Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-12-02

as to equallZe the competition be-
tween them and the big ones. Thus,
he says, a long step could be made
in the direction of preventing the
growth Of monopolies.
Actually his own Treasury depart
ment has proved to it's own satisfac-
ton from its own figures that the
undistributed earnings tax did not
bear so heavily on small corpora
tons as on large ones. Actually
most of the suggestions as to why
the business recession had come
was aimed at big business concerns
rather than small ones.
Not This Session
This administration eagerness to
confine modification of the undistrib-
uted earnings tax is excellently il
Illustrated also in the statement
made by Sen. Alben w. Barley,
Democratic leader, after talk with
the President. Barley said:
Sin my judgment, we cannot act
this session (meaning the short ses-
sion) on proposals for amendment
of the undistributed profits tax to
relieve new and debt-burdened cor
porations.'
Contrast this with Senator George,
who says:
'There can be no business re-
covery unless those who employ la
Dor can retain some of their earn
ings to pay debts and to expand
operations. I am confident the con-
gress will modify the provision inn
posing the surtax on undistributed
earnings, and allow those earnings
to be used by business in the inter-
est of the workers."
Some very shrewd observers do
not believe the President will insist
on the text of his first message.
They think it was almost purposely
put in general terms. Certainly it
left plenty of loopholes. Even his
fiat declaration against speculative
profits-an old dogma of the New
Deal doctrine-was not specific.
On this point congress is deter
mined to permit the spreading of
losses over at least two if not three
years, in clear opposition to the
New Deal theory that saving for a
rainy day merely makes it rain
harder, and sooner.
Again Soft Coal
''Like the poor, the soft-coal in
dustry is always with u.s." a high
administration official lamented at
a little gathering of the best govern
mental minds.
At present two agencies of the
government, the Interstate Com
merce commission and the bitun1i-
nous coal commission, are not just
seeing eye to eye on this terrifically
important problem, intensified at
the moment by the fact that the
administration is straining every
nerve to get business out of it's
doldrums.
The National Coal association is
indignant, both at the boost in rail-
road freight rates on coal already
granted by the I. C. c., and at the
present demand for a further in
crease of about Is per cent.
The present increase, the associa-
TONS officials claim, els to take eff
feet despite the evidence that high
rail rates are diverting coal in large
tonnage to truck transportation as
well as accelerating consumer use
of substitute fuels which move by
pipeline. To add another Is per
cent increase to rail freight rates
on coal, as now asked for by the
railroads, will be suicidal"
The bituninous coal commission,
which earlier maintained that the
increased cost of coal would be
borne mainly by the railroads and
utilities, and not by householders,
is now perturbed. 1t is opposing
vigorously the increase now on the
table before the I. C. c.
But the Railroads
But on the other hand, what is to
be done for the railroads? Weak
ness in their stocks is regarded by
the administration experts as one
of the big factors in the recent stock
market slides, and in the general
recession of business. Administra-
ton agents have been delving ca
gerly into the possibility that bust
ness could be revived by railroad
buying First there was the idea of
lending them more money-pour-
ing it out. But they learned that
this would interest only few roads,
chiefly those already in financial
trouble. The stronger roads would
prefer to do their own financing
if-and that has been the trouble
they considered the situation justi-
fed the spending.
So it has become obvious that the
railroads must be permitted to earn
more, not just to have cheap money
loaned to them, in order to start
any real amount of spending
On this phase the I. c. c. is in
clined to agree, but it has learned
through sad experience, as indeed
have the railroads, that rate ad-
vances are nonguarantee of bigger
earnings. Freight diverts quickly
to trucks. The I. c. c. has rather
reached the conclusion that the only