anaheim-gazette 1933-04-20

THE ANAHEIM GAZETTE HENRY KUCHEL, Editor and Publisher ESTABLISHED 1870 ISSUED EVERY THURSDAY SUBSCRIPTION PER YEAR ... $2.00 SIX MONTHS ... $1.00 Entered at the Anaheim, California Postoffice as second-class matter. ARE WE THIS SIMPLE? Our eyes popped wide with astonishment when we learned this week that Foreign Minister Joseph Paul-Boncour of France demanded and got 33 million francs ($1,320,000) for French propaganda in the United States. We were not as much astonished by the appropriation as by the reasons given in seeking it—and by the fact that, in our opinion, the $1,320,000 applied to paying the French war debt to Uncle Sam would accomplish much more good than when spent by the propaganda route. Preliminary to his request, M. Paul-Boncour justifies the appropriation by stating that the following countries spend the following sums (in francs) annually for propaganda, some of it presumably in the United States: Germany, 256,000,000 (before Hitler); Italy, 119,000,000; France, 71,000,000; Britain, 60,000,-000; Poland, 26,000,000; Hungary, 23,000,000; Czechoslovakia, 18,000,000; Jogoslavia, 13,000,000; Rumania, 7,000,000. Among the reasons given for the money to be spent in the United States, as contained in the official French report, are: "The American people go to no trouble to inform themselves. We must place under their eyes some simple truths. . . . An American may honestly ruin his best friend just to prove he is stronger, then offer him his hand and help him to arise. Friendship has nothing to do with business. . . . The American people are ignorant of their own history. They must not be expected to know French history. . . . "The American feminine element has an important viewpoint; we must address ourselves particularly to it. . . . It is vital that young, good-looking and active speakers be sent to the United States instead of unhealthy, decrepid, tired, feverish, worn-out, coughing and trembling ancients bound into frock coats. These have to be put to bed upon their arrival, with hot water bottles at their feet, have to be awakened just in time for a conference, and when rushed to a station, thousands of precautions have to be stronger, then offer him his hand and help him to arise. Friendship has nothing to do with business. The American people are ignorant of their own history. They must not be expected to know French history. "The American feminine element has an important viewpoint; we must address ourselves particularly to it. It is vital that young, good-looking and active speakers be sent to the United States instead of unhealthy, decrepid, tired, feverish, worn-out, coughing and trembling ancients bound into frock coats. These have to be put to bed upon their arrival, with hot water bottles at their feet, have to be awakened just in time for a conference, and when rushed to a station, thousands of precautions have to be taken. That is why France is pictured as a tired, worn-out country." In addition to sending muscular young lecturers, M. Paul-Boncour advocates spending the appropriation for the following three-fold purpose: 1. Furthering of French motion pictures. 2. Sunday night broadcasts via the British station at Rugby. 3. Subsidizing pro-French articles in U.S. magazines by prominent authors; attempting to control French news reaching the United States by subsidizing at strategic points, news wire services to American newspapers. Evidently, the French believe they can bribe their way into America's affections. IS THIS FALSE LEADERSHIP? We have been treated to some rather spectacular mistakes in recent years. Our celebrated "brains" of Wall street have guessed wrong so many times that its leadership generally is regarded as a detriment to the nation and its 120,000,000 inhabitants. Political "experts" have been wrong so consistently that the people asked for and got a "new deal" last November. Now we are confronted with another form of leadership which, because it bears earmarks of self interest, may be equally false. President Robert Gordon Sproul of the University of California, advised by the legislature to make drastic economies in administrating the most costly university in the United States, on April 6 talked for an hour over a state-wide radio hookup in an attempt to override the people's picked representatives. His plea, picturing dire results should another nickel be slashed from university appropriations, asked that the state university be excused from the pruning operation to which every other department of state government is subjected. Undoubtedly, drastic cuts in expenditures of the University of California will force it to abandon some if its wide-flung activities, or curtail them to such an extent that many who now enjoy these privileges will be refused them. We have no argument, and we do not believe our legislators questioned, about the money being expended for a useful purpose. There is some doubt whether or not the people are getting their money's worth in the