The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1939-02-23
On Capitol Hill
BY GEORGE L. KNAPP

Washington, D. C. ILNS). - Two
very good things indeed came out in
Washington in the last few days.
The House passed and the Senate
probably will pass bill granting any
state the express permission to tax
the income of Federal employees living
in that state, and claiming the right
to tax the incomes Of state employees
for Federal purposes. The favorable
vote was little more than two-and-a.
half to one. 1t may be held up in the
Senate; may be modified; but that
principle is going through.
Of itself, this will not make great
difference. But it is one more step in
cutting out favors and privileges;
which always work badly. One Of the
reasons for the slowness Of capital to
invest in business--and everyone ad-
mits that's the fact that anyone with
half million dollars or more can in
vest it in tax exempt bonds, and draw
an income insuring luxurious living
without paying a penny Of tax on it
risking dollar or doing a lick of
work.
Privileges are out of place in a
democracy. Espec ~ privileges
which go in overlapping measure to
the fortunate.
The other good thing is the report
on executive salaries Of corporations,
made by the Twentieth Century Fund
to the Monopoly Committee. 1t says,
for instance, that corporation officers
got in 1881 42.2 per cent as much as
total dividend payments, and goes on
GAS the depression deepened,
the proportion between execu-
tive salaries and total stockhold-
ers' dividends) rose to 52.3 per
cent in 1882 and GA per cent in
1888"
In the latter year, the study showed
executive salaries of corporations
totalled $2,0OO,0O0,OO0; which was
"more than all the rent paid by cor
porations, and five times the corpora
tion income tax.
"These figures do not include divi-
dends on stock owned by officers, the
total of which is unknown; nor do they
include the profits which officers of
companies may have made by specu-
lating in the stocks of their own COM
panies."
"In bad times," says the report,
"total payments to officers are stickier
than wages and dividends. They 90
down more slowly and less far. In good
times they go up faster and farther"
For even if the president of big
corporation cuts his own salary in de-
preston; and my recollection is that
Walter Clifford Of the A. T. & T. cut
his salary from $230,0O0 a year to
$2O5,OO0 year, he didn't get lay
off. And the A. Il. & T. dropped more
than 30 per cent of its wage earners
during the depression.
x x X
Justice Brandeis has put in the rec
ords of the Supreme Court a quality
of English prose unmatched by any
American jurist except Holmes and
Cardozo.
In the Anita Whitney case, he was
upholding the sacredness of free
speech, which might not even be curb
ed merely because the powers that be
were sacred. He said
"Fear alone is not enough. Men
feared witches and burnt women"
In the Bedford Cut Stone case, he
was standing for the right of organ
lied labor to refuse to finish work on
non-union cut stone, and said that the
courts denial of this right
Reminds of, involuntary servitude."
And in the Oklahoma Ice case, he
was pleading for the freedom of states
to experiment with economic regula-
ton, and closed his plea with the
words:
"If we would guide by the light of
reason, we must let our minds be
bold"