St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-08
A COR RECTEON.
Not Half a Million But Half a Bill
ion.

To the Editor of the Globe.
will not ask the typo to be responsible
for the bIunder in my article published last
week, which changed SD" into an m
and thereby reduced the respectable sum of
five hundred millions of dollars to the paltry
pittance of five hundred thousands.
l wanted to say that if even the small
sum of 81 be subtracted weekly from the
income of the TO- 000 900 Of families in the
United States, the total yearly diminution
OF the income of the labOring classes would
be about half a billion, or five hundred
millions This, substantially, would be
diminution of the demand for the prOduc
tons of labor to that amount. For the two
factors of what the political economists call
"demand," or more specifically, effective
demand are desire and income. Savages
who do not desire nice things and civilized
people who do desire them, but have not
the money to pay for them, are on the same
footing so far as this thing called effective
demand" is concened-that is, they are
both equally non-etfective, but good for
nothing.
Some foolish people talk honestlyin favor
Of economy as the cure for hard times An
hours reading or reflection would show the
folly of this notion. If one man ecOnO-
mixes closely while the others spend freely
the former will probably forge ahead as
compared with the latter But if every
body were as Stingy as possible, and lived
on as little as possible, nobody would be
the gainer-in fact the wealth of the world
would be constantly diminishing, and the
race would be returning to barbarism. 1t
has been correctly said that 1.-THE difference
between savage and civilized life is the diff
ference between the wigwam and the par
lor." This pithy expression tells the story
fully. If the advocates of economy are
correct we should give up our parlors with
well-dressed and beautiful women in them
and 90 down to the wgwam with its squaw
inmates. | said above that
SOME FOOLISH PEOPLE
favor close economy as the remedy for hard
times Some knayes do so, too. A man
who gives advice that he does not intend to
make use of himself, is not entirely honest
in fact is knave. When D. A. Wells
advocated French economy he was, accord
ing to the above use of the term, a llnave.
He did not intend to have the ''pot-au-few"
: in his house, and live on soup; he did not
intend to adopt the French ''sabOt," and
force his daughters to hobble around in
wooden clogs. Such things would do for
OtherS-he wanted something better.
But while such economy would diminish
the general or collective wealth, it would
tend strongly, for time, at least, towards
an increase of that dreadful curse of modern
society-too much of everything. That is
too much for the effective demand''-too
much for the market. | repeat this
thought. as | wish to emphasize it. Some
of our labor organs have taken up the shall
: low cry, 1T is not over production; it is
only under-consumption, thus proving
concmsively that they do not know what
they are talking about, and are ignorantly
taking the side of their oppressors. But a
large part of the saving thus unnaUurally
and cruelty made would go to fill the Golfers
of the rich and make new mfllionaires
That is the only good result-if, indeed, it
be good one.
The point of this article is, that small
reduction in the wages of the working
classes will necessitate a large dimunition
of the demand for products, a lessening of
the national wealth and income, and con-
tinuance Of hard times. Never again-no,
never-can we have ''boom" until justice
be done to the producing classes. And l
am glad of it. Prosperity based on robbery
is house built on the sands. Gods winds
and waves will and should destroy it. y.