state-wide activities of advisory departments, especially as they relate to adult education; there is reasonable doubt whether the state should depart from scholastic purposes to teach some professions at public expense and deny recognition to others that have just as much right and just as much need for expert training. In short, because of overwhelming public expenditures that eat up the first 25 to 30 cents of every dollar earned by every Californian, we have determined to limit our expenditures to what we can afford. We must have a balance between what might be at the state university expense in privately class instruction, he presuming to dictate. George Bernard supercilious attitude more harsh ways in waking us out for the on the publicity he reacts This is the same price the Boston public library morbidity or outright such trash on the shelf one of the six best library, the volume enough attention in publishing. Shaw and all his laugh at us. We knew the purpose of making Barnum was right never dies! REACTION Southern Division State Chamber of Commerce figures on school taxes rate for 1931-32 and of money would be used. This schedule shows cents, would pay one consolidation now in by a more general space does not represent ectification, in preventing various grammar schools or in the hundred and made without in the local system. Economies under ing the present small might easily reduce this reduction would local school area. It Do not let anybody alone supports the school per student, would re-dation would benefit taxes. and we do not believe our legislators questioned, about the money being expended for a useful purpose. There is some doubt whether or not the people are getting their money’s worth in the state-wide activities of advisory departments, especially as they relate to adult education; there is reasonable doubt whether the state should depart from scholastic purposes to teach some professions at public expense and deny recognition to others that have just as much right and just as much need for expert training. In short, because of overwhelming public expenditures that eat up the first 25 to 30 cents of every dollar earned by every Californian, we have determined to limit our expenditures to what we can afford. We must have a balance between what might be desirable, and what is necessary; we must get a full dollar’s worth in public good for every dollar expended. Our legislators have spent months in studying the costs of government, and trying to balance income and outgo. Through experience they know how much money we can raise by taxation. Their purpose is to prevent an ad valorem tax from being placed upon all common property of California by whittling down expenses so they will be within present income. The public demands decreased taxes. If the legislature can prevent increased taxes it will have performed a miracle in these days of reckless public expenditures. Considering the circumstances, is President Sproul proving false to his trust as head of the great University of California? Isn’t his duty to cut expenses in accordance with the expressed desire of the people’s representatives rather than try to thwart our genuine desire for economy? Have we arrived at a point where any division of the state government can dictate to the state government itself? We do not believe President Sproul justified in attacking the people’s elected representatives who were sent to Sacramento with a mandate to cut all government expenses. In fact, we would like to suggest that the legislature look into the publicity expenses of the university. Possibly the economies desired might be whittled out of costs of radio addresses over state-wide hookups, and cost of a publicity department sending out reams of “copy” weekly to all the newspapers of the state. This publicity, instead of being used solely for informative purposes, is used as propaganda through which the interests of the university are advanced. In other words, the people’s money is being used to spread propaganda among the citizens of the state to keep on increasing appropriations to the university, which will keep on sending out more propaganda for more money. This sort of cancerous growth must stop. Until President Sproul slashes the average cost per student Economies undergoing the present small-scale might easily reduce this reduction would benefit local school area. It Do not let anybody alone supports the school per student, would reduction would benefit taxes. Bureau of census states for the year 1930 the average per capita in 1930 to $11.75 in 1931. In 1917 the per capita who pays the bill reduction of expenses the depression focused for by tax bills. Yet government cost alone. But that does not paid-out costs of government 25 cents in value. In government in 1931 upon the increased comparative work in order has risen to the point to equal, on the average. Not only have statedly to the service that adding more indebtedness come—by future generation was $1,976,844.129—sons not