The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1933-03-21
NEWSPAPERS OPINIONS
BUSINESS MIND IN POLITICS

BUSINESS MIND IN POLITICS
1t has always been justifable criticism of
democracy that it was not particular as to the
type of citizen it promoted to place of power and
of governmental authority.
Perhaps it is not going too far afield to con-
tend that it has been, in some measure at least
because of the enthronement of the unfit and the
inefficient that government all the land IS in
the sorry plight in which it is now found.
The administration of government is usually
committed to the political mind and that alone
and present-day dilemmas may arise chiefly from
the circumstance that the business mind, the fnan-
cial genius, has been too divorced from its coun-
ellis and from its executive seats. The political
concept of governmental operation never fits in
with the rigid rules and practices of economic
judgment and the financial prostratiOn of govern
ment today has come about because society has
been slow to yield to the changing demands that
business efficiency and business axioms be applied
to this sphere.
In North Carolina are heard the frantic and
frenzied signals of a tax revolt, but when we lay
before us mpartially and fairly the merits of such
a rebellion, it becomes a case of turning against
evils which have been selfmposed by the citizenry
of our commonwealth. Our mounting tax bills in
this state have not been arbitrarily and ruthlessy
rammed down Threats by some august and
mighty minority: they have been deliberately and
spontaneously invited and accepted by the masses
of our people who have fallen in with the popular
wave of sentiment that government should be
compelled to do for us that which we are lndl-
vidually unable to do for ourselves. Here is the
central nerve of our whole problem of taxation
either in the commonwealth or in the nation,-the
multiplying functions of government which the
political-minded have gracously acceded in giving
without proper consideration of ability to pay.
century ago a Frenchman, De TOcquevle,
came to America, went home and wrote a book
about US in which he lauded the democracy OF
America, finding the republic to be the freest,
the least governed and the most law-abidng of all
peoples, amazed at our sefreliance our individ-
ualsm and our independence. What Frenchmen
looked to their government to do for them, Amerl-
cans did for themselves.
Not many years ago another Frenchman came
over, NJ. Seigfried, made his observations, went
home and wrote another book about us IN which
he expressed his establishment that Americans
were the most governed and the most lawless of
all peoples. What Frenchmen did for themselves,
Americans compelled their government to do for
them, an exact and complete reversal of the dem
Ocracy of a century ago.
So il has come about that whereas one hundred
years ago the genius of American government was
its simplicity today its genius is its complexity
with the federal unit leading in maintaining 81
different agencies for the performance of as many
different functions in behalf of the people. And
in less than 20 years, the cost of government has
risen from three to fourteen billion dollars not
primarily because of wanton waste and extrava-
gance but because of the wide field over which we
have been compelling government to operate.
The solvent for this i'll rests in large measure
upon the introduction into governmental leader
ship of the sane, conservative business and finan-
cial judgment of men who will control in this field
with the same acumen and rigidity that they exer-
else in the sphere of econOmics.-The Charlotte
Observer.