Z 4 * ★ * as much; the $10,000 man 49 times as much. But this is only part of the THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1947 THE EAGLE, VERNONIA. ORE. Á Capi/al^ * rtWn Parade"' * M'hi Bz Murray Wade ♦ ★ ★★★★★★ * * * ★ Lobby Polling Financing the state for the 1947-49 biennium will remain the focal issue before the 1947 Ore­ gon legist ture for many weeks. Lobby checking reveals the pres­ ent legislature would pass a sales tax were it not for the fact that the voters have five times turned down a sales tax at the polls. On only two of these occasions, how­ ever, they were voting on a sales tax as is generally understood in this state, and such as the states of Washington and Cali­ fornia have. The will of the peo­ ple is highly respected by legis­ lators who are elected by the peo­ ple—strangs as that seems. It is the sales tax group leaders, wise in legislative strategy, who want the balancing of the budget held off as far into the session as possible that they may work pres­ sure on members with their own pet measures. Gubernatorial Poscript Governor Earl Snell this week ad led a P.S. to his (inaugural leg­ islative message which, he hopes, will narrow the budget balancing down to three avenues of pro­ cedure:' (a) Repeal the section known as the "Walker nest egg plan.” (b) Slash $6,000,000 from the budget as submitted. (c) Provide six million dollars of additional revenue. Oregon Justice to Germany House Bill No. 2 was passed by both branches of the legislature on the 1 second day of the session, breaking a record for swifth ac­ tion, and was signed by the gov­ ernor the next morning. It provid­ ed for the absence of Supreme Court Justice Brand, who left Thursday for Neuerenburg, Ger­ many, to serve on a military tri­ bunal to try persons charged with war crimes. Walter Winslow, Salem attor­ ney, has been named by Governor Snell to replace Justice Brand on the Oregon bench during his ab- s.-nce. S2MS3.833 Taxes Paid The state tax commission re- ports that 1946 income tax net collections totaled $25,853,833 on January 16. The state's expense amounted to 1.07 per cent of the net collection. There were 300.- $68 taxable individual returns : Jed and 4693 corporation re­ turns. Carl W. Chambers, Pendleton, v.-as made a member of the state tax commission to succeed Coe A. McKenna, who died recently. The appointment was made by the governor, secretary of state and state treasurer. Double Quick March of Dimes The first community in Oregon to report its quota in the March of Dimes campaign is Rogue River. A telephone message to Governor Snell was to the effect that the chore was completed in 24 hours by A. E. Miller, H. G. Hill and William Hancock. Legislative Interviews "Home owners who have been paying 50 to 100 per cent more taxes on their property are-en- titled-to-relief and the only relief in sight is a sales tax”—Rep. Earl Hill (R) Lane county. “Any one who knows anything about the need for more s^ate revenue knows that new tax rev­ enues must be found”—Speaker of the House John H. Hall (R) Multnomah county. “We do not expect the usual battle over the weight and length limits for trucks using the state highways. No opposition is ex­ pected to our bill to make the larger wartime limits into per­ manent law”—Rep Burt K. Sny­ der (R) Deschutes and Lake coun­ ties. “The repeal of Oregon’s lottery prohibition clause would strip the mask of hypocracy from punch boards, poker, slot machines and drawings for quilts at bazaars. Cities and counties could then le­ galize taxes on such activities and relieve property taxes”—Joe Wil­ son (R) Lincoln county. "A sales tax would weaken the financial economy of a very great majority of the citizens of Ore­ gon, and legalizing gambling will weaken the moral statute—Rep. Manley J. Wilson (D> Clatsop and Columbia conuties. “The $15,000,000 the people voted for school support should be distributed on an educational rather than a financial basis”— Rep. E. W. Wimberling (R) Grant and Harney counties. Mail^ As a service to veterans in the community, this newspaper will publish a weekly column of news briefs from the Veterans Admin­ istration. For more detailed in­ formation, veterans should con­ tact or write to the nearest VA contact unit at 1091 S.W. 10th Avenue, Portland. Need Not Report Drill Pay Veterans in training under the GI bill who receive national guard or naval reserve drill pay need not report such incomes when fil­ ing their report of earnings, says the veterans administration. Many veterans drawing sub­ sistence while training have been Oregon-Americ&n LUMBER CORPORATION Vernonia, Oregon Thinking of Borrowing? THINK FIRST OF THIS BANK. MAKE US YOUR HEADQUAR­ TERS FOR ALL YOUR CREDIT NEEDS Some of Our Loan Services: MORTGAGE LOANS REPAIR LOANS PERSONAL LOANS AUTO LOANS EQUIPMENT LOANS COLLATERAL LOANS • BUSINESS LOANS VETERAN LOANS LIFE INSURANCE LOANS The Commercial Bank of Banks Bank», Oregon Your Nearest Bank, Main Road to Portland Mice and Trees . . . The best I could get on that story of the gang of gambling loggers and their jumping con­ tests between kangaroo mice was admission from Thoughtful Bill Haggerty that is, well, by and large, and with all due reserva­ tions, could be so. “But you won’t ever get me to vouch for it, not till I’ve actually seen the kangaroo mouse jumping track, and the mice jumping against each other on it, and the bets down and paid off,” stated the veteran forest-fire warden with grim determination to stand by his New Year’s resolution to tell nothing but the truth from now on. “Maybe Mark Twain did get his start to fame with a story on jumping frogs, and thia story on jumping mice might be your big chance to become a famous writer. But all I’ll vouch on woods mice to you is how it is a prime winter for them as they are living fat on Douglas fir seed.” As a story-gatherer I’d de­ cided to start the new year right by a trip to the Polewater Fire Hall, ruled by Thoughtful Bill Haggerty. So here we were, all warm and fine by the heating stove. Back in town, at the coffee counter of the Ritz Eats I’d picked up the rumor of how some loggers