Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1907-07-25
OUTLOOK FOR PROSPERITY.
Abundant Work at Coco Wages
Makes Business Promising.


As long as work at good wages is
abundant the business situation must
continue TO be promising. Employ
ment for all means money in the peck
cts of all, and this item in a popula-
ton OF 100000 is of great signif-
canoe. A day lost in labor and COM
pensation is gone beyond recall, and the
waste when hundreds OF thousands
seek vainly for work is absolute. When
all are remunerariyely occupied, all
have share in purchasing power, and
the tide Of traffic will correspond.
Many are apprehensive that prosperity
will end soon, and some take this view
simply because business has been in the
ascending scale for long series of
years. But employment is not slack,
nor tending in that direction. Certain
conditions would hurt confidence and
slow up the wheels of industry. 1t is
important to understand the causes of
such conditions. They are not TO be
found in the course of speculation in
in that quarter. The decline there in
values is due to the public belief that
investors in many incorporated prop
critics have not been given a fair deal
by combines and syndicates in charge.
Wall street has been hearing Of late
from the great body of stockholders,
who are not satisfied with the manipu-
lations of boards of directors for the
benefit of a few in an inner circle.
Nor is just railroad regulation por-
tent CT disturbed prosperity. Railroad
traffic, present and prospective, is all
that could be desired. The main Ques-
ton is how to handle promptly all the
business that is waiting for transpor-
tation. Reductions in charges often
add to revenue, as in the case OF the
Postotfice Department. 1t is hard to
see how railroads can suffer seriously
as long as they are crowded with bust
ness. There is no thought of Cypress
ing them or cutting below the line Of
reasonable profits. They have been en-
abled by recent legislation to lop off
some evils, such as rebates, passes and
lobby operatives, that We're burden to
the railroads themselves, and one from
which they could not escape without
the aid of the legislation. Neither Wall
street or the railroad situation can
break down prosperity. How about a
season of bad crops? This is an i'm
mense couctcy. with the most intelli-
gent farmers in the world. The agri-
cultural area of the United States is
too great to admit the thought of a
total failure of crops. A perverse spring
is not fatal. \ spring without some
freaks is almost unknown A few years
ago the farmers suffered more from
a prolonged heated term and drought
than from any adverse circumstance
in the last decade. The country is con-
stantly getting farther away from the
drought danger.
Prosperity might be hit by bad poll
tics, and that is the place to look for
it's first symptoms. In Clevelands
second term business was dealt stag
gering blow by crude, confused and
wrong-h headed tariff legislation. In
1896 a furious and threatening assault
was made in behalf Of the currency in
f1ation. The events that ended the
era of industrial calamity were not an
accident New policies In the admins
tration and Congress wrought the
change, and have maintained the best
times the country has ever known,
with no present omen that they are
about to end. Is this partisan talk?
No, it is history. 1t is experience, with
the proof visible on every side. There
Is more potency for the public veal
in the ballot than in harveSts, railroad
laws or Wall street operations. Each
voter has a weighty share in the pre-
servation of prosperity.-St Louis
Globe-Democrat.