Townsend Test

Dr. Francis Everett Townsend's day as economic savior of the nation is past virtually everywhere but in Chelan, Wash. Chelan, a Main-Street town of 2,000 population, is perched high above the Columbia River, some 90 miles northeast of Grand Coulee Dam. Chelanites depend for their livelihood on seasonal occupation in the fine apple orchards of broad Chelan Valley. In the winter, when there is little work for them in the snow-covered orchards, they are hard pressed. Naturally enough, they readily subscribed to the ideas of Dr. Townsend, formed a Townsend Club soon after his something-for-nothing theories reached them. Last week with their club still going strong, Chelan's Townsendites were preparing to test the soundness of their champion's plan.

Bushy-haired Isom Lamb, optimistic supervisor of the Chelan County Townsend Club, started the test in earnest when he deposited $1,000 in the bank to finance it. This week, according to Sponsor Lamb's plans, the test actually began, A 63-year-old idle orchard worker chosen by popular vote at a Townsend dance last week, was given $200 of Sponsor Lamb's fund which he had to spend in Chelan within 30 days. Each dollar was identified as a "Townsend Test Dollar" by a slip of paper pasted to it. Each Chelanite who gets possession of any of the bills during the period will put his signature and the date on the slips before he passes them on. He will also pay a 2% transaction tax into the Townsend Test Fund at the local bank. Thus, if the $200 travels through 50 transactions during the 30-day period, a penurious oldster will have been provided with $200 worth of goods and services, merchants and townsmen will have done $10,000 worth of business and the Townsend Test Fund will be $200 richer. Sponsor Lamb and Chelan Townsendites cannot see how the revolving pension fund can fail to revolve. Just to be sporting, and to overcome the possibility of a fluke on their first try, they are going to choose five more oldsters to repeat the process during the five succeeding months before reporting final results to the waiting world.

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