anaheim-gazette 1933-07-27

THE ANAHEIM GAZEITE HENRY KUCHEL, Editor and Publisher ESTABLISHED 1870 ISSUED EVERY THURSDAY SUBSCRIPTION PER YEAR $2.00 SIX MONTHS $1.00 Entered at the Anaheim, California Poetoffice as second-class matter. SUNKIST MILK AND TROUT The California Fruit Growers exchange has spent many millions of dollars educating the palates of American people to oranges. Strong arguments showing how orange juice meets vitamin C requirements, and of its anti-acid reaction on the system, led to a general adoption of oranges as a food. This advertising was directed to opening up wider markets and cultivating present users of oranges to use more of them. Recent months have shown a vastly wider field of promotion that has not been touched. Nutritional value of pulp from oranges makes it an ideal food for cattle, hogs and chickens, according to research experts. Drying the pulp and converting it into meal is practical. It offers wide opportunity for promotion as an appetizer on the nation’s dairy ranches. Still another outlet for oranges was discovered accidentally when the Rainbow Angling club near Redlands requested 50 boxes of cull oranges weekly to feed trout raised in its pools. If California oranges, long the nation’s favorite appetizer, can make cows contented and fish grow fat, we may yet become familiar with “Sunkist Milk” and “Sunkist Trout” signs. Of immediate importance to our growers, however, is the prospect of having a ready and ever-growing market for culls. A LESSON IN TRADE Still another outlet for oranges was discovered accidentally when the Rainbow Angling club near Redlands requested 50 boxes of cull oranges weekly to feed trout raised in its pools. If California oranges, long the nation's favorite appetizer, can make cows contented and fish grow fat, we may yet become familiar with "Sunkist Milk" and "Sunkist Trout" signs. Of immediate importance to our growers, however, is the prospect of having a ready and ever-growing market for culls. A LESSON IN TRADE Abraham Lincoln said: "When we buy steel rails in England, England has the money and we have the rails; but when we buy steel rails in the United States, America has the money and America has the rails." EVADING TAXES In these days of high tariffs and high taxes it is well to bear in mind that the higher the tariff and the higher the tax, the greater the temptation to evade them. Evading taxes takes many forms. Sometimes it becomes outright crookedness, punishable by law. More often it takes the form of loopholes which legally cannot be plugged up under the present system because of confused juries—take Banker Mitchell's case as an example. Occasionally, evasion is secured through investment in another and less tangible field. With gasoline taxes now running a total of four and one-half cents per gallon, the temptation to evade paying taxes becomes more real every day. The average person, figuring his purchase of ten gallons of 15-cent gasoline learns that out of his $1.50 purchase, 45 cents—nearly a third—goes for taxes. If there were no taxes he would get more than 14 gallons of gasoline for the same money. To evade high tariffs, Japan and a score of other nations, with Great Britain finally succumbing to the same temptation, cheapened their money in order to hurdle the tariff walls constructed around the greatest market in the world—the United States. For a while this plan succeeded. Witness our dime stores filled with cheap, foreign-made merchandise. But the game of cheap money, like the game of protective tariffs, can be played by all nations. So the cheaper American dollar now lessens tariff-jumping of cheap currencies. When taxes on real property grew too high, property-holders could not well evade a tangible property tax so they invested in securities. Even though they fail to declare possession of stocks and bonds, the maze of technical information necessary to find true ownership is so great that detection is highly problematical. The more honest put their money into the ever-growing field of municipal and federal bonds, which are tax exempt. This feature was one of the biggest selling arguments advanced, even during prosperous times. Tax evasion is a fine art. Moral fibre shows weaknesses when taxes are larger than net profits in business. Look back over the records of large corporations which possess vast property-holdings, or over moderate businesses and you will discover real and personal property taxes are one of the most costly items of expense. In other words, without cutting the efficiency of their personnel or cheapening their products or service in any way, the company or corporation can increase its dividends by just the amount it evades taxes. With the selfish cry of stockholders sounding in their ears and the market value of the firm's stock walker of New York, Under our form tinue to be ourselves France, who reall his obligations It is good news is starting out to our naval treaties We say that we never have to use these are unsettled believe that our men drop into a positive powers. We have nitions think the U.S. that we are either national defense something away from The spending does not only bring our provide immediate The government employed directly in the fabricated, huge arm and armor-plate, all the rest of the war. Nearly seven navy program will of the nation will be We hope the sh public works prog We have seen a made a deep study inhabitants are in thousand million o federal, state and industries, mo There is no man was far too easy, and that the great enabled to pay the creditors. Short world is much in bound to be a slow of the plans proper individual and cor are at least a long The problem of