The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1938-04-07
W. G. BatcheIder, Civic Leader, Shoots Sell
MIR. Hearst S Letter
To Mrs. Patterson

LOS ANGELES, CAL, April 6, 1885,
Mrs. Eleanor Patterson,
Publisher Washington Herald and Times,
Washington, D. G.
My Dear Mrs. Patterson:
r READ your article on what the President could
say to Danish fear. 1t was fine. It was so good
and timely and appropriate in every way that I
would like to suggest that you 60 further and open
the columns of your paper to suggestions from the
people on this vital matter.
In such symposium would like to contribute
the thought that what the President could say to
Danish fear is what he said before his election to
the presidency when he was campaigning against
Mr. Hoover
In Pittsburgh, on October 10, 1892 Mr. Roosevelt
said: "Quite apart from every mans own tax assess
ment that burden (heavy taxation) is brake on
any return to normal business activity.
'Taxes are paid in the sweat of every man who
labors because they are burden on production and
can be paid only by production.
IF excessive, they are reflected in idle factories
tax-sold farms, and hence in hordes of the hungry
tramping the streets and seeking jobs in vain.
"Our workers may never see a tax bill, but they
pay in deductions from wages, in increased costs
of what they buy, or las now in broad cessation
of employment.
"There is not an unemployed man-there is not
a struggling farmer whose interest in the SUBJ
ject is not direct and VITAL"
In the same speech he said:
81 regard reduction in Federal spending as one
of the most important issues of this campaign.
"In my opinion, it is the most direct and eff
fective contribution that Government can make
to business"
You will observe he advocated reduction of tax
alton, and explained that taxes paid by all the
people, no matter if they only directly levied
some of them. I fully agree.
He further said that he regarded reduction in
Federal spending as the most effective contribu-
ton that the Government could make to business.
agreed with that statement then. agree with
it now.
Obviously the more money is taken away from
the working, creating, producing classes and dis
trbuted to nonproductive politicians, and devoted
to nonproductive enterprises, the less productive
country becomes, the less wealth is created, and
the less wealth there is to be distributed in wages.
Further, the larger the amounts that are taken
away from the incomes Of the people for needless
government expenditures, the less the people have
to spend at the Stores the less the stores buy from
the factories, the fewer raw materials are pur-
chased by the factories, and the less employment
there is consequently in the stores in the factories
and in the mines and farms
And still further, the higher the taxes imposed
on industry, the higher the costs of industrial
products become, because taxes are as much part
of cost as labor or materials
And the higher the prices of products, the fewer
products people can buy.
Evidently therefore, with incomes reduced by
taxation, prices of products increased by taxation
there is continually less retail buying and retail
buying is the basis of all prosperity.
Prosperity is nothing but a condition where
people have money to spend and spend it-depres-
sion is condition where people have not the money
to spend, and consequently cannot spend it.
If the people are robbed of their purchasing
power by high taxes, all the essential elements for
depression are Immediately created-a depres-
CONTINUED Page T. COL 81