The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1921-09-22
PAGE SEVEN

Is W pay pdCh anu WOIh UdCh. MI.
Coolidge says that economic success
will be found not in resisting but in
obeying economic laws. We can spend
our efforts in chickering's and lose, or
we can spend our efforts in industry
and win" The sage from Massachu.
sets reasserts old truths that every
body should know, but which are not
known broadly enough, in saying that
the government can do little beside
extending credits, as it has done, and
in readjusting taxation, as it will do
before it gets through with the pres.
ent legislative processes. Everyone
seems to expect the government to get
a job for them; to sell their merchan.
disc or their crops, m to make it
easy ito run their affairs at a profit.
The railroads are always bleating for
help from Washington. Heaven knows
they have troubles enough, but 1t
seems that the government can do
nothing more than pull them out of
the hole before they are stuck in an
other. Just at the present time the
transportation carriers insistently de-
mand that they be paid something like
$500, 900 900 of the so-called refund.
ing debt" The railroad administration
says that the government owes this
amount to the railroads. Mr.. McAdoo,
who was the original railroad admin
istrator, says that the railroads have
not more than half that sum coming
to them. Certain distinguished sena.
tors have argued long and eloQuently
to the effect that the railroads have
nothing coming from the government,
and n or two of them declare that
every cent refunded to the railroads
will be in the nature Of a gift. Really,
they put it stronger than this-because,
you know there are men in the senate
who see red every time one says a
good word for the railroads. How.
ever. the plan revolving around rail-
o a aid seems to chase itself In a
circle. Give the railroads $500, O0O, 900,
we are told, and the railroads will
employ a million more men in doctor
ing up their broken-down roads and
equipment. Inside of the circle are
pictured industrial establishments
burning coal, melting steel, and &C.
celebrating the whole industrial world.
Thus as the circle rolls round and
round the whole slack of industrial
unemployment Is made to disappear,
and, If we believe half the good that
one hears about the scheme. every.
body In the country will soon be work.
ing. with the result that the haber-
dashers will again sell silk shirts,
stocks and bonds will boom, and full
dinner pals will take the place of ordi.
nary lunch baskets.
1t is wonderfully comforting to many
OF the politicians to figure Out their
~multitudinous receipts for what Milton
called Happy Walks and Shades A
few weeks & we were told that all
that was necessary to restore normal
conditions on the farm would be the
passage OF an act by congress provid.
ing for farm financing. The bill was
f~~N, "Hu ~ q hCipCu, UcCduSS COC
ton has advanced in price and some
OF the agricultural products are NOV.
ing more regularly and steadily in the
markets and exchanges. Other de-.
tours that are intended to avoid the
rough spots in the old highways of
business and commerce, will lead the
country through the laxative pro.
cesses Of conferences" One of these
Is expected to solve the problem of un
employment. The famous Mr.. Hoover,
known as the possessor Of a great
engineering mind" is to be in charge
or this movement. 1t is pointed out
that in the public service we have an
excess OF legal minds, bankers minds,
the labor mind and the farmer mind.
SO the engineering mind" is in rather
a distinctive class. Just what Mr..
Hoover and the industrial conference
intend to do is not entirely clear; but
Hoover is regarded as a sort of a
wizard, and there are expectant hopes
that he will get results" The coun.
try has been demanding all sorts OF
things from Washington, and to do the
politicians full credit they have worked
their "dingdest' to provide a cure for
every n of the national ailments.
Most of the remedies have failed to
cure, but usually they have beer sooth.
ing to the spots where there was the
greatest pain. We do not know Just
who Gavin McNabb OF San Francisco
may be, but he said a mouthful when
ne declared that "a politician is the
only animal known to nature who can
keep both ears to the ground at the
same ti.Aa.
There are two hundred cases where
federal prisoners were convicted fol
violating wartime statutes. The great.
er part of these show that the prison
ers were sentenced to from ten &c
twenty years for having obtsructed the
draft, or other cases held equally grave.
Since the beginning of the Harding adj.