Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19?? | View Entire Issue (May 13, 1939)
i»*v- * irAiHiiH Published Every haturdny a* '>*18-20 Giant St. * Omaha, Nebiaska Phone W£l)»ter '517 Entered as Sec'Mid Clasa Ma'ter March 15, 1927, a', the Pest Gtfice a„ Omaha, bJour., under Act of Csp^-.eEi. of Mrrch 3, 1879. ’TERMS OF SUPSCFTF'TT/,N fS.OO ?£B YEAR All News C~py . f OiuVrehos and a id Orgum latiens mu be in our cffice net late* than 6:00 p. m. Monday for currcn Issue. All \dver ticing Copy or Paid Article* not later than Wednesday, noon, pieceeumjj date of issu«, to insure publication. . ■ ■ . ■ — ——■ — ■ —— ■■■ —- ~*.\trnmm Race prejudice most ro. Tr-e Fatherhood ef God and the Brotherhood o? 31 an must prevail. These **■* only principles whi! wltl stand the arid test ef good. James H. Williams & James E. Seay—Linotype operators and Pressmen. Paul Barnett—Fprsm^n. EDITORIALS APPRECIATION of MOTHERS When Mother’s Day was first es tablished a number of years ago, many people thought it would be just a tem porary kind of observance, an expres sion of feeling that would soon be suc ceeded b|y something else, as happens in so many ways in our rapidly chang ing American life. But it has not proved so. The custom has become ap parently a permanent one, and each year it is observed in countless church es, and noted in innumerable homes. Power is given to that feeiing by the general recognition that people have never appreciated their mothers as they should. Children rarely real ize what their mothers have done for them, or the extent of the sacrifices they have made. They accept these sacrifices, these labors, and this affec titon, as a matter of course, something to be expected and not wonderful in any way. As years go on, however, people see how utterly selfish and wrong that point of view was. They realize that the love and devotion which their mo thers gave them was something marv elous and beyond the power of words to express. As the years go on, they desire to express this sentiment in some tangiVc- way And so this cust om has come about, of observing the second Sunday in Mny in this manner. May it long continue, and may it inspire all children, young and old, to testify to an af feet ion so deep that ev ery mother will feel rewarded for all the devotion she has lavished on her offspring. _nHn_ AMERICA $PEND$ A wag once remarked that the only reason any of us ever worked was in order that we might play. Web, there are such trifling items as the rent and the grocery bills to keep us reminded of our jobs. But whatever the reason for, and hiowever one may have to work to obtain it, most will a - gree that a period of rest and play is a high gpot in the life of any individual. And what a gigantic business this health and recreational activity has created for scores of industries and or ganizations and for millions of indiv* iduals! If you are statistically inclined, you can obtain from the railways, from the steamship compares, from the buses and from the airways, the exact number of “passenger miles.” You can check the registrations at the hotels and at the resorts. And by ap proximation you will know about how many of these travelers are strictly pleasure seekers. You can know how many million lusty football and base ball fans pass through turnstiles. Then too, you can get a fairly close approximation of the vast num bers (of dollars spent every year in ad vertising tlr's business of recre ation. Tha modi* advertising volume would be readily obtainable; we pre I diet a Hur clean task in arriving at a reasonably accurate total for the enor mous volume of travel literature. Why this phase of business alone* actually staggers the imagination! Yes yiou could, if you chose, ga ther long reams of figures to determ ine* fairly accurately just to what mag nitude this strictly recreational busin ess reached. But, we defy you to ap proximate the amount of additional business it creates of a completely mis cellaneous and general character nat U"e! After all—speaking in a commer cial sense—is not a vacation in most any form that of a period for unusual spending? During such an (went, is it not a fact that dollars flow more free ly than in perhaps any similar period? Think of the myriads of odds and ends in apparel and accessories and for the endless variety of impulse purchases. And then think of the tremendous po wer of the printed word. -euo CARRYING MONEY A recent business note records a demand from the men for larger poc ket hooks. Does this mean that they have more money, so that a more spacious purse is required? Whatever this sign indicates, American men have a lot to learn a bout carrying money. Many of them carry far too much in their pockets. It is this habit of carrying money that has made the hold-up trade what it is. In spite of all the talk of pfoverty, it is a common thing to read of some man being held up on a dark street or coun try rtoad, and being compelled to hand over a roll of several hundred dollars to some gunman. Every time such a robbery is committed, more despeiace young men are emboldened to hoid to the wayfar er, and many a celebration in the un derworld is financed with the spoils thereby abstracted from honest citiz ens. The traditional place of conceal ment for the feminine world was the stocking. It was about as safe a place as could be devised. If the ladies should return to that fashion, the handbag snatchers would have to go out of business. As for the men, they need some safer way to carry money. The man who goes out with a thick wad in his vest pocket, which he fre quently unrolls and displays publicly, forms the raw material out of which the crook world extracts a handsome business. -oOo — BUYER’S GUIDE by Clarence H. Peacock The tobacco industry plays a large and important part in the econ omic life of our country. American people spend more than a billion dol lars yearly for tobacco and cigarettes. Last year this industry paid more than 500 million dollars in taxes to our Federal government. Within the last twenty years the per capita consumption of cigar ettes has increased from one and a half pounds a year, while the consump tion of chewing, smoking and cigar to bacco has dropped from five pounds per person a year. Tho R. J. Reynolds tobacco com pany of Winston-Salem, North Carol ina, manufactures of Camel Cigaret tes and Prince Albert Tobacco, contri bute much to the economic life of the Colored people of that state. This com pany empldys hundreds of Negroes in many capacities throughout their clean and sanitary factories. They also ad vertise the year around in the Colored