Journal Gazette from Mattoon, Illinois • Page 12

13 Mattooa CD.) Journal Gaxette Saturday, fcpt 1 Wl no conoWiics QQra I 7 1 depression of unparalleled proportions." Panic, and bankruptcies are ahead, he sayilflse problem can only get worse. The coming A-! a hTs'l lrr JIM jk i ii i i i wi market for their views. A growing number of economic Paul Reveres are crisscrossing the country, warning of bad times ahead. Even as the presidential candidates are, assuring us that happy days could be here again depending upon who is elected, the doomsayers are predicting not simply depression but collapse. Some are forecasting death by Inflation.

Some are projecting death by government Interference. Others are specializing in the obituary of the stock market And a few are prophesying that unholy GOOD MORNING TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE END OF THE WORLD By Raaaall Ptc This it the advertising pitch for a current movie, i'The Omen," which I frightening people the way "Jawi" did In 1175. The dark, creepy marketing of this film reflecti a new trend In movie-making. An armada of other current movies including "Logan's Run," "The Tenant," "A Boy and His Dog," "The Devil Within Her" also carry the "doom germ. JheyTe telling or" the end is near.

"We're In the midst of an apocalyptic depression," says New York film critic Andrew San-is. "Vietnam, Watergate, the blahs and belches of the Bicentennial make most audiences responsive to the gospel of decline and fan." But the movies are only one 'vehicle on the doom caravan. Nowhere Is calamity more pervasive than in modern-day economics. Doomsayers, like psychics, have found a bull Rood ng carries on at -Smithsonian depression will be more severe than the Great Depression of the 1930s. I hate to say it but many people are going to suffer." On Wall Street, the doomsayers have been multiplying like rabbits' but they are known as "bears." They sneer at the who hang out at Merrill Lynch.

One of the most famous bears is T.J. Holt, a brilliant Chinese stock analyst whose expensive newsletters always seem to be saying: GOOD TIME TO UNLOAD. Holt lr genius at finding clouds in clear-blue skies. "If you are convinced that the market must go up in an election year and therefore stock prices will keep rising onward and upward, don't bother to read further. But Holt then tells you why it's time to sell your stocks.

He has been doing this for years and has developed a fancy reputation in financial circles because he has often been right. Most doomsayers are not very precise about When our final hour will arrive. But not Albert Sindlinger, who might be the Papa Bear of Gloom. An adviser to presidents (Nixon and Ford, among others) and major corporations, Sindlinger has been predicting a gigantic economic collapse since late -last year. When his predictions didn't come through during the last three months of 1975, Sindlinger simply moved his timetable ahead.

"We're being kept "Prices are coming down only for the things most people aren't buying. About 25 per cent of the people are doing all the buying. What you have Is one-fourth of the people trying to pull up the other three-fourths. Anybody with half a brain can tell you that can't last very long, economic trinity; mass unemployment, runaway inflation and national bankruptcy. -The disaster scenarios, which are being scripted for both fun and profit, clearly confound some observers.

As Edgar Fiedler, former U.S. Treasury official, puts it: "Why are words such as crisis, chaos, calamity and cataclysm no longer saved for events like the sinking of the Titanic or the San Francisco earthquake but are rather the stuff of our everyday Jives?" One of the highest-paid merchants of gloom ii Harry Browne, a bearded free spirit who catapulted to riches in 1170; He predicted the devaluation of the dollar In a book called "How You Can Profit From the Coming Devaluation," which became a massive bestseller. Browne urged people to cash in their paper money and buy gold and silver coins. In 1974 be spun another winner "How You Can Profit from the Coming Monetary Crisis" which made him a kind of modern-day Jeremiah. Charging $2,500 for four-hour private consultations, Browne found his market limited.

So he created a depression-inflation course on cassettes. The cost: (49.95. He has held sold-out lectures at Carnegie Hall (charging up to 40 a seat) and at other major halls. He has bought full-page ads in major newspapers showing scary pictures of the Great Depression, warning that the next depression will be much worse. It has already begun, be says.

He talks of depression camps across the country and. hungry people eating dandelions. "You are and your children will be cold and hungry. There will be no shoes for kids and few clothes," his ads say. But Browne, like Jeremiah, holds out hope.

"Following every economic disaster in history, the few individuals "who possessed the vision and courage to act decisively to preserve their wealth 'have' always emerged as the new rich." Follow me, says Browne. Gloom Is a contagious disease. A former vice president of First National City Bank, John Ezter, has carved a reputation for himself as i' consultant and lecturer. He has been warning since early this year that the U.S. economy is moving toward a crash 'a living on false financial statements.

Businesses, banks and people are carrying assets they couldn't possibly sell tomorrow. Catastrophe is coming." But hold it. Aren't we into the second year of a nationwide recovery? "It's false," he said. Labor 1 We salute the In the 1920s, he said, he got $2 a day but the railroad took back $1 for meals "salt meat and molasses for breakfast, usually beans and salt meat and tomato cobbler for dinner; supper was what was left from dinner." During the Depression, he said, the railroad took out only 50 cents a day for meals. But It cut a day's earnings to $1, leaving 50 cents In take-home pay- Every type of weather, the men recalled, meant work.

The hot sun that matured the Delta's cotton buckled the rails on which It was shipped. "And we'd line 'em," said Bill Marshall, 64, of Leland. "If it rained, the tracks would sag and we'd work In the rain. If It snowed, we'd be out there tending switches that froze up." Pay patterns changed little until World War II, the men said, but the came steady Improvements. These they credited to their union, the Brotherhood of Rail Maintained, which won a closed shop In 1954.

