JANUARY, 1925
THE UNITED AMERICAN
elements in the cause for internal strife in China,
there can be little doubt that commercial and
[political rivalry among the nations who are looking
for trade and business advantages is a potential factor
keeping China’s internal affairs in an unsettled state.
There is much in this world of which the white
people may be justly proud, but their efforts to retain
supremacy have at times led them far afield from
the pathway of justice in international relations.
If the white peoples of this world will line up along
the front of HONESTY, the rising tide of protesta­
tions and repudiations of the white man’s civilization
and religions will subside, and international relations
between the white and the yellow peoples will again
become amicable and cordial.
The millions of China are waking up after centu­
ries of mental stagnation. The pendulum is swinging
back with increasing momentum. Those who have
played a hand of intrigue in China cannot escape the
penalty. The only unfortunate thing is that the evil
acts of a few, in time, are visited upon millions who
are innocent.
THE STATE LEGISLATURE
TN THE early part of this month the legislative
1 bodies in many states gathered for the annual
or bi-ennial session. The law-making body of
Oregon convened on the twelfth day of January and
speedily organized.
The governor’s message, which is a time-honored
institution, a sort of preface to each new legislative
session in every state, sets the wheels in motion; and
the usual run of new bills immediately commenced. In
the turgid stream are good measures and bad
measures, measures for public good and measures
that are introduced for spite. The latter sort un­
fortunately gets the most publicity, diverting the
attention both of the public and the legislators from
the meritorious measures which ought to pass, but
only after careful study and correction of defects.
The effort that is being made to strip the executive
of his power over commissions and boards, and place
wide appointive power in the legislative body, as
suggested, is a bad precedent and is not in keeping
with the fundamental precepts in American govern­
ment.
The move by certain politically rebellious citizens,
before the recent national election, to take some of
the powers now vested in the Supreme Court of the
United States and place them with another branch
of the government, was a move in the same direction.
If an executive fails to comprehend the importance
of his office and abuses or misuses the powers vested
in him as chief administrative officer, the people have
several remedies. To suggest transferring some parts'
of the administrative powers to the legislative or the
judiciary branches of state government is as unwise
as any proposal to transfer legislative or judiciary
powers or functions to the governor. The results
would only serve political ends and tend to lessen
public confidence in our established institutions.
Leave the governor’s office intact. Promote a
little more civic intelligence and knowledge than we
have in most of the states, and the misfit candidates
Page Seventeen
will automatically lose out, end the election of men
who understand the duties and the obligations at­
tached to public office will be drafted into service,
and the sacredness of duty and obligations in public
office will be respected again.
REDUCING AMERICA’S PUBLIC INDEBTEDNESS
EXPERIENCE teaches that it is easy for an indi-
vidual to go into debt and easier still for a com­
monwealth or a nation to pile up public indebtedness,
but the lesson would be incomplete were it not for the
fact that it stresses the difficulties encountered both
by the individual and the nation in paying off the
debt. The result from the lesson should be a general
inclination to avoid going into debt and a determina­
tion to sacrifice and economize to pay of the old debts.
It should also bring home the wisdom of living within
one’s means and gradually accumulate a surplus.
Nations and individuals alike, however, are at all
times ready to spend every penny of savings, even life
itself, when individual and national security is at
stake. Wars prove this contention beyond dispute.
America’s entry into the world war produced an
overwhelming willingness among the citizens of this
country to spend money without any skimping to win
its cause. America’s enormous machinery of war,
which took on greater and greater proportions for
every passing day, called for financing that required
the pooling of the individual savings on a scale never
before experienced in the United States. Much money,
of course, that could have been saved, was expended
foolishly by extravagant department heads and field
managers who had authority to draw upon the public
treasury. Extravagant claims and outrageous charges
from private industries making war materials, which
were paid upon presentation without any checking of
errors, gave America a heavier war indebtedness than
would have been the case had there been a national
system of careful checking of all claims before paying,
in such a way as to have caused no delay in pro­
duction.
But America emerged from the war with a de­
termination to pay its public debts as quickly as
possible and not whimper over the misdeeds of the
citizens who robbed their country while it was in
distress. A valuable lesson in national economy during
war-times has been learned, and it is safe to predict
that the errors commited during the recent war will
be carefully avoided should America again at some
future time be called upon to defend its honor and
its position as an invincible force for international
justice, security and peace in the world.
How fast we are paying our public debt and re­
deeming our liberty bond issues may be seen by a
recent report from the national treasury, which shows
that the government during 1924 reduced such in­
debtedness in a sum running almost into one billion
dollars. By doing this the obligations of the United
States have been reduced more than one-fifth since
they reached their peak of $26,596,068,947 in August,
1919. The Government started the new year with
a public debt of $20,978,632,700.
The first official figures on the accomplishments in
the calendar year 1924, made public the other day,