The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1950-11-16
News and Views -.
By ALEXANDER S. LIPSETT Gan ILNS Feature)


To judge from a speech last weel
by Alan Valentine, the nation
new Economic Stabilizer, the Am
erican people might as well recon
cile themselves to the prospect Of
further, and what is more import
ant, permanent economic controls.
After alluding to the contro
measures imposed during the sec
ond World War and cautionine
against "false optimism" as a re
suit Of, our victories in Korea. DR.
Valentine said:
"This time we need to form
ulate a program for defense
production, not for years but
possibly for much longer. We
must formulate programs and
controls which can if necessary
endure over more years and
yet which will leave our econ
omy at the end of that time
stable, productive and free"
!. !. !.
How the miracle of a strictly
regimented yet free economy is to
be realized is quite another matter.
So far no answer has been forth
coming; none will, it is safe to say.
For to be frank, when we get the
sort of government-manipulated
economy envisaged by DR.. Valen-
tine and his colleagues little will
be left of freedom and of the vir-
tues to which the New Fair dealers
have never ceased to pay lip ser
vice.
And as to initiation, let's not for
get that it was government which
opened the barndoors to the very
dangers against which DR.. Valen-
time inveighs. After all it was
government, and not free enter
prise, which pushed the national
debt from about $40 billions in
1882 up to the present astronomical
height of 1864 billions.
Here is more of the same bitter
medicine. In 1882, worst year in
American economy, the
federal budget had a deficit of
$2.7 billions. In 1850, recognized as
a record-breaking banner year, the
deficit was $5.1 billions, a figure
larger than the entire budget of
1882. The national tax bill scared
from So billions in 1892 to $37.3
billions in 1850, or about the whole
national income at the bottom of
the depression of the thirties.
X X X
These facts, plus the drop of the
dollar to 60 percent of its former
purchasing power, must be consid-
cred in the light of the fantastic
and now completely discredited-
New Deal doctrine that a suffic-
emily high national income would
yield sufficient taxes to balance
he budget.
AS an expert observer of the
fiscal scene ironically writes: "lf
memory serves, the magic figure
hen, in 1889, was 500 billions.
LAST year, a decade later, the ma
ional income had reached, not $9Ol
billions, but $217 billions. AS for|
he deficit, that not only was still
With US; it was in very robust
state of health, indeed"
On the same day that StabilizerI
Valentine sounded his warning the
British Labor government also
made ominously clear that indus
rial RECOMMENDATION and economicI
were there to stay. Thus,
Notwithstanding different political
abels, both governments stand
ommitted to essentially the same
and fiscal course.
!. I. !.
George Bernard Shaw, dead at
he age of "a, was one of the few
ruly great men of this age. And
lowhere was Shaw greater than
vhen he chided mankind, asked
earching questions and supplied
DEVASTATING answers himself. But
ehind his witticism and literary
shone an earnest pur-
'ose. That purpose he once sum-
ned up superbly in these words:
81 want to be thoroughly
used up when l die, for the
harder | work, the more | live.
rejoice in life for it's, own
sake. Life is no brief candle to
me. 1t is a sort of splendid
torch which l have got hold of
for the moment, and / want to
make it burn as brightly as
nosSihle before handing it on