The Western news. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1933-current, 1936-07-23

It would have involved also buy
ing wheat, corn and other grains
year before last. instead of paying
farmers not to grow them.
Had this own idea Of Mr.. Roose-
welt, which he talked about with
friends and with newspaper men
three years ago, been carried out,
the government might not only
have paid all expenses on the trans
actions, but would have thereby
saved the taxpayers practically all
the money paid out in farm ben
efits.
Putting it another way, all the
people of the country, during the
period of AAA taxes, could have
saved FIVE cents on every pound
of bacon they bought, and six cents
on every pound Of ham they bought,
those being the amounts Of proc
essing taxes assessed against these
particular pork products. (The
AAA tax on pork was only two
cents a pound, but this included
the whole hog, and many parts Of
the animal could not, for one rea-
son or another, stand the tax, so
the major portion Of it had to be
assessed against bacon, ham, pork
chops, and other attractive ele-
ments rather than the hides, hoofs,
bristles, ETC., which competed with
other products not subject to any
such taxi
On the Other Hand
Also, of course, there would not
have been the deficit from outlawed
processing taxes which is now to
be made up, in part at least, by
the higher rates of the new tax bill.
This policy, it Is further pointed
out, would have resulted, at the
present moment, in there being on
hand, in government warehouses,
plenty of feedstuffs for the animals
now being removed from the
drouth area. Whereas even last
year feedstuffs had to be imported.
The system so far pursued by
the government, therefore, has ac-
tually resulted in the taxpayers Of
the United States being assessed
not only to make food cost more
in the United States, but to buy food
from foreign lands.
Yet had the President carried out
the idea he talked about, instead
Of pursuing the Henry Wallace doc
trine Of scarcity, the farmers
would have had the satisfaction Of
having big crops in good years, the
government would have held up the
price by big purchases, such as
last year for meat and this year
for wheat, II necessary at profit.
In short, the farmers would have
been just as well of as by re-
ceiving AAA checks for not grow
ing crops, the consumers would
have paid more-perhaps a little
less-and the taxpayers would have
saved half billion dollars a year.
Halt billion is cited because this
is the amount the AAA 'plow un-
der" campaign cost q year-the
amount of AAA processing taxes a
year-and the amount that must
now be raised to obtain crop reduc-
ton under the camouflage OF soil
erosion prevention.
Signs of Relief
Nobody will admit it, officially,
but there were plenty OF signs OF
relief around Charley Michelson's
Office, not to mention Steve Early's
White House sanctum, when Mrs.
Franklin D. Roosevelt announced
the other day that she would have
no more press conferences until af-
ter the summer. After the cleo
ton" is the way her statement was
construed.
The answer to the relief lies not
nearly SO much in anything Mrs
Roosevelt has said or done as in
the constant fear of what she might
say. Or do.
The First Lady is fortnight per-
son. She acts on impulses. Those
who know her, regardless of their
opinion OF her views on economic
and social questions, like her ire
mendously. She has real charm.
She has, in addition, a quality all
too lacking in SO many wives OF
prominent men--the ability to give
the impression to any one talking
to her that she is enormously in
terested in what they are saying
that it is a new thought to her
and that the whole course of her ac-
tivities is going to be swayed by
it from now on!
This sounds like absurd over
statement. Actually it falls far
short of accurate appraisal OF this
extraordinary quality.
But--this is not the picture OF
Mrs. Roosevelt that the country as
a whole enjoys. The average man
or woman out in the country chuck
les at jokes on Mrs. Roosevelt's
constant travelling, never being at
the White House.
Use Mrs. Roosevelt