yet born! This is the picture in California we have the 58 counties and super-governmental system of every dollar we earn together with fixed price constantly-growing price in the category of “we as we are working for.” As individuals, we Some Good Advice By Albert T. Reid NOW, LEMME TELL YOU SOMETHIN', — IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU, YOU'LL STAY OUT OF BAD COMPANY IN THE FUTURE OH,—THERE'S TUBBY BEER BACK FROM TH' REFORM SCHOOL! LE'S GIT HOLD OF HIM PARDON BEER Editorial Highlights DOUBLE TAXES DOUBLY DANGEROUS Disastrous effects of double taxation at the state university to within striking distance of comparable expense in privately-operated universities giving similar high class instruction, he should tend to his own kitting instead of presuming to dictate state affairs. A NATION OF SUCKERS George Bernard Shaw enjoys cheap showmanship. His supercilious attitude seldom changes. He almost tells us that the more harsh ways in which he can criticize America and Americans the more money he can make from his plays and writings. He bawls us out for the cheap purpose of notoriety, then capitalizes on the publicity he receives. This is the same plan by which certain authors manage to get the Boston public library to reject their books on the grounds of morbidity or outright indecency. Once the library refuses to put such trash on the shelves, the book's sales are assured. It will be one of the six best. Without the notoriety of rejection by the library, the volume would be a dismal failure, not attracting enough attention in itself to pay for the ink required for its publishing. Shaw and all his shoddy cohorts inwardly must have a good laugh at us. We know the English satirist pokes fun at us for the purpose of making money. Yet we swallow his bait. Barnum was right. There's a fool born every minute—and he never dies! REAL SCHOOL ECONOMIES Southern Division Manager W. F. Graham of the California State Chamber of Commerce this week announced comparative figures on school taxes in nine Orange county cities, showing the rate for 1931-32 and what the rate for raising the same amount of money would be under consolidation plans. This schedule shows that Anaheim, which now is paying 30 cents, would pay only 25.1 cents, nearly five cents less, were consolidation now in force. This rate change is obtained solely by a more general spread of taxation over a larger district. It does not represent economies in purchasing, in centralized administration, in preventing duplication of classes and work between various grammar schools, the junior high school and high school, or in the hundred and one other ways by which savings can be made without in the least impairing the efficiency of our teaching system. Economies under consolidation, with a flexible control replacing the present small district system steeped in costly traditions, might easily reduce this tax rate to about 20 cents. Remember, this reduction would be solely on common property within the local school area. It would be reflected directly in your tax bill. Do not let anybody mislead you into believing that the state alone supports the schools. The state's proportion, which is $30 per student, would remain the same. The savings under consolidation would benefit the property owner directly by reducing taxes. WE FOOT THE BILL Editorial Highlights DOUBLE TAXES DOUBLY DANGEROUS Disastrous effects of double taxation—due to invasion of the federal field by the states, and, per contra, of the state field by the federal government—have Congress sweating. Reports so far from the congressional committee on double taxation indicate that several geese that once laid golden tax eggs are now in poor health. The gasoline tax is an example of a field once assumed to be reserved to the states but which the federal government invaded last year. The result of a federal tax piled on top of a state tax has been to discourage the use of gasoline. The effect has been most marked in the states which have the heaviest gasoline taxes. The state revenue from this source has thus been cut down and the federal treasury has not obtained the returns expected. On the other side, the attempts of various states to imitate the federal tax on cigarettes have damaged the national revenues without yielding the anticipated returns to the states. Here federal tax on cigarettes is six cents on the package of twenty. When, as it is in Arkansas, the state tax is five cents a package, there is a total of eleven cents tax on a pack of pills. This drives Arkansas folks to corncobs or to rolling their own. This is bound to be so. With every tax there is a point at which increase in the rate means diminishing returns. As the rate goes higher and higher above that point the returns grow less and less because use is discouraged. When double taxation comes in, this point of diminishing returns is in double danger of being reached.