The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1951-08-04
o. Interest To Yea. Es,t
Too Late To Classify

By RUSSELL. KAY

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Forbes magazine has been dig
glng around In an effort 10 dis
cover how our tax Inonev is be-
ing spent by government bureau
Gratis to whom it is turned o. er.
Their findings a4e extremely in
teresting.
The Army, notorious for waste,
seems to have hit an ailstinle high
On the purchase of can openers.
The Army has just purchased 90
rliliion can openers for the use of
one and half million men. Now
can openers are nice things to
have around and, as citizen and
taxpayer, ] have no objection to
providing everyone from the
COMMANDMENTS Chief ON down to
the smallest rear rank rookie with
one at government expense. but
when il comes to burdening every
man with AZ can openers it looks
to me like somebody Is being
overgenerous. enthusiastic or
something.
According to the best available
information Ive been able to get,
metal is scarce. All over the
country boy scouts are urged to
salvage all kinds of metal If the
purpose of this drive is TO insure
an oversupply Of can openers, I'm
against it.
Another Army purchase that
ought 10 cause the average tax
payer TO raise his eyebrows was
that of over one and a half mil
lion web belts, three for every
man in the service and only one
bolt is issued each year. Now Id
be the last guy in the world &C.
leave the Army with its pants
down. but since the Army wears
only one pair Of pants at 8 time
and belts are interchangeable, il
looks like three belts per man are
! unnecessary.
Another piece of government
slapStick was the recent sale OF
$50, 900, 600 lbs. Of butter to Italy
at Is cents a pound by the u. 5,
Department Of Agriculture tam
eiican taxpayers pay around Use
a pound at the same tire that
the Quartermaster Corps bought
1900, 10000 lbs. of oleomargarine
II current market price, 1t looks
like the Quartermaster ought TO
check with the Secretary of lAg-
|riculture or somebody ADJ find
out what Uncle Sam has on his
pantry shelf before dong any
buying. As it stands now. the
American fighting man eats oleo-
margarine on his hardtack while
the Italians enjoy American but
Ter al Is cents a pound. And do
net forget brother taxpayer. you
and | paid for that butter and
paid 4 hciluva lot more than l5c
a pound.
Right now we are hearing a lot
about controls. God knows we
have plenty of them now. but Mr..
Truman wants lot more, Re-
member the more controls we
have, the more bureaucrats, the
more inspectors, the more direc-
tives and regulations. The whole
thing gets louder and fllnnier and
the cost in the end of the day is
tremendous.
The little grocer or merchant is
lust as good an American and
just as patriotic as any of the
din-witted pencil pushers and
alf-baked lawyers who sit in
Washington office buildings and
operate the cumbersome control
machine, but the average little
guy, never anything but Eng
lish, and he just goes stark-star-
ing mad or out-of business after
he was wrestled with directive
like this for an hour or so.
Here is an actual sample Of a
recent control regulation. How
would you like to have double
talk like this thrown at you
every day OF so by saQrne, Jbsfds
Drained official. with instructions
to,esnph with itssr else y Z s-ssi
Sec. 35. Rule 4 Articles be-