fired more than one hundred sexual degenerates from the payroll.) I would like to send Senator Byrd to check that Bureau and decide how many thousands of employees and millions of dollars they* could do without.
One of the modest(?) items on our national budget for the next year as proposed by the Administration, is $8,500,000,000 for "econornic" assistance to foreign countries. That tremendous dig into the pockets of American taxpayers is justified by preparations for European defense. For years now we have been pouring our billions into that European rat-hole, and some of these days we are going to stop exhausting ourselves to help a lot of people do things they won't try to do for themselves. Something tells me it is about time to give some thought to the poor American taxpayer, and send each of those handout nations similar telegrams re4ding: "You are novy on your own; go back to work for a change; feed yourselves; stand on your own feet; good luck you lazy soand*sos."
No doubt the Washington gang would think me ten times a fool for making any such suggestion; but compared to what I think of them, that's fattery.
Much will be heard to the effect that the proposed increased income taxes will fall hardest on the rich, and that seems to comfort the man of small income, even though it is not true. Mr. James Shelton, prominent San Francisco banker, calls attention to some tax facts that are interesting. Taking the year 1947, on which the figures were available, he quotes the fact that the aggregate of "adjusted gross income" for that year was $150,000,000,000 of which $118,000,000,000 was received by persons with less than $0,000 annual income, and only $32,000,000,000 by those making more. Tax the rich, indeed. The great burden of direct taxes will fall next year, as they did ir\ L947, on the small man. And the burden'of the hidden taxes hits him much harder than it does the fewer men of larger income.
In closing, let me quote a remark made by John H. Craft, president of .the National Dairy Products Corporation: "We have got to reinforce the foundations of our way of life, or they are going to take that way of life away from us." And, as Karl Marx said, the way to take it is by taxation.
Fan Maii
We are like all your other readers ir, that we <1o not want to miss even one copy of your magazine.
Mrs. Leona G. Nelson Riverside Lumber Yard Los Angeles, Calif.
We all appreciate your editorials.
G. S. Walker Fresno, Calif.
President: L. I. Woodson
Ist Yice Pres.: J L. Pierce
2nd,Yice Pres.: Rex Sporleder
Treasurer: Jim Moore
There's o grend new upsurge ofinterest in lurnber produets; ond the recentlY forrned UVoodwork Institute is pushing it hord-
An accelerated trend in wood-eomething of a re' narcence-started in Chicago a yeer ago, when the American Wood Window fnetitute wae organized' A strong program of promotion was put into efrect; and that's when things began to roll.
Weo in California, are now carrying the ball with our statewide organization-\fieeflwork fnstitute of Cal' ifornia. Obviously every member is selfishly inter' ested in more widespread and more intelligent uses of wood. That is the purpose of this non'profit or' ganization-composed of manufaeturers of lumbert doore' windowe, millwork and allied products' Lumber and wood products are your bread' and but' ter. Of eourse you carry other things. Why not? Juet the same you are a lumberman. Your chief interest and primary business is lumber and lumber prod' ucts. You know lumber and so you know how to ad' vise whereo when and how to use it to best advantage, when lumber is obviously the material for the job'
This is your campaign. Thie organization is telling your story. You are urged to collaborate by pushing lumber products whereo in your judgmento the situ' ation calls for lumber.
