The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1949-06-17

history department at the Uni
versity of Mississippi. before
the annual Business Mems
banquet given by the Young
Mems Business Club of Moss
Point. Monday evening. June
18th.
Eddie Khayat, who knows
everyone in Oxford as we'll as in
Moss Point and Jackson County,
wrote me that / would have
twenty minutes to talk before a
hundred men and three ladies.
He drew no conclusions and !
have made no differences regard
ing the proportion Il suppose it's
the normal one down here), but
he did say my audience would
be made up Of prosperous, rela-
lively young business men of the
type that can be found on the
square of Oxford. | shall pro-
coed on the assumption, then,
that you r doing all right but
that occasionally you have been
emotionally aroused about the
possibility Of war with Russia,
states rights, government bu-
reaucraey, socialized medicine,
federal aid to education, high
taxes, the National debt, infla-
ton and deflation, the Negro
question, the Roosevelt family,
Miss Hospitality, the chances of
another depression, and what's
going to happen to your kids. At
least in the back of your mind.
you are considerably worried
about what the future will bring.
You, Individually, are interested
in security and freedom, and be-
ing recognized as doing some
thing worthwhile in your com
munity. If anyone here does
MT come in this general category,
I'd like to have him raise his
hand. | shall proceed to talk
about most of the above ideas.
II is probable. even though you
live on the salubrious Gulf Coast,
in a land of ease and plenty, that
a few of you have acquired along
with a few bucks enough tension
in the last decade or so to re-
quire the treatment of a psy-
chiatrist = or maybe you just
haven't been to one yet. Owe
been going to an allergy doctor
in St. Louis, but I'm beginning
to realize that | may have chosen
the wrung specialist.) / don't
have to tell you that you are
living in the most complicated,
the most hectic, the most promis-
ing and yet the civilization with
apparently the most pessimistie
outlook that this world has ever
seen. Let's see if we can bring
some order out of confusion.
Starvation In Plenty"
l suppose that every one in this
room believes in our capitalistic
free enterprise, anti Communist
American way of life. The re.
cord indicates that we have done
pretty well, better than any other
people, ever, and that we have
considerable reason to be SNUG
and complacent. But in the last
35 years we have INDUCED in the
two greatest wars in history, and
our free enterprise" system has
brought us the untold misery Of
a man sized depression. With
an abundance of natural and hu.
man resources, capital, t~ranspor.
tation, and industrial plant, we
allowed from ten to fifteen mil
lion men who we're willing ane
able to work to go ten year:
without employment. Starvation
in the midst of plenty. This was
the most colossal waste in human
history. And the only thing thai
stopped it was World War ii.
Every man and woman in this
room is afraid that we shall &C
back to the era of the sos = : mos
of us think it only a question o.
how long before the depression
Some of us figure that we hav,
been living in a fools paradise o
prosperity for four years, in
prosperity bolstered artificial,
by huge OUTLAWS for world relic
and home ornaments and by tn,
f3st-running-out savings of tn,
war period. Does it begin t,
look as though we need war Il
have a prosperous economy? |
so. who not take a hundred bill
lion dollars worth Of goods eacl
year, place them on twenty bill
lion dollars worth of ships, pre-
ferably built in Pascagoula, sem
them out and toss a few alton
bombs at them in the deepes
part of the Gulf? You say tina
is a silly, preposterous, Faction
suggestion. But it would work
it would postpone depression an,
save the system we are SO prour
of, and it would be immensel.
superior to shooting down on
best young men.
Production Tripled
World War | and World War
showed US just how powerful
producing nation we do have