Evening star., 1923-06-27
Text of Presidents address
Stressing Need of Economy
Constant Watch on Officials to Insure
Wise Use of Public Funds Urged
in Salt Lake City.

The full text of the Presidents ad-
dress at Salt Lake City last night on
taxation and expenditure follows:
My Fellow Countrymen: There is
suggestion of personal tribute In
choosing my topic for an address in
Salt Lake City. 1 have so long asso-
ciated Senator Smoot with great prob
lens of taxation. and have witnessed
so much of his able and faithful en-
deavor to enforce economy and there
by lift the burdens of taxation, that
L find myself involuntarily thinking.
when I come to your state, OF the
menace of mounting taxes and grow
ing public Indebtedness. The re-
moyal of this menace Is not alone
federal problem, for we are recording
gratifying progress so far as the ma
ton is concerned, but the larger
menace today is to be faced by mu-
nicipality, county and state. The
federal government Is diligently seek
ing to prove itself helpful example.
but the improved order must come In
the units of government into whlch
federal government never intrudes:
should speak of it, except that we are
all concerned about general pubic
welfare, and l have thought that pos
sibly a recital of federal accomplish
ment would serve to encourage In
state and local work which must be
done.
A short time before / became Pres
ident a trusted but cynical old friend
said to me one day that he under
stood l intended to make a speciality
of economy in administration. l ad-
mitted my aspirations In that dlrec-
tion. and he replied:
We'll. that's the right idea, but
don't tell anybody about It, You may
think it will be appreciated, but II
will not. Every time you lop some
body off the government pay roll or
keep him out of a profitable piece OF
government business you make him
and all his friends and associates
your enemies; and. on the other side,
not soul in the country viii ever
thank you for lit. Everybody srum-
demonstrates any appreciation OF the
man that tries to save them from
taxes"
Warned Against Speech.
A short time before we left Wash
ington on the present trip another
friend said to me: THE administra-
tion has saved the country a good
cutting down the tax burden. But
take my advice, and don't talk to
any of your audiences about II. Peo-
pie always grumble about taxes. but
they don't want to hear anybody talk
to them on that subject"
To which l replied that 1 believed,
In the present state of affairs. all such
rules were suspended, and any public
man who had anything cheerful TO
say on the subject of taxes and gov
6rad NIL "
OF audiences altogether willing to
listen to him. / believe the American
people are so profoundly interested
in the subject of taxation and gov
ernment costs nowadays. that an au-
dience like this will even be willing
to let me talk to them few minutes
on the subject.
One of the financial incidents to
our participation in the war was to
loan vast sum of money to our
allies. 1 wonder how many of you
ever stop to think that the 10000
600 900 which we advanced to our all
lies, after our entrance into the war.
was just about the same as the total
cost of the civil war to North and
South together. The civil war lasted
four years and strained every nerve
and resource of the nation. Yet its
actual cost to the governments of both
sides was considerably less than the
amount we advanced to the allied
governments during the world war.
Spent More Ourselves.
And that was only a mild begin
ming of our financial transactions in
war. For every dollar we loaned to
our allies we spent about three more
on our own account. In a little more
than three years, between the day
war was declared and peace was
signed. we spent twice as much
money out of the public treasury as
had been spent by the national gov
ernment in all of its previous history.
am not going to talk to you today
about whether the money was all
wisely spent. Whether 1t was or not,
the results were worth all they cost.
and a good deal more. What I pro-
pose to present to you now Is some
confederation of the fact that no mat
ter how willing we were to make the
sacrifice, no matter how cheerfully
we incurred the obligations. we had
to face at the end the big and very
practical reality that these obligations
must be paid.
You have inferred from what I said
a moment ago that we spent roundly
$40, 000.000,000 on the world war.
How many of us ever stopped to
think that that was rather more than
the total wealth of the nation at the
time Of the civil war. We paid out
of our current taxes, while the war
was going on. more than 25 per cent
of it's cost; that Is, as much as the
entire national wealth so late as the
year 1920. At the beginning of
August, 1919. the public debt reached
the highest point in its history, ST.
500, 100000 That was just about ten
times the amount of the national debt
at the close of the civil war.
Too Close to See Effect.
We are still too close to the events
of the great war to be able to realize
, the enormous burdens placed on our
country. Quite aside from the large
operations of public finance which it
necessitated. private finance has been
called upon from the very beginnin &
in 1914 to make special arrangements
for financing the huge foreign trade
that resulted from Europe's extraordi-
nary demands. Long before we were
| in the war our financial machinery
had been compelled to shoulder the
financing of an enormously exag-
gerated export trade to the warning
powers. For time Europe with
drew gold from US in great quantities,
but presently II returned in yet great
er. bringing to US and to the Eu-
ropean countries the difficult problem
of maintaining the exchanges and
supporting the gold standard. Costs
of everything rose to an artif1cfally
high basis. and in every direction ex-
| penditure was stimulated.
| Altogether, the war was not only
the greatest horror the world has