ARTICLE

Government Sets a Pattern

AUGUST 01, 1958 by E.F. HUTTON

Mr. Hutton is the well-known industrialist, investment banker, and author of the column, "Think It Through."

As Warner & Swasey has stated in an ad in U.S. News & World Report:

"THERE’S NOBODY HERE BUT US CHICKENS” AND WE’RE GETTING MIGHTY CONFUSED

In the last 3 years six different agencies of the federal government lent 35 million dol­lars to encourage increased poultry produc­tion.  

A seventh government agency is spending 12 million dollars to buy surplus eggs to re­move them from an oversupplied market.

And you can go on from there. Punch drunk Uncle has invested billions in surplus farm products, and is paying a million dollars a day for the warehouses to store them in.

But at the same time Uncle is bringing thousands of acres of desert land into more cultivation by huge irrigation projects, at a cost up to $1,000 an acre!

With thousands of empty hospi­tal beds, Uncle builds more hos­pitals.

To make it possible to drive cars 70 miles an hour, even on rural highways, Uncle is spending bil­lions, straightening out curves and grades that are part of the charm on little-used rural roads.

Why is it so necessary to drive so fast? Where are we going any­way?

Don’t drunks and fools kill themselves — and others — on four and six-lane highways that are as straight as a gun-barrel and as flat as our pocketbooks?

What, in short, is Uncle doing to the character of our people when he acts like a drunken sailor himself?