Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-24

GET IN HURRY.
Everybody is snxious to get on the high
road to wealth. Everybody takes a notion
to speculate in oil or gas or gold mines or
silver shares or real estate even If they have
to borrow the money to do it. Then some
thing drops in the business world. A panic
may perhaps follow and then collapse.
This Is the general course whether the credit
cycle is 10 years or 20. Then everybody
wants to "unload," as they say it at the
Exchange. at once. Business grows bad, the
tide has turned, and instead of leading on
to fortune, it draws into deeper misfortune
until the bottom has been reached, and hard
times and blasted hopes are left as testimony
to the foolishness of man.
mo person who keeps his eyes open and
reads the papers can doubt for moment
that Pittsburg is experiencing an era of re-
markable prosperity, being full of business,
with an abundance of money to keep things
moving" says one OF our business writers.
This is very true, but what is needed now
to avoid collapse is for people to exercise
care and caution, and not to catch the fever
of speculation, nor to rush into risks and
incur liabilities that, in case of trouble,
would break them up to pay. This is the
time to be wise and prudent, in order to pre-
vent such commercial disaster or crisis that
ruined SO many in years agone.
EXPERIENCE OF '73.
Those who were caught in the panic of
'73 are not likely to forget the lesson taught
by bitter experience, but the world is by no
means lacking in fools, and new crop of
Young men have come TO the front since that
Black Friday which filled so many homes
with mourning, and gave so many well-to-
do 1o fovt of rip
In old times men depended upon hard
work and economy to build up their
fortunes, but nowadays they think more of
lucky strikes and fortunate speculations.
Whether it is owing to. increased waves of
heat from the sun which, as is claimed,
come every 10 or IL years and bring good
harvests and make people more hopeful
and confident than usual, it is certain that
large number can be counted upon to lose
their heads during an ''era of remarkable
prosperity" and plunge into all manner Of
schemes for making money fast. Men have
the same tendencies as sheep. If one jun ps
over the fence, over they all 90 without
pausing to reason why.
THE BOOM IN OIL.
All can rep,ember when nearly every man
was stuck" on oil. The teachers, the
preachers, the lawyers, the doctors, all had
a few shares in oil, and some of them who
did not get in out OF the wet in time have
them yet, though the companies are "busted
up" long ago. Everyone was eager to grow
rich by oil, and men and women speculated
with all the money they could scrape up or
borrow. Some who were lucky made money,
others lost all they had in the world. As
general rule, says our political economist,
sit is foolish to do Just what other people
are doing, because there are almost sure to
be too many people doing the same thing"
This is exactly what was proven to their
cost by many of those who invested in oil
during the excitement, when bubble COM
panies were formed only to glitter for a time
before they burst and sunk out of sight. 1t
begins to look now as if men, like the sheep,
were all Jumping over the fence in specula-
tion as to real estate Everybody wants to
grow rich by buying land at wholesale and
selling it at retail with great profit.
THERE'S DANGER AHEAD.
This is legitimate bargain and sale, but
nothing is .surer than that somebody, in
business parlance, will get left. To buy a
lot, build house and secure pleasant
home is laudable ambition. With such
an object in view people are encouraged to
habits of thrift and careful economy. To
adorn, to sit under the shadow of their own
vine, to have no landlord collecting rent, is
the hope of millions of people at the outset
of life, and the goal thev fain would reach.
Many-except for that-would save nothing
of what they earn.
But while there are always such buyers in |
plenty, there are others taking the fever of |
speculation, and it is these who need to be-
come cautious and prudent. Before rushing
in they should have some capital to 60 in on
and a reasonable hope of being able to make |
as they fall due. II industrial !
depression should come in what shape would |
it find them? How would they meet their
TAKE THIS, FOR INSTANCE. /
A man heard OF the other day, under !
the force of excitement and the eloquence of |
a land agent. paid 81 900 for a lot which has |
such disadvantages as would make it a |
costly elephant at half the money. Now |
that man did not walk around that lot and |
pause to consider at each of its four corners. |
He did not take counsel of mis- senses, and |
quietly weigh the pros and cons in the leis- |
ure OF his armchair in the evening, or put it |
to the last test of steady brains-sleep on it
until after the bargain was made. Then
be found out the faults very quickly.
NV" WY soy ucu uO uOt w suCu lOOllSu L
things. But they do. They are doing it
now with the prospect OF much swearing
and gnashing OF teeth hereafter. The wisest
men get caught by speculation. The famous
South Sea bubble that ruined 80 many peo-
pie in England at one time gives testimony
that people lose all their prudence at such
times OF excitement 1t is related of the
Mississippi scheme gotten up by George
Law in France, that the people were so
anxious for shares that paid 120 per cent |
that they crowded Laws house
and blocked mp the streets in front of it to |
secure an opportunity to buy shares. But |
The crisis came and caused widespread dis
aster.
GEORGES EXPLANATION.
Henry George asserts that these credit
cycles of industrial depression with eras of
are the clear result of speculation
in land. Ii his theory be accepted, it fol-
lows that to avoid these recurring seasons of
bad trade and hard rimes, speculation in
land should be discouraged for the general
good, but who thinks of that In the haste to
get rich without work. George holds that
when land grows high in price the direct
effect is to lower wages, and that speculation
in real estate deepens poverty and promotes
psuperism. Around this theory he in
yeniously builds q wall Of testimony which
Ihows that land owners In growing COM
munity are those who get rich, and that the
way to success for wage Garner il to buy
land 20 carefully that il will increase In
value year byCsar, and than IL will not -