In the 15th chapter ancient Israelties shall make a relea Tax evasion is a fine art. Moral fibre shows weaknesses when taxes are larger than net profits in business. Look back over the records of large corporations which possess vast property-holdings, or over moderate businesses and you will discover real and personal property taxes are one of the most costly items of expense. In other words, without cutting the efficiency of their personnel or cheapening their products or service in any way, the company or corporation can increase its dividends by just the amount it evades taxes. With the selfish cry of stockholders sounding in their ears and the market value of the firm's stock dependent upon dividends, the human nature of managers and directors overcomes what ever moral restraint they may have against not paying the full amount of public levies. They justly feel that taxes are confiscatory, take an unfair toll for political use. This cannot be denied, yet the evasion of taxes only increases the levy and encourages tightening of loopholes. The individual firm or corporation temporarily gains by tax exasion, may lose eventually by still higher taxes which increases the temptation to still greater tax exasion. Those who sustain law, order and government are penalized by wide-spread moral and illegal tax evasion for profit. Society cannot long carry this handicap. STILL A CHANCE We doubt very much if all of the green beer will have disappeared by St. Patrick's day. PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 1 In a nation beset with criminal, economic, moral and social problems the idea of picking out public enemy No. 1 at first might appear foolhardy because of the danger of allowing our personal viewpoint to overshadow the real problem. But a study of all the problems brings us to this conclusion: Our own laxity, as a nation of supposedly free and independent people, is our own worst enemy. If public opinion over the last decade had been sufficiently strong against gangsterism, we would not be threatened with this growing menace. Had a vigilant attitude of the populace kept police forces of our nation comparatively free of graft and bribery, gangsters never would have succeeded. Police efficiency became so noticeably bad that the public lost confidence; courts, especially in cases where jurors' families are threatened if a verdict of guilty is returned, proved ineffective in stopping even those few gangsters who were caught. The result is that not a few men feel that paying protection to gangsters offers vastly more protection to business than does the police department. In other words, the attitude is that paying taxes for support of police departments and sheriffs' offices is just a penalty of society; real protection comes from paying tribute to gangsters. Shallow and un-American as the reasoning is, it is held by a wider portion of business men than the average person suspects. When we analyze the reasons for the success of gangsterism, we find many contributing causes. The two fundamental reasons are: Indifference of the general public to the workings of the police departments, the courts and other agencies of justice; excess of individualism, which encouraged one person to cut prices in the hope of stealing business away from competitors, with the result that prices swept below costs, ruining everybody concerned. Along comes the gangster. He tells the cleaners and dyers of Chicago, for instance, that if they will pay protection, no more cut-rate cleaners will be allowed. The business man, in desperation at poor business and in fear of losing what he is holding by a mere shoestring, succumbs. Cut rate shops disappear, prices go up, and after paying tribute he is making more money than under the old regime of competition. Society failed to protect this business man. Gangsters do. In many cases he gladly pays for this protection; in many more cases he continues to pay through fear. This is just one example of how the public is to blame for its own problems. Had the individual been more concerned with protecting his inherent rights, he would have insisted upon protection from stock market gambling and floating of worthless securities; he would have insisted upon a system of banking that would have protected his money; he would have insisted upon earlier legislation erasing evils of over-competition from business and eliminating the sweat shops; he would have insisted that political and social progress keep step with industry and science; he would have frowned on the tendency to condone ex-Mayor Jimmie Walker of New York because he was a good wisecracker. Under our form of government our greatest problem will continue to be ourselves. BLIND SELFISHNESS France, who refuses to pay anything, wants Uncle Sam to pay all his obligations in gold dollars. BUILDING UP OUR NAVY BLIND SELFISHNESS France, who refuses to pay anything, wants Uncle Sam to pay all his obligations in gold dollars. BUILDING UP OUR NAVY It is good news in more ways than one that the United States is starting out to build our navy up to the limit permitted under our naval treaties with Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan. We say that with no belligerent spirit. We hope we shall never have to use our navy for anything but police duty. But these are unsettled days in international affairs, and we do not believe that our nation, the most powerful in the world, should drop into a position of inferiority as compared with other sea powers. We have heard reports that some people of other nations think the United States has gone completely pacifist and that we are either too cowardly or too stingy to provide for our