A SIGNIFICANT REPORT
A Significant Report THE Securities and Exchange Commission recently issued an extraordinary document—one which was promptly and almost completely suppressed by most of the newspapers in this "free...
...Over this lay a dozen small sticks of dry pine kindling...
...2. The SEC report proves, too, that by and large American corporations are in a far better position to meet demands for reasonable wage increases than the public has been led to believe by press distortions and suppressions...
...THE SEC figures, based on the reports filed by the corporations themselves, prove, it seems to us, two major points—one concerned with the past and the other with the present and future: 1. Wartime taxation of corporate profits was totally inadequate, and the recent action by Congress and the President in abolishing the excess profits tax was premature...
...The figures in the SEC report make impressive reading...
...how FSA, by assisting it to acquire its own farm, changed bitterness and despair to hope and confidence...
...It was more than a calm, cold recitation of the facts on the splendid work FSA is doing...
...The staggering cost of the war was not shared on an ability-to-pay basis, despite the pious promises of the Administration then in power...
...He is no true keeper of the hearth who insists on a spick-and-span area...
...It is hard to put a dollar value on such human factors as hope, confidence, and high morale, but it seems to us that even if FSA gave outright gifts —which it does not—its record of achievement would be cheap at twice the price we have paid...
...But there seems an overwhelming tendency to wrap up a whole story in one little numeral and let it go at that...
...A comfortable, overflowing bed of ashes means a steady body of heat once the fire is going...
...some prefer the tepee method of construction in which kindling and sticks are piled in a tent-shaped cone...
...Admittedly there are different ways of getting a fire started...
...Not that we favor the abolition of statistics...
...Fireplaces (From the Washington Star) MANY are the human beings who And comfort and a deep sense of satisfaction in a fireplace...
...The countryman, from long experience, avers there is only one proper way to start a fire...
...And special attention should be directed to the statistical part of the report which showed that FSA in that area had enough funds to give this kind of assistance to only two farm families...
...A Significant Report THE Securities and Exchange Commission recently issued an extraordinary document—one which was promptly and almost completely suppressed by most of the newspapers in this "free press" country of ours...
...They perform a vital enough function in the formulation of intelligent decisions...
...The backlog needs a heaping pile of ashes for its foundation...
...In these earth-reverberating days, the fireplace comes into its own as a haven...
...Nothing like the intense, quick heat of pine branches to get a fire off to an hours' long session...
...It is one spot where the verities seem unshaken and a man can think of things that keep an anchor in life's worthwhileness...
...Some lay the sticks and feed crumpled pieces of paper until the logs catch...
...And that, of course, is why in so many newspapers the stories of strikes crowded the SEC report into the wastebasket...
...First of all, one needs a good, deep bed of ashes...
...Some make doughnuts of twisted papers...
...It was a clinical study of-ene-family, a tenant farm family, and how FSA gave it" a new stake in America...
...Then one should sit before the fire as it starts...
...There is attention-compelling fascination in watching the multicolored flames as they curl around the logs in ever-changing patterns and break away from the main body, pulled upward by some irresistible law of nature...
...At the back, put a big piece of maple, oak, beech, ash, or apple...
...If a spot needs coaxing, tuck in a few pieces of the resinous, dry kindling...
...On the kindling place the pieces of firewood...
...The statistics of FSA's record are impressive enough but a comptometer can't measure the light in the eye and the song in the heart of a man who has regained confidence in himself and faith in his country...
...3. The net working capital of American corporations has doubled, skyrocketing from $24,600,000,-000 in 1939 to $48,000,000,000 this year...
...In its terse, factual way, without benefit of conclusions or commentary, the SEC showed how the war and war profits have made American corporations wealthier and more powerful than ever before in their history...
...On the flattened, deep bed of ashes put a few pieces of wadded paper...
...2. Current liabilities have increased at a far slower rate—$51,000,000,000 now as compared with $30,000,000,000 in 1939...
...There is an art to tending a fireplace...
...Anyone who ponders the SEC report can understand why powerful corporations like General Motors refuse to submit to impartial arbitration of wage disputes and refuse to let the public know the extent to which their coffers are bulging with war wealth...
...It was a different kind of report from what we are used to seeing...
...The open hearth, leaping flames, and relaxing warmth may take homo sapiens back through the long centuries to dim, racial memories of prehistoric times when cave dwellers crowded around fires at the entrances to rude homes...
...4. Cash on hand and in banks has jumped from $10,900,000,000 to $23,800,000,000, and holdings of Government securities have climbed from $2,200,-000,000 to $22,200,000,000...
...The official figures show that on June 30 of this year: 1. The total current assets of U. S. corporations were $99,300,000,000, as compared with $54,600,-000,000 in 1939...
...Report In Human Terms W E got to thinking the other day about statis- tics and to wondering if one of the troubles of mankind isn't that we are glorifying the comptometer too much...
...It was a story of rehabilitation in the American way—an example of what Americans can and will do for themselves when they are given opportunity...
...The frantic rush to wipe out the excess profits tax and reduce corporation levies generally makes it certain that the financing of the debt and the reconversion process will similarly rest on a tax program of gross inequalities...
...They constitute a powerful weapon for those fighting for an equitable tax program and decent wage standards...
...IT was the kind of a report that should be placed before every Congressman when the question of appropriations for FSA next arises...
...We were looking over a report on the activities of the Farm Security Administration when this thought struck us...
...This astonishing growth of corporate resources did not end with V-E or V-J Day, for the SEC e; mates that reports of the third quarter of 1945 will show corporations improving the June 30 figures to the tune of another $4,500,000,000...
...Those reports have their function and we have used them many a time in striking a blow for FSA in these columns...
...Prepared by an FSA agent in Richland county, Wisconsin, the report told its story, not with a few numerals, but in the warm human terms that mean so much more than a row of figures...
...But this report just didn't recite the statistics of what FSA is doing for the small family-sized farms...
Vol. 9 • December 1945 • No. 48
