Weary Hoosiers

In Evansville, Ind., Harry Lang of Harry Lang, Inc. (which manufactures lubricants, owns Evansville Home Oil, Inc., Dixie Dance Wax, Inc. and a string of four gas stations) pays State and Federal income taxes, social security, encumbrance, personal property, gasoline, corporation, capital stock, truck wheel, chain-store taxes. This year these taxes will take $30,000, 20% of Harry Lang's gross. Last week Harry Lang announced: "I just wrote the President that I'd be willing to do it the other way around. Let him own the business and let me run it for him for five years at a salary equal to what I'd be paying in taxes. Just five years. That would be $150,000--and I'd sell the business for a whole lot less right now!"

In Hammond, Ind., Max M. Nowak, after 35 years building up the retail feed business founded by his father, last year sold $1,500,000 worth of livestock feed. To do so, Max Nowak had to spend $7,008 in 1937 for clerical help, auditors and attorneys to make out 1,100 tax reports, to pay $20,000 in taxes to 28 States and the Federal Government. Said he last week as he sold out to Vitality Mills, Inc.: "It is not merely the amount of tax I have to pay. It's also the annoyance of having to report this and that and the other thing to every official who comes along. . . . I used to feel happy when I'd come down to work in the morning. I'd whistle a tune and meet the day with some zest. Today there's nothing but grief."

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