national defense. From that state of mind it is but a step to take something away from us. The spending of $238,000,000 in new naval construction will not only bring our navy up to full treaty standards, but it will provide immediate work for a great number of wage-earners. The government estimates that more than 18,000 men will be employed directly in the shipyards. But to build ships steel must be fabricated, huge armies of men must be put to work making guns and armor-plate, building engines and electrical equipment and all the rest of the fittings and equipment which go into a man-of-war. Nearly seven-eights of all the money spent on the new navy program will go in wages to labor, and almost every section of the nation will benefit by the flow of money thus set in motion. We hope the shipbuilding program and the rest of the federal public works program gets under way quickly. GETTING OUT OF DEBT We have seen a statement recently, prepared by men who have made a deep study of the subject, that the United States and its inhabitants are in debt to the tune of one hundred and thirty-four thousand million dollars. That includes all governmental debts, federal, state and local, the debts of the railroads, public utilities and industries, mortgage debts and financial bond issues. There is no manner of doubt that in the great boom era credit was far too easy, men and institutions went into debt recklessly, and that the great problem of the hour is how debtors can be enabled to pay their debts without at the same time ruining their creditors. Short of universal bankruptcy—for the rest of the world is much in the same boat—the path back to solvency is bound to be a slow and painful one. We are not at all sure that all of the plans proposed at Washington to lighten the burdens of individual and corporate debtors will work as planned, but they are at least a long step toward pulling us out of the hole. The problem of the debtor who can't pay is as old as humanity. In the 15th chapter of Deuteronomy we find the way in which the ancient Israelties solved it. "At the end of every seven years thou shall make a release. And this is the manner of the release: AMBITION ... Serge had it When I hear farmers talking as if they were all headed for the poor-house I think of my neighbor, Serge Katorsky. Serge came over from Russia just before the war, because he had five children and wanted to give them a chance. He had about three hundred dollars to start with. He bought a couple of hundred acres of cheap mountain land about five miles from my farm, and started to work. He repaired the tumble-down old house, and in these twenty years has so improved it that it is the most comfortable farm-house I have ever seen. There are eleven children now, seven of them through high school, two through college, three of the girls finishing up in the State Normal School. And what marks those Katorsky kids do get in school! Serge started with some scrub cows but has bred up his dairy herd until it's one of the best in the district. They grow or raise practically all they eat, and they certainly live well. Serge Katorsky had the two essentials for successful living, industry and ambition. With those a man can get almost anywhere. COLORS ... have a care If you take your automobile with you on your tour of the world, be sure the color is one that won't offend the people of any particular nation. In Finland they don't permit cars or anything else to be painted red. Red is the color of Communism, and the Finns are scary about their communistic neighbors next door in Russia. One American got into trouble in Java with a light cream-colored car. White and cream are mourning colors in the Dutch East Indies, and are permitted only on hearses. A yellow car is an offense in China for the same... and that the great problem of the hour is how debtors can be enabled to pay their debts without at the same time ruining their creditors. Short of universal bankruptcy—for the rest of the world is much in the same boat—the path back to solvency is bound to be a slow and painful one. We are not at all sure that all of the plans proposed at Washington to lighten the burdens of individual and corporate debtors will work as planned, but they are at least a long step toward pulling us out of the hole. The problem of the debtor who can't pay is as old as humanity. In the 15th chapter of Deuteronomy we find the way in which the ancient Israelites solved it. "At the end of every seven years thou shall make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth aught unto his neighbor shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbor or of his brother, because it is called the Lord's release. Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again; but that which is thine with they brother thy hand shall release." Forgiveness of debts was one of the tenets of the early Christians, and the plea comes down to us in the Lord's Prayer. Perhaps too many debtors of our day expect to be released without any payment whatever. We would not go so far as to advocate the Chinese system, under which for thousands of years Chinese had to settle all his debts every New Year's day, with the alternative, if he failed, of committing suicide or entering into slavery to his creditors. But we do believe that most of us would be better off if we never had been able to borrow on long terms, but only for short periods, and then only as much as we could satisfy a reasonable creditor we could pay when due. BREAKERS AHEAD President Ernest Martin Hopkins of Dartmouth college issues the following warning: "The most serious danger threatening civilization today is the rapid development of a