newspapers throughout the state. It is estimated that Colored people spend over 80 million dollars a year for tobacco. It is needless to say that if this huge buying power was concen strated with those companies that em ploy Negroes and who advertise in our newspapers, wo could open up more avenues of employment for the mem bers of cur race. For greater economic security read our newspapers, patronize their advertisements and support those companies that give employment to Negroes. o The Most Pressing Problems The officers o1 owe of the lead ing public utility companies oi the na tion, in their annual report tj smck hoiuus, recently said: “Tile problems raised by the federal power program me t.ig most piesshig luow coiiiiont— ing tae industry and its investors. “It is to> be presumed that the objectives of both government and the utilities must be the widest possible use of electric service at the lowest possible cost. The achievement of this end and the solution of file existing problSms of competition lie in cooper ation between the government and the privately owned electric uthties and the coordinated' use of the existing generating and transmission facilities of both. We believe that such a pro gram w ould go far beyond tile direct benefits which would accrue and would be helpful in encouraging general busi ness expansion and increasing employ ment” One of the woirst phases of the wrhole federally subsidized government ownership movement has been the rampant, unnecessary duplication of facilities which already existed. Towns have applied for and been given feder al grants and loans for the purpose of building municipal systems in spite of the fact that adequate, up-to-date pri vate companies had abundant generat ing and distributing equipment to serve their needs. Down in the TV A area in the Sputheast, the government has built transmission lines which vir tually parallel existing lines more than capable of carrying the load. And out in the Pacific Northwest, it is pro posed to build a costly federal trans mission network to earry Bonneville and Grand Coulee power—a network which will practically blanket a terri tor which has been served long, well and cheaply by the private industry. KesponsiDJe uiuity executives have signified their willingness to co operate with government 100 percenc. They have offered to buy and distrib ute the power generated at the govern ment dams, at rates to be approved by government officials, and to be regu lated by government bureaus. Yet the wasteful duplication goes on-—to the destruction of private enterprise, and at the expense of every taxpayer in America. Is it any wonder that the think ing public is becoming weary of the drive to socialize the electric industry —and that the opinion is growing widely that fair treatment for this great industry, which under favorable conditions would spend billions of pri vate dollars (not tax dollars) far ex pansion, is essential to orderly recov ery? -.. - ' Tax Government Bonds The Supreme Court’s decision that government employes may be taxed, in the opinion of a number of well known Lawyers, opens the way to stop ping the) issuance of any additional tax free government bonds, if Congress will pass a bill to that effect. Accord ing to the legal experts, the principle is identical and there is no constitu tional obligation which holds that gov ernment securities must always be tax. free. Various high government offic ials, including several Presidents, have at times spoken of the desirability of taxing government bonds. At present, government issues are a haven for those who wish to escape taxation of income. In many cases, wfaere large sums of money are involved, the net return to the investor on a govern ment bond paying three percent is lar ger than1 on a private security paying five or six. Two unfortunate results follow this. First, the nation is depriv ed of tax revenue from the billions of dollars wrorth of government issues now outstanding. Secondly, the at tractiveness of tax-free bonds depriv es private industry of capital it sorely needs. 3* { Certainly there is no reason why a man with an income in five figures from government bonds should entire ly escape taxation, while a man1 with an income from private sources is tax ed to the hilt. And, as matters stand now when private industry goes into the money market for the capital need ed for expansion and improvement, it canont compete with the tax-free is sues. More and more of the nation’s wealth is going into non-productive channels—at the expense of private employment and opportunity. The Court decision making pos sible the taxation of government work ers on the same basis as private work eons is a long step in the right direction. The next step should be a refusal by Congr<«s to permit the issuance of any more tax-free securities. _nOn- " “FARM RELIEF” FALLS AGAIN According to Washington reports* the current government farm relief plan domes nearer and nearer to a breakdown. Carried on at colossal ex pense to all taxpayers, it has likewise failed to satisfy a large segment of A merican agriculture. Most government farm relief programs have had a simi lar sad history in the post-war years. Such non-political tools of progress as the producer-owned and controlled farm marketing cooperatives have probably done more to permanently advance the interest of agricultuae than have all the government paniceas ever devised. 4 t -0O0-— THINK IT OVER > , » • . _ - - -- - ?4-✓ All too often opponents of “spe cial” taxation against chain stores are criticized as mouthpieces for the chains, and the principles underlying their arguments are overlooked. As a matter of fact, a discussion of the vital question of taxation and the extent to which it shall be used to re gulate American industrial and busin ess enterprises has nothing to do with individual sentiment over the chain stores themselves. Their welfare is a comparatively irrelevant matter. What does matter is the fact that if they are destroyed by means of pun itive taxation, no other private under taking in the country is safe from si milar attack. Any citizens who suc cessfully develop an industry and serve the community economically and efficiently—as the chains undeniably have done—will be subject to political oppression. The Monessen, Pennsyl vania, Independent makes this point clear with the following- comment: “The power to tax is the power to destroy. And if it can be used to elim inate chain stores, it can be used to eliminate other kinds of business which might happen to fall into disfavor with any given political regime.” Think it over ^