The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1922-04-07
Indicting the Government.

mode or administering government
in the United States made by Samue
Blythe and United States Senato
Stanley, stressing the evils of pater
nalism and socialism, and the delin
quencies of the two great politica
parties, it is indeed discouraging tt
watch the course of political events
On the one side Mr.. Stanley views
with alarm the gradual overthrow
by the Republican party of State
sovereignty. On the other hand
Blythe and others see a general state
of socialism in the promotion of Fed
eral aid to schools and highways and
other Federal enterprises which
smack more or less Of Marxism. Even
Senator Shields snaps his finger at
public opinion when he assails the
Volstead Act and its vicious med
ding with personal liberty. There
are only few leaders who make a
specially of speaking out in court"
and more's the pity.
All of these high-sounding doc
when it comes to making Congress
sional courtesy matter of more i'm
portance than the spending of five
billions of American money, then
we are ready to call spade spade.
That seems to be practically what
is now threatening to take place.
The President and Congress are at
cross purposes. The President says
we must have a sales tax with the
bonus bill. Congress says we shall
have the bonus without the sales tax,
and the childishness of the squabble
on Capitol Hill makes a tax-ridden
people almost furious.
What in the name of Sam Hill do
the people care about who gets the
candy. What does concern us all is
the way our money is being spent,
and not whether Congress or the
President has his way. What con-
Germs the American people is the
fact that expenses continue to null
tiply whether revenues do or not.
What concerns us is the fact that
government grows incontinently and
exorbitantly beyond all reasonable
bounds. What concerns us is the
way in which our representatives
disregard everything but the chances
of catching a vote. What puzzles us
is the question of swapping local |
measures and filing the pork barrel |
What disturbs us is the manner of |
making a lump appropriation for ev-
erything before there is ever any eff
fort to determine the exact cost of
the proposition.
One naturally thinks of the bur
lesque-something like the American
follies. There is just about as much
plain business in one as there is in
the other.
After the war we had the
most remarkable spendthrift gov
eminent probably ever recorded
in the lives of men. We
were appropriating billions for navy
and army extensions while the whole
of Europe was hungry and torn. Ev-
erything Congress did was staged on
large scale. Usually after storm
of adversely business men begin to
make a readjustment-to economic.
They wear old clothes and cut a lit
tie here and there-use the old Ford
and have the socks darned But not
so--Congress. Oh, they remarked,
but Japan and England are building
capital ships and we must build them
too. Same old pol parrot story. Ger
many had more sense than that.
When we were building ships before
the war Germany didn't undertake
the senseless task of outdoing us
they developed the submarine-and
it took the combined forces of Eu-
rope and America to overcome it.
erican statecraft-English
Internationally Japan-all dod-
dering idiots. 1t is certainly dispir-
iting to contemplate an acme of
idealism which is nothing more than
party power and political office.
President Harding's action in dis
twenty-seven division chiefs
the other day in the Bureau of En- I
craving and Printing might have
been taken for civil reform but for
the fact that he is fighting the House
in the plans for army and navy re- {
duction. No use discussing the old {
story of militarism. The United
States is the greatest voluntary fight !
ing nation in the world and we need ]
no big standing armies or navies. If [
we are to have democracy the plumed c