in the nearby woods had trained kangaroo mice for jumping contests last fall and had rigged up a powerful gambling game out of it. I was sure Hag­ gerty would have they story. But, as noted, he had made himself a resolution. Rich Seed Year . . . “Here are some facts, though,” said Thoughtful Bill. “Most parts of the west side in Washington and some in Oregon, this is as big a seed year as the Douglas fir has ever known. To the white­ footmouse, which runs around 30 to the acre on cutovers and burns, fir seeds mean fall and »»inter feed. Normal years the little crit­ ters, as cute and pretty as a bug's ear and whip-smart, eat. eight out of every ten seeds that fly out from the fircones in late fall anc slide to a fall on the forest floor. “With all the other seed-eaters, not to mention the squirrels that pick cones from trees and stash them, the reseeding of the cut­ overs and burns is a powerful in doubt as -to whether such in­ cone must be reported and the ruling by Edward E. Odom, so­ licitor for the VA, clarifies the point. Combined “productive la­ bor” and subsistence cannot ex­ ceed the $175 and $290 ceilings imposed by congress. However, pay received by naval reservists during annual cruises ha^ been determined compensation for productive labor and must be included on earning reports. "Report of compensation from Productive Labor" is required not less than three times yearly of veterans in training. The VA warns that failure to submit the report will result in immediate suspension of subsistence pay­ ments until the report is re­ turned. Questions of the W eek Q. I am a World War II vet­ eran in need of hospitalization. How do I go about making ap­ plication for admittance to a veteran administration hospital ? A. VA form P-10 “Application for Hospital Treatment for Do­ miciliary Care." should be execut­ ed by the veteran or nearest rela­ tive, guardian or representative and forwarded to the nearst VA hospital, regional office or contact office. If found to be eligible to admission, the veteran will be no­ tified promptly and if admission cannot be authorized, the veteran will be informed and the reason stated. Benefits to Vets and Dependents Compensation to veterans: Description: $13.80 to $138 a month, according to degree of disability. Additional amount, to a maximpm of $360 for specific disabilities. Requirements: Disease or in­ juries suffered in. or aggravated by active wartime service, not the result of willful misconduct. Discharge under conditions others than dishonorable. Note: This is the first in a senes of brief summaries of bene­ fits administered by the VA un­ der various laws of florid War U veteran», their dependents and beneficiaries. We suggest that it may be useful to dip this por­ tion of the column for future re:- trence. problems. In an average year a hundred seedlings only may peek up in the spring, even wghen the loggers leave a good plenty of seed trees in the proper places as is commonly done now. But every six or seven years the Douglas firs from the sixteen- year-olds p to grandfather firs, 4u0 years old, get their pollen spread at the right time and come through with well-nigh as many fertile cones as needles. “Then the squirrels go crazy trying to gather cones and the mice bust their skins feasting on fir seed. But old lady nature swamps 'em all. The seeds fly thick and fast in the dry Novem­ ber winds, they shower down, and they live through in such num­ bers that ten thousand or more seedlings will come up on many a forest acre. “The little timber beasts are glutted. The foresters are gloat­ ed up by the seedling crop. The loggers are pleased to see such promise of jobs and payrolls for tomorrow thriving in the woods. And so they fool like doing such things as training kangaroo mice for jumping contests and gam­ bling on ’em. I’m not saying they did do it, though—mind that!” Mice by the Bucketful . . . “Your kangaroo mouse sleeps through the cold weather,” the fire warden drawled on. “There are other kinds in the woods—- the creeping mouse, for contrast to the jumping kangaroo—the pocket mouse, the pigmy mouse, the red-backed and the heather, the harvest, the field, and the grasshopper—all different from and better than that dirty little Nazi of a house mouse. But the white-foot is the boss mouse o* all. Camping out once, I set a water-bucket trap with bacon, and I had the bucket nigh full by morning. “Worst thing was a civet cat prowled in to the tent for the mice. I killed the critter, but even my hound shunned me for a week. I was young then, and tried to give a mountain girl the civet cat’s white fluff of a tail for a powder puff. That was the 9 m . - A Suppose by some miracle, taxes were abolished. Of course, no such miracle is going to happen. But if it should, the average American family income would au­ tomatically be increased by 30 pel- cent. Everyone knows that taxes are high. But it’s still astonishing to realize just how high! The married man whose net income was $5000 last year, paid 173 times as much in federal income taxes as he would have had to pay on the same income in 1929. The $7000 r..an paid 120 times first time I ever had a knife stuck in me—excuse me, I just remem­ bered my resolution.” story. All these men paid other fed- eral taxes at various increased rates. Nuisance taxes imposed on hundreds of items they pur­ chased—ranging from electric light bulbs to cigarettes—were more than 12 times those imposed in 1929. The national income, upon which taxes have increased 13 fold, has not even doubled. The total receipts of the federal trea­ sury are approximately 13 times as much as the boom year of 1929. Today, on the average, each family in the U.S. is paying $1300 in taxes, direct and indirect, to federal, state and local govern­ ments. • According to interior depart­ ment estimate, the known oil re­ serves of the United States will be exhausted about 1960 at the present rate of consumption. GREENWOOD MOTORS Vernonia, Ore. Dodge, Plymouth Ph. 1121 ßeit Placai SICKS QU A CITY PRQ REMINDER To assure your bottled beer supply always return your empties to yo«ir dealer