The globe-independent. (Hagerstown, Md.) 1943-19??, 1954-02-25

Stating very emphatically that, in
his opinion, there will be neither
recession or a depression in the near
future, Charles r. Sigh, Jr., chair
man of the Board of the National AS
ISOLATION of Manufacturers, told an
audience of over 100 al the annual
dinner of the Hagerstown Manufac-
turers Bureau, held at the Hotel
Alexander last week, that this talk of
recession and depression is being
fostered by ''The Prophets of Doom
and Gloom"
Mr.. Sigh, who was introduced by
L. Vinton Hershey, president of the
Hagerstown Shoe Company and a
member of the Board of Directors of
NAM, told his audience that his OBJ
serVances, during a recent tour
throughout the nation, convinced
him that, instead of a depression,
there will be an even higher level of
prosperity in the future. AS proof of
how wild rumors not only get start
ed, but also SNOWFALL along the way,
the speaker referred to a statement
made by the late William Green,
president of the American Fedora
ton of Labor, shortly after the end of
World War II, in which he predicted
that there would be over $4,000 peo-
pie unemployed in this country -
statement, of course, that was just
as wrong as anything could be.
The speaker also pointed out that
the economy of this country has al
ways been peace time economy
and it was on peace time economy
that the nation grew and prospered.
'War materiel," he said, "is no good
in peace times. You can't drive tanks
down the streets of American cities
instead of automobiles, and war
economy definitely does not per-
manently increase our standard of
living"
| Continuing, Mr.. Sigh stated: 'just
as the ingenuity and inventiveness of
our people has been proven many,
many times in the past, l am convinc-
ed that the same ingenuity and in
ventiveness of our people will
come to the front in the flu
ture, with some Of the products
that we hear little Of today becom-
ing the means of creating big indus
tries of tomorrow, and those indus
tries will provide jobs for many peo-
pie and those jobs, and the money
earned through them, will be pro-
ductive of civilian purchases.
In connection with this thought,
Mr.. Sigh cited the television indus
try. about six years ago." he said
''the television industry was one we
, didn't hear a lot about. 1 can well
remember holding back on the pur-
chase of television myself because
just felt they weren't ready yet
Thinking back to the state of the
television industry six years ago
would any of you have been willing
: to predict that, by 1854, there woulc
: be more television sets in Chicago
: and Boston than there are either
) telephones or bathtubs? And yet
gentlemen, that is an actual fact
: today"
/ Mr.. Sigh then took up the prob
, lem of taxation on the federal level
of which he has made special study
T There are two sources of federal
income taxes" he said, zone, tax on
: income as it is earned and the other
: on income as it is spent"
Speaking on the taxes from earned
income, Mr.. Sigh pointed out that
/ even if the government took the
/ drastic step of taking every cent OF
corporate earned income over $4,000
it would only receive an additional
tax of around four billion dollars
; he also pointed out, if the federal
government took this drastic step
they could only do it for one year
, because, while you can shear q
sheep every year, you can only Skin
) it once"
| Turning then to taxes from income
: as spent, the speaker told his audi
ence that this form of taxation =
known as excise taxes-which pro-
. vides the government with 812 PEI
, cent of its total income, or So bill
. lion dollars, is an extremely unfair
tax, because it not only taxes various
, items of merchandise at different
/, rates = all the way from 8 per cent
on windshield wipers to 20 per cent
on vanishing cream, but it also per-
mits the sale of many other articles
of merchandise without any tax al
all.
In conclusion Mr.. Sigh strongly
, advocated flat 5 per cent tax on
: the finished product, at the manu-
: facturers level, on everything but
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