The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1932-03-25
Free Wheeling
The Editor Takes His Foot
Of The Brake and Talks
Back to the Back Seat

og aia
vii war, | believe. have there beer
so many crucial issues forced tC
the front of the stage in the drama
of American public and private af
fairs. 1t takes danger, threatened
disaster, a call for self preserva,
ton to bare human nature and
show up men and women for what
they are. A storm at sea, a ship.
wreck, or a conflagration have
much the same effect on those
endangered that economic, finan.
cial and political storms of the
world wide extent and alarming du-
ration and aspect of those now
being experienced have on nations
and their political opponents.
The lines of cleavage, which in
fairly smooth seas and prosperous
times are scarcely discernible, OPP
en- wide and Enthusiastically when
danger threatens and clean-cut sit.
uations compel or at least invite
a stand. Public officials have to
be one thing or the other. Private
citizens capable of forming opin-
ions r wrought up to a pitch
that determines them to enlist on
n side or another. Captains of
industry, and businessmen in the
upper brackets, naturally view the
situation from conservative, bust
ness stand points. The individual
members of all of these classes
possess dominating traits of char
acter which under stress and ten
sion are amplified like the ether
waves that, under the force of
electric energy, boom out of our
radios. The cool, designing, greedy,
money getter or partisan politician.
and the follower of such, sets his
Jaw and becomes adamant in his
stand-pat position. The part of the
general public given to emphasis
and noise in their demands for
their rights, as they see them, be-
come more emphatic and louder
and less reasonable. The confused,
uniformed "timid souls" who do
not know what it is all about stand
helpless and usually jump to the
wrong side because that is where
they hear the most noise.
It is at such times that the
great middle class asserts itself.
The thinkers, the ~reasoners, the
moderate minded but courageous
lovers of justice and equality be-
fore the law, enemies of special
privilege and abused liberty, wheth-
er they are in congress, in business,
in the professions, on the judicial
bench, on the farm, are office
holders, mechanics, common lab
orers, with wealth, without wealth,
~so-calIed Republicans, Democrats,
Progressives or Independents, men
women at such times hold and
WELD the balance of power. When
a crisis approaches and an oppor-
offers, their patriotism, their
and their Indignation spurs
their courage to militant dimen-
sions. They command the situa-
ton and do things. What is done
at such times it not always ideal
but the best, fairest and sanest
possible in the circumstances.
These are the people who elect
ed Lincoln, settled states rights,
freed the slaves, saved the I'm
ion, added needed amendments to
the constitution, elected woodrow
Wilson twice, made the Progress
ive-Independent bloc a power in
the houses of congress, gave Her
bert Hoover his decisive majority
and in the last election balanced
party power in Congress.
Yesterday the representatives of
these thinking, reasoning, voting
citizens rose in their might, in
Congress, and struck a blow for
more equal taxation by taking out
of the Notwithstanding revenue bill
the proposed sales tax on a long
list of manufactured articles of
general use and necessity. The tax
rate was to be two and one-fourth
per cent 1t was estimated to yield
about six hundred million dollars
or more than half of the whole a.
mount needed.
At first thought "a cents on
each dollar article of merchandise
would not be excessively burden
some. But 5000, 600, 900 is quite a
chunk, and the point of the mat
ter is, who would pay it? Oppon-
ents of the tax say it would work
out like the many war taxes that
had to be imposed. Two or three
cents tax on a thing thrived and
grew as it passed from maker to
middleman and jobber and retail
err so that when you or l or our
neighbors finally bought it it cost
from five to 25 cents extra. 1t was
the freight on the tax, you see.
The manufacturers paid no part OF
the tax but used it as an excuse
for extra profit. That is what
could have been expected again If
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