The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1935-05-15
JOHNSON SEES GOVERNMENT
COSTING TOO MUCH

In the last number of The American
Magazine, General Hugh s. Johnson, IN
characteristic Johnsonian style, asserts that
the federal government is not only over
spending but is becoming too costly to be
endured. The General says government
can cost so much it is too expensive to keep,
and he makes other plain statements about
present conditions in this country. Wheth-
err the reader agrees or disagrees with Gen.
eral Johnson's views, they are interesting
and more or less impressive, in view of his
former prominent connection with the
Roosevelt administration. A summary OF
General Johnson's magazine article is IS
follows:
"a government can cost too much to be worth
keeping. 1t can cost much that we can't pay for
it with taxes and there is only end to that
road-payment by printing money. That means
ruin. and we are on the very verge of something
like that now.
Government can cease to be benefit and come
to be only a great burden from which none can
escape except by its destruction. The serfs of Rus
STA land of England at an earlier age) were tied
to the soil they plowed rather than to particular
master. The land was upon their backs-they were
chained to it. They sowed and they reaped, but
their labor did as little for their benefit did the
constant, killing rhythmic bending of galley slaves.
The produce from their labor went to the support
of the owner of the sol-which is say, the gov,
eminent under which they lived. Of course it was
government by fear and threat without the slight
est spice of freedom, consent, persuasion, liberty
or the love of our kind which call patriotism.
1t gave little and claimed the right to take ALL
That government certainly was not worth the price
"Our Federal Constitution and government were
planned to govern little and cost less. There was
not colony that was not formed and peopled By
men who left comfortable homes and comparative
safety to escape some kind of interference by gov
eminent in their private lives The burden of taxes
or debt-the insolence of office in ruling caste
some hateful religious or political pressure-or
some other burden of the need TO be ruled-had
become so great for them that the threat of "a
bowling wilderness, of the arrow that fieth by
night, or of hunger or pestilence seemed better.
"This breed won't stand for the very thing our
fathers came here to avoid. There is lot of talk
now about revolution of the discontented. We
are taking far better care of them than was ever
done before by any government anywhere. If anv
violent resistance is to be expected here it is more
likely to come from those who have ten-cept stake
in this country than from those who have little or
nothing. Our idea of constitutional government s
not that majority can be as tyrannical as a sui
tan merely because there are few more of them.
tyranny is tyranny whether by monarch ora ma
Jorlty 1t is grievous fact that the mounting bur
den OF debt taxes, and the very weight of the ma
ehlnery itself threatens new bondage worse than
any which our forebears ever suffered The gov,
eminent they set up to prevent too much govern
ment may become the agency for imposing that
very thing their children.
II believe that there should be- by interstate
compact if necessary, such thing as Congress
OF Governors. The possibility of benefit in making
sensible and rational the whole field Of federal,
state, and local taxation is immense. Any move
toward cutting out overlapping and even conflict
ing functions between the myriad agencies of gov
eminent in this country could not fail to make a
tremendous difference in the burden of debt and
taxes.
"Some consideration should also be given to the
important question of reforming the whole old debt
structure of the nation If state, local. and munich
pal debts were scaled down only to their present
market values, by some prompt and direct proceed
ing in new form of composition with creditors,
1t would be tremendous relief. By this do not
mean reputation.
II think it is fair to charge thai we simply have
done nothing to relieve the three most obvious,
threatening and effective causes of our continued
"S1resS-eost OF government, taxes, and debt. On
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