Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We never will have any prosperity that is free from speculation till we pass a law that every time a broker or person sells something, he has got to have it sitting there in a bucket, or a bag, or a jug, or a cage, or a rat trap, or something, depending on what it is he is selling. We are continually buying something that we never get from a man that never had it.
The government sent the Indians to Oklahoma. They had a treaty that said, 'You shall have this land as long as grass grows and water flows.' It was not only a good rhyme but looked like a good treaty, and it was till they struck oil. Then the Government took it away from us again. They said the treaty only refers to 'Water and Grass; it don't say anything about oil.'
One wants recovery to start from the bottom, and the other wants it to start from the top. I don't know which is right. I've never heard of anybody suggesting that they might start it in the middle, so I hereby make that suggestion. To start recovery halfway between the two, because it's the middle class that does everything anyhow. But I don't know anything about it.
Our president delivered his State of the Union message to Congress. That is one of the things his contract calls for -- to tell congress the condition of the country. This message, as I say, is to Congress. The rest of the people know the condition of the country, for they live in it, but Congress has no idea what is going on in America, so the president has to tell 'em.
Just been talking today out here to all the Senators investigating these stock swindles and overcapitalizations. There has been hundreds of millions lost. There ought to be some form of guardianship for people that buy all this junk. Education won't do it. The buyers are the ones we have educated up till they are just smart enough to fall for everything that comes along.
America already holds the record for freak movements. Now we have a new one. It's called "Restoring Confidence." Rich men who never had a mission in life outside of watching a stock ticker are working day and night "restoring confidence." Writers are working night shifts, speakers' tables are littered up, ministers are preaching statistics, all on "restoring confidence."
I know things are going to get better in spite of both sides. Then when things do get better, then you'll hear the yell that will go up. The Democrats will swear that recovery was due to them. Now the Republicans, they'll say it was due to them. Nobody wanted to claim the credit for the country blowing up, but wait until it starts picking up and they'll both be on it then. See?
Politics are receiving a lot of attention because we have nothing else to interest us. No nation in the history of the world was ever sitting as pretty. If we want anything, all we have to do is go and buy it on credit. So that leaves us without any economic problem whatever, except perhaps some day to have to pay for them. But we are certainly not thinking about that this early.
We had a great lunch. Senator Capper paid for it. The Republican pays, as usual. And everything that the Democrats are doin' now, the Republicans pay for it. Everybody asks me, "Will, how long is this going to go on, spending all this money and everything going like this?" I says, "Well, it will go on just as long as the Republicans has got any money. That's all I know about it."
Now these fellows in Washington wouldn't be so serious and particular if they only had to vote on what they thought was good for the majority of the people in the U.S. That would be a cinch. But what makes it hard for them is every time a bill comes up they have things to decide that have nothing to do with the merit of the bill. The principal thing is of course: What will this do for me personally back home?
The good people of Dakota offered to give Calvin Coolidge a farm if he would live on it. I wouldn't advise you to give those people too much credit for generosity. There is not a farmer in any State in the West that wouldn't be glad to give him a farm if he will paint it, fix up the fences and keep up the series of mortgages that are on it. And if you think Coolidge ain't smart, you just watch him not take it.
So here we are in a country with more wheat and corn and more money in the bank, more cotton, more everything in the world-there's not a product that you can name that we haven't got more of than any other country ever had on the face of the earth-and yet we've got people starving. We'll hold the distinction of being the only nation in the history of the world that ever went to the poor house in an automobile.
Land taxes is the thing. They got so high that there is no chance to make anything. Not only land but all property tax. You see in the old days, why the only thing they knew how to tax was land, or a house. Well, that condition went along for quite awhile, so even today the whole country tries to run its revenue on taxes on land. They never ask if the land makes anything. "It's land ain't it? Well tax it then."
