Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1897-09-22
PANIcS AND THEIR REMEDY

The National and Co-Operative Ownership
of the Means of Production and DistrIbu-
tion.
The New Time asks the Chicago
Tribune, the Chicago Times-Herald,
the New York Sun, the New York
Herald, the st. Louis Globe Democrat,
the Louisville Courier-Journal and
other papers which pose as public edu-
Gators if they expect another panic.
1t asks them to give logical reasons
why history shall not repeat itself
1t asks them to defend a system which
condemns the world to enforced idle
ness and suffering seven years out of
every ten. 1t asks them what remedy
they have to propose, if any.
They have no remedy. They regard
panics as inevitable. Listen to the
Chicago Tribune: There is regular
order about all business disorder.
'Panics' come on an average once in
II years (the Tribune figured the
average from 1919 to 1867 and omitted
the panic of 1887. 1t also fails to give
the present average, which is one in
about six years. ''and last from one to
six years. They are usually followed
by slow recovery, then by a period
of good times, then by a boom, and the
boom usually brings another collapse
from over speculation"
Perfectly correct, excepting the
lover speculation" The collapse is
brought about by the fact that the
| people cannot purchase back that
which they have produced. Their
wages will not buy that which they
have created. They cannot consume
the surplus The factories cannot
sell their products. They shut down.
| The men are thrown out of work.
They are no longer producers, and if
they consume it is by an expenditure
of their savings while at work or by
the grace of charity. Prices fall.
Merchants are ruined. Interest goes
on. Banks cannot realize on their
loans. The people who have deposited
50, ,000, 900, 900 or S3, 600, 600, 600 in the
banks try to draw it out and fail for
the simple reason that there is only
81, 500, 600, 900 in the country and but a
| percentage of that in the banks.
This is a panic.
A panic is an epidemic of fright in a
community of economic fools. 1t is a
phenomenon incident to a planless sys-
tenn of production and distribution.
| 1t is the inevitable concomitant of the
profit system of industry. 1t is the
logical sequence of the development of
machinery under competitive private
ownership.
| There is but one remedy. and the
adoption of that remedy is as newt
able as the evolutionary development
| 0f fho nj That -.
tional and cooperative ownership of
the means of production and distribu-
tion. 1t is the substitution of cooper
alton for competition. The time has
come when the producer is demand
ing and will obtain the total of that
which he creates. The government
the people-will act as the employer
and serve without profit. Then there
can be no panic by reason of IAN over
production" Then people will not
hunger because there is too much food.
They will not go barefooted because
there are too many shoes. The post
office, the public schools, the munici.
pal waterworks, the United States fish
commission are examples of the indus
trial system which will shortly sue
ceed the present Lack of system. There
is snooverproduction no of postage stamps.
There is no overproduction of school
children There is no overproduction
of drinking water. There is no over.
production of fish for the streams OF
America. There are no panics in these
departments They are founded on
common sense. They exist for the
benefit of the people and are conducted
without profit. They point the only
way to the happiness of the nation
and the preservation of civilization.
New Time.