Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1936-04-02

VI IlOLu CSCHL CliuuIClS W LAC
the new seaway.
There is very little real contention
that the seaway is economically sound.
1t is frankly recognized as subsidy
to the farmers of the West and
Northwest. The President once H.
Illustrated his own idea of how wide.
spread this benefit would be. He told
callers of the absurdity of piano,
made in st. Louis, moving down the
Mississippi to New Orleans, then being
put aboard ship, moving down to
the Gulf Of Mexico, and then into the
Atlantic, just in order to get to Lon
don.
Whereas, the piano should move
north into the Great Lakes, and then
down the st. Lawrence to the Atlantic
an almost direct line, he pointed out,
as against going round Robin Hoods
barn.
Divergent Interests
But this argument could hardly be
expected to appeal to the Louisiana
senators, or the Mississippi senators,
any more than the argument that the
freight rate on grain to Boston, New
York, Philadelphia or Baltimore from
the Northwest is much too high,
whereas an all-water route from Chi
cago or Duluth, down the st. Law
renee and across the Atlantic on the
same steamer, would be much cheaper,
could be expected to appeal to the
senators from Massachusetts, New
York, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
And by a strange coincidence, both
senators from each Of the states men,
toned voted against ratification of
the treaty when it was submitted by
President Roosevelt two years ago.
In fact, only one senator from New
Hampshire of all the senators from
Atlantic seaboard states down to the
South Carolina line voted for the
having Savannah in mind, voted
against it, though normally they fol-
low the President on almost every
thing.
ALI this is well known to the White
House, and though it is claimed that
several votes have been gained since
the last test, it is privately admitted
that the gains are not enough for the
necessary two-thirds majority.
incidentally, neither the White House
nor the senate is anxious to take up
the time debate on that treaty would
require in the upper house.
Big Mystery
The biggest mystery in Washing
ton is what happens to treasury esti-
mates between the time they are made
and the time the figures reach the
Presidents desk. Interest in this
problem, which became acute last year
and then died away, is revived by the
disclosure that President Roosevelt
was grossly misinformed as to the
probable amount of money that his
proposed tax on undistributed cor
poration earnings would produce.
The gap between what the Presi
dent was told on authority, which he
obviously accepted without question,
and the estimate Of the men in the
treasury who do the computing, is in
the hundreds of millions of dollars
this year. But at least the Presidents
information was only about one-third
to one-half greater than the real fig
ures. But last year, when he first pro-
posed his tax on bigness-the sliding
scale tax on corporation earnings-it
developed that the figures he had ac-
cepted were about four times what the
treasury experts thought the rates
would produce.
Meanwhile it seems certain that
there will be drastic revision of the
plan on Capitol Hill. Treasury ex-
perts, producing tables built on the
Presidents plan, have argued in vain
that even these will not produce the
required revenue. They beg congress
not to write in lot of exemptions,
which they say would make the new
law a sieve.
But congress intends to write in
exemptions that will take care of
banks and insurance companies. 1t
intends to write in exemptions that
would protect little corporations. 1t
intends to permit even big corpora
tons to carry considerably more into
SURPRISES against rainy day wage pay
ments, if not dividends, than the
Roosevelt plan contemplated.
Word From Home
The answer is that congress is hear
ing from home and is worried about
what would happen when the rainy
day comes. 1t is particularly worried
about the second blast of William ].
Cameron, Henry Ford's radio spokes-
man, emphasizing the necessity for
corporation SURPRISES to prevent IN
usual hardships in bad times.
Meanwhile the showing by the treas
ury folks. that the estimates fall far
short of providing the revenue needed
is a terrible blow to the hopes of
many legislators. Congressman, wor-
ried about tax reactions on the part of
their constituents as these reactions
may affect November election returns,
had hoped to go very easily on the
proposed excise taxes-those to take