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i THE POLK COUNTY REPUBLICAN VOLUME IV. DUCKTOWN. TENNESSEE, FRIDAY, MAY 18, 1917. No. 10. ,4 EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS "REArH removed. Hon. Joseph H. Ciioate at a time when the country most needed his services. TNSTEAD of continually asking for greater . power, the President should do more toward reducing the cost of living. " D HETORIC might be of some use as a fer tilizer, but it never amounted to anything in the recruiting of an army. TT APPEARS to be the opinion of the I. C. C. ,- to be a crime for the stockholders of a rail road to even think of a dividend. . TJOW reconcile the idea of 500,000 men in training camps when labor is needed in the harvest fields, with none available? WHEN it comes to ability, instead of being at the head of the table Claude Kitchin should be in that department from whence he derives his name. yiVA TEDDY! He didn't put us into war, but he is doing more than the whole Ad ministration to help win it. The people love a leader who leads. t rTHE Knoxville Sentinel, after printing Col. Roosevelt's picture on the front page, was entitled to that part of the crow in which the tail feathers grow. POLITICS is all right if rightly played. But the kind that seeks to make life a burden by the imposition of unjust as well as discrim natory taxes is going to strike a snag. ONE of the funny thing about the recruiting business is that one man is asked to re sign a $15 job to take a commission at $100 per while another is asked to give up $150 for one-fifth of that sum. , THE bold attempt to fasten a gag upon the press of the country is but another link in the chain of evidence to show that Democratic methods favor a return to the darklantern mode of conducting things. THE alleged patriotism of the Democrats in Congress in resorting to a "protective tariff now would have shown to much better advant age four years ago, and there wouldn't be such a hole in the treasury. WHAT assurance have we that a new consti tution would not be treated as badly as the old one! The old one has been the play thing of Democratic politicians since 1870 and there is no hope for a change. NEXT time the editors of the Copper City Bladder and the Polk County News(ance) attempt to digest the contents of this paper we suggest the use of glasses and the brushing up of mental faculties that appear frayed around the edges. " POLITICS AND REVENUE After a week of bungling and secret session of the Ways and Means Committee, the most important and by far the largest tax bill ever presented to Congress emerges as a thing of shreds and patches, with no coherent plan, and no intelligent purpose except to hit a head wher ever it obtrudes above the common level. It was drawn up by a sub-comittee of politi cians whose frankly expressed determinaton was .to "soak the rich fellows," heedless of conse ' quences. No expert advice was sought, or lis tened to when volunteered. The Treasury De partment wanted so much money, and the poli ticians - took pencils in hand, scratched their heads and. began to write. In no other country could such a farce be perpetrated, and nowhere else could the perpetrators get away "with it. As in the case of the Senate Foreign Rela tions Committee, where Stone stits at the head of the table, though untrained, uncouth and un fitted for the place, frankly out of sympathy with the Administration weighted down by super responsibilities, so in the House, Kitchin, to whom the same description may be applied, sits at the head of the Ways and Means Committee and plays with the country's crisis as he would play with county issues in North Carolina. In the larger realm of scientific taxation, the result of the committee's alleged labors is nothr ing but scandalous,. John G. Johnson,, an, ac knowledged leader of the American bar, said just before his death: "Administration of the income tax law is a matter for accountants, not. , lawyers." But no accountants were consulted , Mhen the income tax-schedules were boosted-; or the excess profit tax called into being and then extended. No tax experts were consulted; not even the one member of Congress and of , the Ways and Means Committee who is pre-emi-. nently qualified by study and breadth of view to , draft- a measure that would be just, equitable and efficacious. Neither were business men consulted when imposing a manufacturing tax on a single lino of industry that of automobiles or a sacrificial . tax by application of the zone system to second class postage, "which comprises the. distri bution of daily and periodical publications. No hope for relief can be expected from the -. House, itself, when the measure is debated there... As usual, it will be the labor and duty of the. Senate Finance Committee to struggle, with poli tics and attempt to build up out of the wreck an instrument of, taxation which will, raise 'the enormous sum necessary, and, at the same time, ' mete out justice and avoid the colossal folly of throttlibg the business that pays the taxes and earns them. Wall Street Journal. M1 W1 1 FROM the reports that find their way to this office, the ticks of Polk County must be awful hard to kill. THAT baaten path which led from the White House to the. Capitol is not as muchly traveled as in former days. SPEED the day when ability, and not seniority, will be the most looked-for qualification in selecting the leaders in Congress. EN who are continually asking for authority tn fin this or that rarely have the courage to administer what they really have. THE one thing that has been accentuated in the past two years is the fact that American diplomats have been that in name only. HEN your taxes get to the point where they mat vou humobacked to carry the load, don't forget to " thank God for Wilson."' T REMAINS to be seen whether the people TAT ill slanrl fnr th tax law a Democratic Re- Tl ill J form Administration seeks to fasten upon them. EVERY time, the Republican party has been deposed the people have been burdened with a tax for which there was neither excuse or pal liation. CAYS the Wall Street Journal : , K Potatoes are 3 cents a pound in London against 8 cents here, and Congress dare not tax the producer's profits." S THE Wall Street Journal points out, the mn vulin nrft to snend billions of the peo- de's monev are hardly competent to conduct a crossroads store. THE fact that Col. Roosevelt has secured more enlistments than the Goverment is due to the fact that a leader who is able to lead sounded the call. THE Democratic idea is, and always been, to tax everything and everybody, war or no war, and the people are going to have this demonstrated as never before. JUST how the Federal Reserve Banks, through , the National Banks, can loan money at 3 1-2 per cent, when the latter pay their depositors 4 per cent, has not been explained. WHEN tha publisher of the New York World characterized Postmaster General Burle son as stupid and narrow, he should have let his gaze rest upon some other members of the President's family. - TF THE Interstate Commerce Commission has the power to set the price railroads shall charge for service, its powers might be enlarged to cover the numerous cases where extortion in its most aggravated form is being practiced. A 3