perverted sense of democracy which encourages public opinion not only to accept but to idolize mediocrity." WORKABLE CODES After this when a big butter and egg man in the West wants an excuse for going East he can tell the wife he has to go down to Washington to see about the code. MEET MR. MILKTOAST The most timid man we have heard about is the fellow who, when he heard of the law against hoarding gold, traded his canary for an English sparrow. If you take your automobile with you on your tour of the world, be sure the color is one that won't offend the people of any particular nation. In Finland they don't permit cars or anything else to be painted red. Red is the color of Communism, and the Finns are scary about their communistic neighbors next door in Russia. One American got into trouble in Java with a light cream-colored car. White and cream are mourning colors in the Dutch East Indies, and are permitted only on hearses. A yellow car is an offense in China, for the same reason. You don't want to take a green car to either England or India. In England there is a popular superstition that green is an unlucky color. Books and plays have been written about girls who wore green stockings, with the result they never could get a man to marry them! And in India green is reserved for the use of pious Mohammedans who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca and so are entitled to wear the green turban. Better play safe—if you're really going—and take a plain black or dark blue car with you on your world tour. FIRST ... two more My friend Joe Kane has written a book to tell who was the first to do or make many things in common use. It's an interesting book called "Famous First Facts," but I ran across a couple of "firsts" the other day that Joe hasn't OBSERVATION IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED TRY AGAIN A palpitating and perplexed public stood still breathlessly as the papers first paged the story that a well known dancer had taken her third husband. NIZE BIS NESS The favored few who horned in on the stock velvet handed them by a big financial concern were sitting pretty while things were rolling along all right; but if you blow up a balloon too much it's bound to bust and mebbe that's why there are not so many millionaires as there used to be. THIS WEEK IN WASHINGTON Experienced politicians in Washington—and there are more of them here to the square inch than ever before—are wondering why newspapers and commentators began to call the London Economic Conference a "failure" before it had really begun. As a matter of fact, the Administration regards the work of the conference so far as highly successful from the American point of view. The French tried to stampede the British and American delegations into agreeing to an immediate stabilization of the dollar and the pound in terms of gold, declaring that the conference could not go on until that was done. The British stood firmly with the Americans against this, and President Roosevelt's message bluntly put an end to the French effort. From the point of view of France, it seems necessary to the political future of the present government to keep the French currency on a gold basis. The French people are still grieving over their capital losses when the franc was debased from a value of 20 cents gold to about four cents. Any further change in their currency system, it is feared, would result in a social revolution, probably with a Socialist government coming into power. Like a Convention "The London conference is just like any political convention in America," said one shrewd commentator here. "Everybody knows that most of the delegates don't know what's going on. The real work is done in committees whose conclusions are ratified by the convention. London has now got its committees set up, and they are at work, and whatever the conference does will be the result of their deliberations." DAY AND TOMORROW FRANK PARKER STOCKBRIDGE Serge had it members talking as if used for the poorneighbor, Serge me over from Ruscar, because he had tated to give them a about three hundred of hundred acres and about five miles started to work. Pole-down old house, years has so imthe most comforthave ever seen. Children now, seven high school, two three of the girls State Normal marks those Katorschool! Some scrub cows is dairy herd until in the district. They ically all they eat, live well. And the two essenliving, industry and use a man can get have a care automobile with you world, be sure the can't offend the peonation. In Finmit cars or anyted red. Red is the and the Finns are communistic neighrussia. into trouble in cream-colored car. are mourning colors indies, and are perseses. A yellow car for the same got in his book. The first white bread was made by an English miller, Huge Paddington, because a nobleman in his town wanted bread to match his white table-linen! That was news to me when Frank Romer told me. And the first paved street in America is in down-town New York. It is named, appropriately, Stone Street. A Dutch brewer's wife in 1648 got tired of having her husband's drays mired in the mud, so she had her servants lay cobble-stones the whole length of the street. Interesting, if not importnat! BUNK grain alcohol We heard a lot, last year, about a great scheme to convert surplus grain into alcohol. The idea was to save the farmer by requiring every gallon of gasoline to be mixed with a certain portion of grain alcohol. The fuel research committee of the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce comes along now and punctures that balloon. The gasoline-alcohol mixture, it finds, while it enables the motor to accelerate faster, makes