Thursday, November 24, 1921
There is no blinking the fact that substantial men in New York and elsewhere are entirely frank in expressing their opinion that they would rather have out and out Democratic mismanagement and blunder than such a performance as the present congress has been giving.
If Tammany were the woman of Bible times, “caught in the act,” what other gang of politicians are qualified to cast the first stone? The matter with this country is that public opinion is trying to function through politicians that are as dead to modern concepts as the mummy of Ramesses II. The human system fails to respond to ancient cat calls and war whoops that are two generations behind the time. There has never been a political party built strong enough to stand the present congress…
As the New York Herald well says:
“Nothing final done yet about taxation, and there is no sign that when something is done it will be anything like what the country needs to get on its feet again. Nothing final done yet about tariff revision, and there is no reason to expect that when something is done it will meet the requirement of the new conditions here and the world over. Nothing done yet about getting the national transportation system on a basis where it can do the country’s hauling at a cost which will lighten the burden borne by American industry and business. Nothing done yet on many other grave questions which this congress was elected to deal with and settle.”
We have a different political psychology from what we had twenty years ago. And the most maddening thing about it all is the stupidity and asininity of the old Bourbons that can neither see, learn, nor forget. Unless this Congress can redeem itself it will be almost unanimously beaten in 1922. There is one thing that always seems to be true in American politics, the Republicans are usually beaten by the Democrats and the Democrats usually beat themselves.
Wm. H. Sawyers
Hinton, W. Va.
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The county court has to worry these days over the subject of making both ends meet in this year’s expenditures. The overhead charges have grown to be so great that Pocahontas county does not know how to make the riffle.
The following is a rough outline of some of the things that have to be paid. It is the sort of budget that the business man has in his mind, and it was estimated by a county official who knows what money the county will have to have, and is not very clear where it is all coming from:
Sheriff’s office, $7,500; Assessor’s office, $5,200; County Clerk’s office, $3,500; Circuit Clerk’s office, $2,600; Prosecuting attorney, $1,800; County agent, $1,500; County Financial secretary, $800; Road Engineer, $2,000; County Court, $1,000; Health Officer, $100; Janitor $720; jail, $3,600; Jurors, $4,000; Witness fees, $3,000; Fuel, light and water, $1,500; Justices, $800. Total of estimates, $39,620.
There are numerous other charges such as expenditures for the poor and the like. The assessed value of the county is around fourteen million dollars and the highest rate of levy is thirty cents on the hundred dollars, which brings the income to something like forty-two thousand dollars a year, so it is a hand to mouth existence that the county is leading at this time…
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Nobody has ever been able to tell or identify all the various contributions that a man has to make during the course of the year to the upkeep of the government. All he knows is that he never takes a swallow of food that has not in some way been taxed. The tax is in the cost of clothes. And in the tools he works with. And everything else. Of course, it all stays in the country, but it results in an unequal burden. A person can hardly help making money in this favored country if he lives long enough, but there is such a penalty attached to the accumulation of savings that it is a very serious question of whether a man ought to be thrifty or not.
Without exception, persons desire wealth, but nature has a way of evening up by making the rich pay heavy taxes and it hurts them to part with the money for they are afflicted with the saving habit.
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The East is East and the West is West, Whenever the twain do meet,
The East gets rich, and the West walks home on bare and painful feet;
But the West joined in with the Southern hordes in Congress the other day,
Remembered the East’s ill-gotten gains – and took them all away.