Midland Cooperator

Conference Aims To Take Taxation Problems To People

Farm, labor, business, educational and cooperative organizations are joining hands to sponsor a conference Feb. 15-16 at the University of Minnesota which represents one of the first attempts to bring the nation's tax problem to the people in "grass roots" language.

Taking part in this conference to remove the hocus-pocus from taxation will be such leaders as R. A. Stevenson, dean of the school of business administration, University of Minnesota; G. Sidney Houston, manager of the research department, First Service Corp., St. Paul; Roy G. Blakey, professor of economics, U. of M.; O. B. Jesness, chief, division of agricultural economics, U. of M.; G. Howard Spaeth, Minnesota state commissioner of taxation; Arthur R. Upgren, vice president, Federal Reserve Bank.

Co-op delegates will be headed by E. R. Bowen, Executive secretary of The Cooperative League, and John Carson, Washington representative of The League.

Known as the Conference on Government Finance, the program is grouped around these main subjects: (1) needs of the government, (2) how to meet those needs, (3) state and local budgets in wartime and (4) postwar problems, national, state and local.

Attendance at the conference, machinery for which was set in motion by Midland's Membership and Community Relations Department, will be limited to delegates from each of the co-sponsoring groups but the findings and conclusions will be available free through Midland to groups or individuals who wish them.

The conference agenda has been arranged by a committee representing the points of view of members of the University of Minnesota faculty, Minnesota Federation of Labor, Congress of Industrial Organizations, Minnesota League of Women Voters, Midland, Central Co-op Wholesale, Minnesota Farm Bureau, Farmers' Union, Land O'Lakes Creameries, the banking services and general business firms.