starting harder, absorbs moisture from the air, corrodes engine and fuel pipe lines and costs much more than straight gasoline. Besides, alcohol of higher quality can be produced from petroleum more cheaply than the poorer quality obtainable from grain. Some day motors doubtless will be run by alcohol, but they will be built for alcohol use alone and used only where and when the gasoline supply has given out. STEAM inexpensive Driving through a Northern industrial city with an engineer friend I saw a curious piece of construction under way. It looked just as if a huge steam engine were being built out of doors. Like a Convention "The London conference is just like any political convention in America," said one shrewd commentator here. "Everybody knows that most of the delegates don't know what's going on. The real work is done in committees whose conclusions are ratified by the convention. London has now got its committees set up, and they are at work, and whatever the conference does will be the result of their deliberations." The major victory thus far has been won by the American delegation, through the general acceptance of the American proposal to reduce the gold reserve percentage behind currencies and to permit the use of twenty percent of silver in such reserves. The Administration seems firmly committed to the remonetization of silver, and the outlook now is favorable for complete cooperation of all the great silver-using and silver-producing nations. President Roosevelt's program for higher commodity prices all over the world has also been accepted in principle by the chief delegations at London. The Dollar's Level There is a decided belief here that, perhaps within a couple of months, perhaps not until the end of the year, whenever the commodity price level reaches a point comparable with 1926, the dollar will be stabilized at a point probably about 60 per cent of its present gold value. In the meantime, the dollar will be permitted to "run loose" and find its own level, in foreign trade. Prices generally are rising, but the average of basic commodities is still more than 30 percent below the 1926 average. Every rise in price has resulted so far in starting up factory wheels and putting men back to work. Every possible effort is being made by the Industrial Recovery Administration to bring industries into line with their codes of fair practice, minimum wages and maximum work hours. A good many industrial leaders are beginning to show that they do not like the idea of being compelled to cooperate with others in their respective lines. There probably is more bark than bite in their protests, and there certainly is a bite behind the bark of General Hugh Johnson, who has power under the law to require every industry to take out a Federal license to do business and conform to regulations far more onerous than would be required under voluntary agreements. Want Authority What most manufacturers feel is needed is authority for their trade associations to fix minimum prices and compel all to adhere to them. If they are going to be saddled with higher wages and shorter working hours, they would like to feel assured of profit DON'T SUCCEED BEGIN And perplexed public usually as the papers that a well known third husband. IS NESS Who horned in on induced them by a big here sitting pretty enrolling along all how up a balloon too too bust and mebbe are not so many be used to be. TAKES YOU THERE AND BRINGS YOU BACK A fellow steps up to say, why have gold for security—nobody ever sees it. Well, buddy, you don't see the rudder on a boat either, when you are sailing around on the ocean. IN THE BAG If a friend lets you in on some stock for 20 berries a share and it was selling for 40 smackers in the open market, you click your heels together, walk around the block and then unload the paper while the gullable public is holding the sack. WANT AUTHORITY What most manufacturers feel is needed is authority for their trade associations to fix minimum prices and compel all to adhere to them. If they are going to be saddled with higher wages and shorter working hours, they would like to feel assured of profit enough to carry the increased cost of production. It is being freely predicted here that the Administration will do an about-face on this point and authorize price-fixing in order to hasten the program of reemployment. Rising prices of agricultural commodities so far are held here to be the result of the fall of the dollar more than to any other cause. In the case of wheat, serious drought conditions have helped reduce the crop expectations, and that has helped put up the price. No such condition obtains in cotton, however, which has gone up proportionately more than wheat, and in which commodity there is a huge unconsumed surplus and the prospect of a larger crop than ever unless the plan for plowing under a quarter of the 1933 crop before picking time begins is carried out. Making Progress A permanent rise in cotton prices and all other farm commodity prices must be depended upon reduced production, the Administration holds. As this is written it seems probable that enough cotton growers will accept the Government's offer to lease the acreage which they are asked to plow in, to bring the 1933 crop down to under ten million bales. The wheat processing tax has gone into effect, and the 30 cents a bushel on to the bakers, who in turn are putting up the price of bread by about a cent a loaf. They probably will be permitted to get by with that increase, but the Secretary of Agriculture is on the lookout for any unreasonable rise in retail bread prices and it will not be safe for bakers to try to gouge their customers.