—San Francisco Chronicle. LOOK AROUND MR. CLARK Bennett Clark, son of the late Champ Clark. Speaker of the House, takes his seat in the senate, announcing as his "principal and immediate aim" lower tariffs. This will be good news for foreign countries anxious to pour in here the product of underpaid labor that gets its wages in depreciated currency. It is not such good news for twelve million Americans that would like to get back to their jobs. Perhaps, after Mr. Clark has looked around and sees how many American factories have been closed by European competition, he may discover that lower Economies under consolidation, with a flexible control replacing the present small district system steeped in costly traditions, might easily reduce this tax rate to about 20 cents. Remember, this reduction would be solely on common property within the local school area. It would be reflected directly in your tax bill. Do not let anybody mislead you into believing that the state alone supports the schools. The state's proportion, which is $30 per student, would remain the same. The savings under consolidation would benefit the property owner directly by reducing taxes. WE FOOT THE BILL Bureau of census reports on governmental-costs of the 48 states for the year 1931, the latest complete year available, show the average per capita cost of state government rose from $11.40 in 1930 to $11.75 in 1931. In 1917 the per capita cost was $4.19. Who pays the bill? In 1930 there was a general demand for reduction of expenses because the stock crash and beginning of the depression focused attention upon the inflexible services paid for by tax bills. Yet the next year the per capita average of state government cost alone rose 35 cents. But that does not show the real increase. While the money-paid-out costs of government rose 35 cents, the actual dollar rose 25 cents in value. In other words, the real increase in cost of government in 1931 over 1930 was not 35 cents, but $3.28, based upon the increased purchasing power of the dollar because of comparative work in earning it. Since then the value of the dollar has risen to the point where it would take $1.72 of 1929 money to equal, on the average, the 1933 dollar. Not only have state governmental costs risen disproportionately to the srvice they have rendered, but every year they are adding more indebtedness which must be paid off in years to come.—by future generations. Net indebtedness for the 48 states was $1,976,844.129—nearly two billion dollars to be paid by persons not yet born! This is the picture of state governments alone. Consider that in California we have 4,410 separate taxing bodies in addition to the 58 counties and the state, and we get some picture of the super-governmental structure which eats up the first 25 cents out of every dollar we earn. Costs of one government after another, together with fixed payments for interest and redemption on a constantly-growing public debt, are putting us more and more in the category of "working for the government" as much or more as we are working for ourselves. As individuals, we foot the bills of government. THIS WEEK IN WASHINGTON President Roosevelt, after more than a month in office, is still riding the top wave of popularity and authority. He is growing in the esteem of many who undervalued him before he took office, and certainly is proving himself the best politician who has occupied the White House in many years. There is no politics, however, in the plan for refinancing farm mortgages which the President proposes and which Congress doubtless will adopt. Under this plan the Farm Loan Board will take over farm mortgages, extending the time for their payment and establishing the interest rate at 4½ percent. Under the blanket authority granted him by congress to reduce the Governmental expenditures, Mr. Roosevelt's director of the budget, Lewis E. Douglas, has worked out a system which will still cost some four thousand millions a year to operate the Federal machine, and just how this money is to be raised is not yet completely clear. There will have to be some new revenue legislation, but that is still in the future. Reserve system, and perhaps to have year off veteran relief, Mr. Douglas's economy program calls for a fifteen percent reduction in all Federal salaries. This will affect pretty close to a million people on Uncle Sam's payroll, for it includes the Army and Navy as well as civil employees. Protection for Investors There is every reason to expect that the Administration's plan for Federal control of all new issues of stocks and bonds and perhaps also over the sales of old issues, will be adopted substantially as the President has requested it. This is calculated to do away with many of the frauds which were perpetrated upon a gullible public during the program for the protection of the investor for the Government to exercise a high degree of control over all exchanges in which securities and commodities are traded in. The Senate Finance Committee's in- the Administration's plan for Federal control of all new issues of stocks and bonds and