Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-06-28

to win through to recovery, even II
| other compaigns are the price of VIC
tory. We have spent literally. but
must spend more. We have borrowed
and will borrow more. Whether or
not we put an end to tax-exempt
securities, we must now begin to pay
more fully, through income and other
taxes, for expenditures made and to
be made. It should also be said that
with that objective, we must be pre-
pared. not only to tax the country's
largest incomes, but also to levy In
creased returns on relatively lower in
comes, so far as necessary for the
safety and well-being of America.
In so doing, we shall increase de-
served confidence in our Governments
integrity as one valuable step toward
new era of more general prosperity.
Concentration of Wealth.
One vital service of the Presidents
message is it's emphasis on our in
creasing concentration of wealth and
the fact that we have in America
powerful and limited groups of indi-
viouals who have benefited enor-
mously under our laws and Govern
ment. We are almost forgetting that
during the period of less than two
years of our participation in the
World War, we are said to have
created, at least temporarily, more
than $4,000 new American Million
aires, and that in the eight or nine
years after 1920 more than 1000
new yearly incomes in excess of
100000, including many exceeding
100000, were revealed by our in
come tax returns. A study of ma
tional income and its relation to pur-
chasing power by w. I. King. as Of
1926, disclosed in the previous IL
years marked increase in the per-
centage of very large individual an
nual incomes. A recent examination
of those returns indicates that in
1882, on the basis of incomes and
values. about 40 of our wealthiest
citizens controlled more than per
cent of the total estimated wealth of
our country.
The contrasted incomes-omitting
the unemployed-of wage earners in
our production system should not be
ignored. The Committee on Economic
Security reported this year that:
I'm 1929, at the peak of the stock
market boom, the average per capita
income of all salaried employees at
work was only $l,475. Eighteen mil
lion $50 persons, constituting A per
cent of all those gainfully occupied,
exclusive of farmers. had annual
earnings of less than 81 900; $4,000, 900,
or nearly 10 per cent, earnings of less
than $500. The average earn
ings dropped from STATS in 1929 to
s1,199 in 1882"
One cannot examine these and
similar facts. keeping in mind the
myriads of men and women who are
dependent for chance employment on
those who enjoy large incomes, without
reaching the conclusion that such
conditions give only haphazard prom
Use of future industrial well-being.
The President has served our
country we'll by thus calling attention
to grave evils in the bodies polite and
economic, and by indicating lawful
and equitable methods for lessening
those evils. We should join him in
defining fair rules for the profit game
in a governing country for those
who, through concentrated industrial
and financial resources. may decree
the economic fate of countless other
human beings. Americans might be
more content If those who WELD auto
cratic authority always came to their
control by proven genius. But life
does not so Discriminatory reward.
and an impartial Government must
at least shield against lost economic
liberty, which draws political liberty
after it, our average citizens who are
the source of the strength of our
Nation.