Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1909-09-28
SEPTEMBER 20. 1902 ,
OUR BIGGEST PROBLEM

BY way of closing an editorial on the
increase in the cost of living, as com
pared with the increase in wages, the
New York World says:
The greatest problem of American
craftsmanship today is how to lesson
the cost of living to the ultimate con-
sumner without touching the miners or
factory hands wage or the income of
the farmer. 1t can he done Having
killed competition, the exploiter is rob-
bling both producer and consumer. He
must be dealt with.
The News has made the same OBJ
servat;On a number of times recently,
and the more we study the problem the
more firmly we are convinced that
American craftsmanship should have
attacked it long ago, Instead of legis-
lating for the consumer, however, the
party in power has been serving those
interests that have profted most by the
conditions against which the consumers
are protesting.
What suggested the editorial to the
New York World was report of the
Bureau of Labor that there had been an
increase in the cost Of living from 1897
to 1908 of 81 per cent The World says
that such a statement docs not begin
to state the actual situation of the con-
sumer." Which is true The world
adds, -..
Still, the figures do follow the ten
dency of prices. They reveal the huge
revolution which has come about in the
control of industry in the last fifteen
years.
In 1903 we had panic. Prices had
begun to fall in 1891. when it was fore
seen. BY 1894 the statistical average
of prices was 14.9 points" or say Is
per cent, below the boom year 1890.
Prices remained low for five years,
showing at the bottom decline of
more than one-quarter. The panic was
cured by natural means. People who
needed their money sold their goods
cheap, and purchases were stimulated.
AT the least, men out of work for time
could live cheaply.
How different the cours,, of the panic
of 1907! In the interval the trusts had
grown to giant size and the law Of
supply and demand had, we were told,
given place to benevolent industrial
dictatorship. The steel trust for months
held up prices to its own loss and the
general disadvantage. The big glass.
makers held the little ones in line, Lurn
der could not decl inc much, because
Nlnder high tariffs we have cut nearly
I'LL our trees. Food and clothing rose
in cost. And the stated prices of all
commodities averaged ten points higher
in 1908, in the profound depression
after the panic, than they were in the
boom year 1890.
Twenty years of progress had gone for
naught. Processes were cheaper but
prices were higher 1t was costing much
moro to live in 1908, when vast army
of honest and industrious men were out
of work, than in 1890, when all were
employed. Aud all that we had to
compensate us for this manifest lower
eTing Of the conditions of general pros
Peity was sheaf of vast and sudden
fortunes whose vulgar and proAigate
display amazed the world.
There Is much in this to engage the
attention of those thoughtful and we'll.
meaning people in practically all walks
Of life who are striving to better the
condition of the masses. Certainly it is
incumbent on 0nr craftsmanship to
study these problems a while from the
standpoint of the consumer. Unless