There were far fewer workers massive layoffs occurred as mechanization moved to the Delta but wages climbed. Clifton Anderson, the only nonretlred member of the festival's rail crew, now makes $6.21 an hour. The oldtimers expressed satisfaction with their pensions. "Money from the railroad, the Social Security, some 1 make ginning cotton and what I get gardening I'm doing all right," said Roy Johnson, whose five children left Mississippi. "I'm glad I stayed." Identity and officials are at a deadend.

The woman Is currently housed on the County Institutions grounds and Orvljle Ebert, chief of the fire and police department there, said calls had come In from almost "So far we have received over 220 calls from all over the country and even one from Vancouver," Ebert said. "Our switchboards have been pretty well tied up since the weekend." The woman says she believes her maiden name Is Kay Johnson and that she thinks she came here from Anchorage or Fairbanks, where she has a husband in the service and four children. and women who constitute the jj Amnesia victim seeking identity i labor force of who strive together to make our country a world MATTOON ALLIANCE CHURCH 1205 MOULTRIE AVE. WELCOMES YOU SUNDAY o.m. WORSHIP SERVICE-! 0:30 a.m.

EVENING p.m. MID-WEEK SERVICE-WEDNESDAY 7:00 p.m. REEBySTjPORTATION Phone 234-3606 -234-3603 Rev. Paul Lehmann, Pastor 24 Hour Ambulance Service WASHINGTON (UP) Roy Johnson of Nltta Yuma, placed a crowbar against the railroad track as did four other men from the Mississippi Delta and began singing. "Captain, Captain," Johnson chanted, and all five men pulled hard.

you see," he moaned as they yanked again, the rails yielding ever so slightly to the strength of 10 arms. hard work" -the black gang pulled one more time -js killing me." cThe kind of labor that raised a sweat on Roy Johnson and his ca-workers driving spikes and straightening tracks Is rarely seen these days. -It's so uncommon that the Smithsonian Institute brought the men to its Festival of American Folkllfe and employed a folklorlst to tell curious onlookers what they were doing. "The railroad started using machinery in the Delta in the arly 'SOs," recalled Clifton Anderson of Shaw, who si 47, has been working on Illinois Centra) Gulf tracks 30 years. "It used to take ISO men maintain 45 miles of track.

(Jow they do It with one or two." 5 "We used to sing to get through the day," Anderson fald. "But you don't hear any. ringing any more. Folks don't png around machines." A 19-word chant by Simon haw, 72, of Angullla, oke volumes. to Leland," Shaw's dice rose as five tampering hicks hit the roadbed.

i "To work in the yard." The sicks fell again, shoving more cks under the ties. I "Get a dollar and a quarter" more rocks flew "and the brk ain't hard." I Shaw, who started on the railroad In 1927 and retired In 1971, didn't envision $1.25 an ur. He glorified $1.25 a day. FOOD WE ACCEPT 0 1 Pre-Labor Day SALE bears sm 1 MATTOON, ILL. MILWAUKEE (UPI) -Despite news stories that have brought In hundreds of phone calls and scores of new leads from around the nation, a woman who is a victim of amnesia still doesn't know who she Is.

And she still lives In what she calls her "permanent state of limbo." The woman was found at a bus depot In Milwaukee May 25. She told authorities didn't know who she was or how she got to Milwaukee. Edward Andrzejewskl, a Milwaukee County caseworker, has since led the effort to find out who the woman Is. Recent checks with the FBI and other official agencies had failed to turn up any leads to her i STORES FOOD STAMPS alive by a great hope syndrome," Sindlinger believes. "People keep hoping that there will be more jobs and more money but it's just hope.

When they wake up it's going to hurt." Sindlinger, who looks like Benjamin Franklin and works out of Media, has forecast enough major flips in the economy to make people listen. His consumer surveys and advice bring him up to $100,000 a year from such major firms as Ford and Goodyear. His 22 years in the business haven't brightened his outlook. "We are now six feet underground instead of last year's ten feet," he says. "But we're still underground.

Things are being propped up because people are spending gains they don't have. We are THE Regular S12.99 33005 Sears House Our most both siding Warranted chalk LOCATION 29 17 MARSHALL Ph, 234-2044 Hours: Mori. -Fri. pm PRICE GOOD SEPT. 3-8 ii i ii I millions of men this great nation; i i leader.

gallon OpMDaflj 9tMAJLl8rJl Suriay 042rafl (FWoote ECKRICH HOT DOGS Pantry Maid BUNS Hot Dogs or Hamburger Best Acrylic Latex and Trim Paint CRANE Potato Chips Dairy Lane ICE CREAM TWIN PAK Jr 1 Coma In and itt our selection of C8 Radios and Sconnen. Special on Scout 1 10 CB Unit Bait ond mobllt units, anttnnaoi and marina antannati. VS(h)lt thty lait. Gal. COBRA durable satin-finish paint; use for and trim 1-coai, washable, stain resistant, no staining and non-yellowing.

In 87 colors v. I Us Our Lay-Away Plan a Sears PANASONIC SHOP AT SEARS AND SAVE Satisfaction-Guaranteed or Your Money Back Charleston CaU TOLL FREE 345-3911 CROSS COUNTY MALL Phone 235-5461 FREE PARKING seam, lonwac and co..