Weekly journal-miner., 1910-03-30
THE DANGER OF MUoKRAKNa.

All physicians and most other peo-
 ple know that real disease may re-
 suit from mere imagination of dis
 ease, just as health may be resored
 by faith in its restoration. Daily the
 world is fearing more of the power
 of suggestion for good or evil. But
 the effect of morbid imagination on
 one's self, or of suggestion conveyed
 to a susceptible person, is comparable
 only as an illustration in the in-
 fnitesimal of the terrific physeic force
 generated by the hysteria of a whole
 people. Confidence is the basis of
 prosperity. The impairment of con
 6dence is the beginning of diversity.
 There has recently broken out a
 widespread protest against ''high
 prices" and an attempted and in
 some places actual boycott against certain commodities, the fact beng that in the ieghteen years since 1892
 the index numbers show that there
 has been a rise in the wholesale price
 of commodities, not including labor.
 of but 13.41 per cent. In this state,
 at least, wages and salaries have cer- tainly increased much more than that For the United, computed from the
 records of 4,034 wage-paying esrab- ishments and 992 retail groeers, the National Bureau of Labor finds that as compared with average full-time | weekly earnings for the decade 1S9O- i 1899, taken at 100, the number 1919 | would represent the earnings in 1892, | and 1924 in 1907 The bureau also | finds that if the amount of food | which a weeks average wages would | buy in 1892 be represented by 99.4 the amount which the average weekly wage would buy in, 1907 would be represented by 101.5; The retail price of commodities increases nearly as fast as wages increase, because labor enters so largely into retailing. Re tailers need and get larger profits than they got in 1892. They have to, for their expenses are greater. The amount of money in circulation per capita at the end of the fiscal year was 31 per cent greater than in 1892, and the use of checks in payment is much greater, and the per capita cir culatiOn of money is doubtless the greatest single factor in raising the price level.
 In other words, the financial sirua- ton, if abnormal at all, is !abnormaIly favorable for everybody. We get more money, spend more, live in greater comfort and either save more or spend more for personal qualification. We have far more of what goes to make life enjoyable than we had eighteen years ago, and if we are not happier 1t IS because we yield ourselves to { the suggestions of muckrakers that we !, are the dOwntrodden victims of the 1
 AANA, bAdI Nut country IS gO- ing to the dogs, and that our only salvation is to completely rip up our whole financial and industrial system and reconstruct it on lines which will l make profit impossible. l
 And therein lies the danger. If prices are higher than in 1892. they v will be still higher ten years hence if ! we do not break up the foundations i of our prosperity. Transactions in- Volving employment for millions are : now made on the theory that prices I and "the cost of living" will slow II y but steadily increase. If there t. comes general conviction to the ? if popular hysteria mani s, tests itself in a diminishing demand or commodities, in legislation en- W lingering the legitimate profit of in- !, and in a general feeling f, f hostility towards organizers of in- W ustry and accommodating men, the cl nterprise which is based on con- Dl denee will cease. Production will