The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1900-11-02

;
to the Reviews article calling into
question the truth of the Statement
Of prices published in the Bulletin
Of Oct. IS. The effort Of thes:
collaborators was not to establish {
just comparison between the prices
Of the democratic administration
and the present republican admin.
list alton, but to run through al.
the gamut of prices for the past
FIVE years and to compare the low.
est price to be found with the high
est possible price to be found, not
the prices of today or of any other
one day, but the highest prices
that could be found. The only
fair comparison of prices can be
made by contrasting the cost of a
number of articles at a given time
with the cost of the same articles
at another given time. During the
past year the clothing business in
Denison has been demoralized;
there were two stocks of clothing
sold much below the regular retail
price. 1t would be just as fair for
us to take as basis for clothing
prices the prices at which goods
sold at these sales and to declare
that these were the prices of cloth
ing in 1900, as it is for the Bulletin
and its co-adjutors to take each
article separately and search for
the highest and the lowest prices
and contrast them as the prevail
ing prices. We are are not given
to betting, but we are willing to
wager the Bulletin any reasonable
amount it may wish, the winnings
to be devoted to the Denison Ii
brary, that it cannot name any one
date at which its prices taken col
lectively were true and correct.
The prices given as the present
prices are not the present prices;
the prices given as former prices
are not the prices of any period.
Some are 1896 prices, some Of
1895, some of 1897 and some of
1898. Wherever the Bulletin and
its collaborators were able to find
a low price they quoted that figure
as prevailing price. During the
time that Mr.. Letter of Chicago
tried to corner the wheat market
the price of that commodity rose
greatly; when his corner collapsed
the price of wheat fell rapidly.
Would it be fair for us to take
either the high or the low price to
establish the prevailing price for
that year? The Bulletin did not
intend to be fair and it was not.
1t is a fact that nails are cheaper
today than they werein 1896. The
Bulletin looked at the go price,
saw that it was higher and passed
on to Mckinley times to find a
price low enough to answer its pur-
poses. 1t looked at the present
price Of nails and found it too low
to answer so it turned back in the
invoices to find the highest possible
point and it quotes that. The Bull
letin quotes the price of linseed oil;
it says that the price was As cents
in 1896 and is IS cents now. 1t
adds ssDOUBLE FOR THE
TRUSTS" At the time linseed
oil sold for IS cents, flax was from
AZ to 81 centsper bushel. A farm
er could then exchange his bushel
Of fax for from one to one and a
third gallons of oil. Today the
price of oil is S5cents and the price
of flax is quoted in the Chicago
market Of Oct. 31st at s1.61. The
farmer can get nearly two gallons
of oil for his bushel of flax. While
the price of oil has gone up 80 per
cent the price of flax has gone up
$50 per cent. Who gets the bene-
fit, the farmer who raises flax or
the trust? This is but specimen
of the untruths and half truths with
which the Bulletins article sflled.
Taking the Bulletins figures that
dimension lumber has risen in
price from sI7 to s22 per thousand
or about 80 per cent it is also true
that the wages of the lumbermen
who work in the pineries from
which this lumber is obtained have
risen more than so percent. Who
gets the benefit of this raise, the
trusts or the laboring men7
We will admit the adroitness oil