perhaps also over the sales of old issues, will be adopted substantially as the President has requested it. This is calculated to do away with many of the frauds which were perpetrated upon a gullible public during the program for the protection of the investor for the Government to exercise a high degree of control over all exchanges in which securities and commodities are traded in. The Senate Finance Committee's investigation of the banking situation has been extended to private banking institutions, and the great house of J. P. Morgan & Company is to be one of the first called upon to tell how private investment banking houses work. The general banking policy of the Administration is beginning to take shape. It looks as if it would work out into a single banking system under which every bank would be required to be a member of the Federal Reserve system, and perhaps to have a Federal charter. It would be easy and legal to force State banks to become National banks by imposing a prohibitive tax on their checks, for example, or by refusing to let them participate in any plan for the insurance or guarantee of deposits. For the Unemployed The President's plan for putting an army of unemployed at work in the national forests has been approved by Congress, and there is little doubt Sunday School Lesson by Rev. Charles E. Dunn. JESUS TRANSFIGURED Mark 9:2-29 Golden Text: John 1:14 The Transfiguration is a good lesson for Easter Sunday, for the glory of the Master's radiant face on the mountain top is akin to the glory of his risen body. It is one of the most impressive scenes in the career of Jesus, a spectacle of high religious significance. We are at once reminded of the Baptism, for the same heavenly voice, testifying to the divine Sonship of the Nazarene, speaks again. We also find here a vivid suggestion of two supreme forces that anticipated the advent of Jesus; for Moses, the representative of the law, and Elijah, a typical prophet, both appear in the wondrous vision. But the matchless worth of this ethereal, mystical glorification is to be found in the light it throws upon the grandeur of the Person of Jesus. Just what happened we do not precisely know. Like the birth and resurrection bit of fact. What we can be sure of is that Jesus was mysteriously exalted in the eyes of his disciples, with a divine illumination that strengthened mightily their appreciation of His deity. To a lesser degree this experience came to Moses, whose face shone after his communion with God at Sinai; to Stephen, whose countenance, at his trial, seemed that of an angel; and to Webster, who is said, after the delivery of his famous Bunker Hill oration, to have worn a grand expression that awed those near him. Note that the disciples, at the close of his transforming experience, "saw no one any more, save Jesus only." May this be the experience of every follower of the Lord! Then after the vision came the clear call to serve a needy world. From the mountain top of inspiration the disciples descended to the plain, there to meet an epileptic boy whom they vainly tried to cure. They had not sufficient spiritual vitality. There was a lack of PROPOSITION President Roosevelt power—to/eliminate and have Syracuse PostELLIBATES bury at Atlanta is every cell. Oh, is thy sting!—gram. COUNT an astride a donde a lamb.—San AY not all joy. If to pay an addieg for the postpost cards—Pasa- D PIE careful to distinline and the pie certain values are Louis Globe- RS the Bands no longway for the radio. may some way to service.—Hart- YOUR PHYSICIAN "Doctor, what's the matter with me?" "Can you cure it?" These two questions make the "horne" of the dilemma in every case treated or applying for treatment. Both questions are of the highest importance for the doctor and patient. A doctor may know exactly what the trouble is—he may be the best of diagnosticians—yet he may be sadly deficient in his knowledge of the best remedies for the disease; so broad and deep is the science of medicine! I believe there are hundreds—thousands of patients treated and cured—when the diagnosis was absolutely a mistaken one. How? Well, the skillful doctor treated the important SYMPTOMS. The best doctor strives to be equal to the answer to both of the questions at the case is even more aggravated. The head of this letter: happy the physician that can, truthfully answer both. Suppose the doctor cannot accurately diagnose the case—yet believes he has done so; I'd trust that doctor anywhere. Why? Just because he knows what remedy to apply for the symptoms. I would be perfectly willing for a doctor to treat me who knows well the action of the medicine he uses; he knows the cause that will bring about the effect. A good physiologist is a good doctor; the man who knows healthy life is quick to recognize any departure from it. Physiology is the science of life. I am not so devilish particular about a technical diagnosis; I do not care how many red calls a man has, just so I know he is anaemic. Now laugh, if you want to!