Judge — June 27, 1931 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Politics Wastes Good Men eNator Hawes of Missouri says that he will not seek re-ele next year. He is a Demoer. feels confident of Democratic victory The interesting point is that he wants to devote his time to his hobby servation of but he does not choose to run. the con- animals, forests, streams. We don't happen to know just how useful Senator Hawes has been as a legislator. He seems to be doing a good job for Philippine inde- pendence. But we are sure that no matter how much he has accomplished in Washington, he will do a lot more good by his work for the prot wild life. Almost any man can. be many times more effective in private activity than he can in public office. Back in 1927, long before the nomi- nations, this page said that Herbert Hoover ought not to be wasted on the Presidency, that it would be a whole lot better for the nation to have him head of the Steel Corporation. At the same said that Al Smith should not be wasted on the Presi- deney, cither. Events seem to have justified those opinions. Look at the record of the administration. Then look at the Empire State Building. Which is the greater achievement, which the more valuable and endur- birds, ion of time we All of which leads up to one more cpinion, to be put on record here be- fore the political propaganda begins to cloud t ir: Owen D. Young is too good a man to be wasted on the Presidency. Get After the Little Guy U Sam's fiscal year this month with a fine wh deficit—a cool billion. After preach- ing for ten years to European nations that they should balance their bud- ts, we are tectering along with a dangerous. s tion. fault. closes cking. t in the wrong direc- Not that it’s the government's True, the federal expenditures JUDGE million more than in the first y Republican administration afte war. But that's not so bad. Repub- licanism cost more and it nay be worth it. The real villains are the taxpayers. T haven't with anything like the nee sary amount of cash. Income taxation is all shot. Andy Mellon is worried. He points out that 380,000 of our 120,000,000 people pay almost all of the indi- vidual income taxes. He wants to spread out. Business men and other supposedly prosperous folks having fallen down, he turns te the common - and asks them to ehip in more. illy. he thinks it would be a a to put a federal tax of He wants t more taxes out of automobiles and tires. He also wants to lower the level of income tax exemption, so as to include humbler cit paying customers. seems to come across: good i cent a gallon on gasoline. tog ens among the None of this nonsense, says Andy, ibout taxing gifts and inheritances more heavily. Doesn't everybody real- ize what a hard struggle the rich have heen having these past few years? Get after the little guy He hasn't got much anyway. Taking stnall change away from him won't: hurt inywhere near so much as taking big- ger sums from the well to do. And he can’t squeal so loudly because he doesn’t control so many mediums for the expression of public indignation. The Arrogant Pedestrian CO of the vanishing tribe of pedes- trians emits a feeble farewell squawk in a letter to the press thus: “Cross at a corner and get hit from behind. “Cross in the middle of the block when and only when red light halts traffic and reach opposite curb smil- ing. “Stop calling us names! If you must call names, call us ‘red-light middle-men.’ 13 The arrogance of it! What right has a pedestrian to be thinking for himself—to be thinking at all? Who ever asked him to muscle in on this me of traffic that we motor ists play so happily every day? Red and green lights were devised to tempt, tease, divert and excite motor- ists. Part of the game is keeping lots of pedestrians jammed up at the cor- ners and picking off stragglers, one by one, usually on the right-hand turns. If they start crossing at the middle of the block, they're simply breaking the rules to their own miserable skins, and that isn’t sporting of them. save Rowdio Advertising last time we groused about lio advertising, we put most of the blame on the small local broad- casting stations and said that the big chains were not so bad. We take it ck. On several recent evenings. the best entertainment hour, we were twirling the dial through the whole range in the hope of finding some- thing to listen to. Actually we heard more spoken words than music. Paus- ing briefly at each station, we found that all the words were of advertising import. Here and there we waited hopefully for the music to begin. But the dulcet solicitations ran on and on, for long minutes. It just wasn’t worth while to sit through the hoocy in order to get to the entertainment. So we turned the whole thing off, took an aspirin and went to bed. Radio advertising has gone the limit, past the limit, past the stage for mild reform, At the risk of being jeered as a jealous competitor, we an- nounce that we are against any and all advertising on the radio. Not that this defiance will get us anywhere. But maybe, in the long reaches of time, the blessed day will come when a way will be found to give the public the great boon of radio entertainment ithout commercialization. Until then, we go into the silences. —R.SILW. comicbooks.com