The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1921-10-01
What's the Matter With Us,
Anyway?
az ORC 4. KAHN


Why is it that after many months Of
war liquidation and readjustment, we
are still in the throes Of poor ira de,
flight money. restricted credit, dlmin-
ished enterprise and employment and
general discontinue
There are number of reasons:
A war of Unprecedented scope and
costliness. accompanied by correspond
ing initiation Of currency and produc-
ton.
A peace equally unprecedented in
its Ill effects and in the deplorable
discrepancy between professed aims
and actual performance.
Governmental incapacity, neglect
and laundering.
Excessive expansion. overtrading
and lack of foresight on the part of
considerable portion of the business
community.
Exorbitant boosting Of the cost Of
labor and stubborn insistence, in some
instances, upon conditions not nor
mally tolerable.
Governmental and private extrava-
gance.
Tax System of 1917.
But there is one element which, more
than any other single cause, has stood
and still stands in the way of our
economic recovery. That is the improv-
ident, ,disingenuous and mischievous
system Of taxation adopted in 1917.
Leaving aside its appalling com
plexity. its Irritating and obnoxious
cumbersomeness the unfairness of its
Incidence, and its manifold actual and
moral impediments to effort and en-
terprise, it has produced two effects
| of fundamental destructiveness:
It has prevented the accumulation Of
new capital, and 1t has violently in
terfered with the normal flow OF ex-
listing capital
Capital has been driven from the
highways of trade because the govern
ment lies in wait and exacts a huge
toll going up to three quarters of the
wayfarer's income, blithely unmindful,
too, of the fact that there is another
way called "tax-exempt securities"
which is not only safer, smoother and
less laborious to travel, but is entirely
free from toll.
For this throttling Of the supply Of
capital for construction uses we have
chosen the very time when we were
most in need of an ample supply of
funds, because European capital on
which we had largely drawn before the
war, is no longer available to US ow-
ing to the effects of the war-indeed,
Europe, instead of being a provider CT
capital, has become an eager borrower
here-and because the process Of read
justing our industries to peace coEdi-
tons and bringing our productive ca
pacity in line with post-bellunl re-
quirements and opportunities, involves
a very heavy capital drain.
Farmers Grievance.
Adversely and hardships have come
upon the farmer, as they have come. or
cannot fail to come. in a greater or less
degree, upon every element in the
community in the painful economic
p1 ocess through which the country is
passing.
The farmer is gravely disconnected,
and under a sense Of grievance with
the existir; order of things. His inst
grievances call for immediate. inteil-
gent consideration and for effective
redress.
If that re, ress can only be made eff
fective by methods which are 1ew
and somewhat unpalatable to the es-
tablished ways of business, then The
less important will have to yield to the
more important. l. e., business ccnve-
nience and customs to the tree vel
fare of tie farming industry.
Labor.
It hardly needs confirmation that In
The difficult process of adjusting our
Affairs from an artificial and highly
inflated bass to true and normal one
labor cannGi be left unscatheG On the
whoie. tile workers, unionized or
otherwise, have come to rec ognize
that fact.
We are ali beneficiaries of enc an
Others prosperity, and it hardly needs
ae.-u.ne to prove that it Is in the best /
interest of the employer, evel from
the merely selfish point Ct view. not
to pay the lowest wages to which Ia
Dor can be squeezed down, but rather
the highest wages compatible with the
conduct of his business and |
with keeping his product at reasonable
cost.
BY the same token, it is in the in
terest Of the worker to be an efficient
producer and not to slacken on the
job.
Extract from sneech before Traffic
Club Of Pittsburg).