I originated a remark many years ago that I think has been copied more than any little thing that I've ever said, and I used it in the follies of 1922. I said America has a unique record. We never lost a war and we never won a conference in our lives. I believe that we could without any degree of egotism, single-handed lick any nation in the world. But we can't confer with Costa Rica and come home with our shirts on.
Sure must be a great consolation to the poor people who lost their stock in the late crash to know that it has fallen in the hands of Mr. Rockefeller, who will take care of it and see that it has a good home and never be allowed to wander around unprotected again. There is one rule that works in every calamity. Be it pestilence, war or famine, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The poor even help arrange it.
I arrived at my hut in Beverly Hills just in time to keep real estate men from plotting off and selling my front yard. They will sell you anything or anybody's in the world as long as they can get a first payment... It used to be only Iowa that was out here but now they have three or four adjoining states interested and they are here, too. Real estate agents - you never saw as many in your life; they are as thick as bootleggers.
Say did you read in the papers about a bunch of Women up in British Columbia as a protest against high taxes, sit out in the open naked, and they wouldent put their clothes on? The authorities finally turned a Sprayer that you use on trees, on 'em. That may lead into quite a thing. Woman comes into the tax office nude, saying I won't pay. Well they can't search her and get anything. It sounds great. How far is it to British Columbia?
Here's another way of putting it. Roosevelt wants recovery to start at the bottom. In other words, by a system of high taxes, he wants business to help the little fellow to get started and get some work, and then pay business back by buying things when he's at work. Business says, 'Let everybody alone. Let business alone, and quit monkeying with us, and we'll get everything going for you, and if we prosper, naturally the worker will prosper.'
Borrowing money on what's called 'easy terms,' is a one-way ticket to the Poor House. If you think it ain't a Sucker Game, why is your Banker the richest man in your Town? Why is your Bank the biggest and finest building in your Town? Instead of passing Bills to make borrowing easy, if Congress had passed a Bill that no Person could borrow a cent of Money from any other person, they would have gone down in History as committing the greatest bit of Legislation in the World.
The whole financial structure of Wall Street seems to rise or fall on the mere fact that the Federal Reserve Bank raises or lowers the amount of interest. Any business that can't survive a one percent change must be skating on thin ice. Why even the poor farmer took a raise of another ten percent just to get a loan from the bank, and nobody from the government paid any attention. But you let Wall Street have a nightmare and the whole country has to help to get them back into bed again.
Well, another senator rose and said {as they always do} 'Does the gentleman yield?' They always say that - least they call each other 'gentleman' in there. But the tone they put on the word, it would sound more appropriate if they came right out and said 'Would the coyote from Maine yield?' 'cause that's about the way it sounds. Well, then, the other senator says 'I yield' (for if he don't the other guy'll keep on talking anyhow). So the coyote from Maine says 'I yield to...the polecat from Oregon!'
They have passed the big inheritance tax, and that gets you when you are gone. You used to could die and be able to beat taxes, but not now. The undertaker don't go over your body as carefully as the assessor does your accumilated assets, and he gets his before the undertaker. They have it on these big fortunes now where they pay as high as 60 to 70 percent of what they leave. That's mighty expensive dying when it runs into money like that, and you won't see 'em dropping off as casually as they have been.
When a party can't think of anything else they always fall back on Lower Taxes. It has a magic sound to a voter, just like Fairyland is spoken of and dreamed of by all children. But no child has ever seen it; neither has any voter ever lived to see the day when his taxes were lowered. Presidents have been promising lower taxes since Washington crossed the Delaware by hand in a row boat. But our taxes have gotten bigger and their boats have gotten larger until now the President crosses the Delaware in his private yacht.
If you have a radio, the next three months is a good time to have it quit working. All you will hear from now until the 4th of November will be: 'We must get our government out of the hands of predatory wealth.' 'The good people of this great country are burdened to death with taxes. Now what I intend to do is ...' What he intends to do is try and get elected. That's all any of them intend to do. Another one that will hum over the old static every night will be: 'This country has reached a crisis in its national existence.'