The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1944-08-11
Part Two: Johnston Limited

|
Eric Johnston sees clearly and
writes with authority as long as he
sticks to subjects with which his par
ticular combination of abilities and
Experiences equips him to deal. But
he has blind side; and when he be-
gins to tackle problems on that side,
all his vision blurs, he begins to see
double or not at all, and his confusion
of sight and might betrays itself in
jumbled figures, misinterpreted facts,
muddled reasoning, and bad English.
| Consider first his easy acceptance
tribution of the national income. One
would think that by now every person
of normal intelligence would have
| learned to suspect any statistics
which pretend to prove just how
many tenths of one per cent of what
ever it was went to such and such
people at half past four on the after
noon of Friday the thirteenth. Some
other set of statistics can always be
depended upon to prove a wholly diff
ferent result. Yet here we have the
president of the u S. Chamber of
Commerce blithely stating as gospel
the highly debatable conclusion that
while costs of living have risen, they
have not risen as fast as earnings"
(p. 43); furthermore, "The share of
the national income which goes to
wage and salary earners (48.7 per
cent in 1870 :. Z. in 1890 (was) 64.4
per cent-impressive proof, ETC., ETC.
But wages and salaries do not tell the
whole story. There are
farmers, shopkeepers, private enter
prisers of a hundred kinds. When |
their share =. is added to wages and
salaries, the figure in 1880 rises to
"a per cent, leaving only 16 per cent
for nonproductive types of income"
Holy Irish kneecaps of ST. Patrick! |
Sure, it's rich we do be, and we not
knowin'l
At the bottom of page II, Johnston
exhibits another of his lapses of I'M
Liberals who have,
taken over the highly
unliberal statist ideoligy," he says,
fail to foresee, etc." And what do
they fail to foresee? Who cares?
There amt no such animals. When
a liberal takes over an unliberal ide-
)logy he ceases to be a liberal Selah.
On page 178, the president of the
chamber gets the heebie-j eebies at the
.hought of certain agreements be-
ween management and labor, be-
'ause, SEE he, they are made at the
expense of the consumer Thus he J
alls headlong into the error of re- &
sarding the workingman as one unit '
n the population, the manager as an
'ther, and the consumer as a separate :
bird unit. | have often wondered
Who the consumer is. I'm a work =
ngman myself; so are nearly all the
eople | know; my boss, of course, is
manager, and all the people he
nows are either workingmen or man.
gers. Where the hell is this other
ny we never see but always have to
e afraid of injuring?
Like most fortunate men, Eric
ohnston fails most dismally, his mind b
tails most lamentably before the
uestion of the under-privileged the
rim problems of economic insecur- n
y. This despite his statement that p
e has himself been poor. Perhaps a.
is poverty ended while he was too al
oung to have been deeply marked by N
Perhaps he was not as poor as X
thinks. His description of the M M
)enury" of his boyhood has the syn
etic sound of memory somewhat -
His statement %. y. ty
t did not occur to me that . the iiee
ks who exchanged their pennies for pi
y papers were exploiting me-" is Il
Their more than nonsensical; it's til
onic intent, if he intends any irony. Ia "a