The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-10-14
FROM OTHER PENS
IS ANYTHING THE MATTER WITH
BUSINESS?

All the learned commercial doctors
are assuring US that business is in a
bad way. Its liver is torpid Its c1rcu-
lation is slow. 1t is able to eat three
square meals a day. am it earns money
enough to pay for them. But it is not
taking chances in raffles or buying lot
terry tickets Generally it wants more
than per cent on its investments It
is not rislxing much on the probaple
state of trade six months or a year
hence Various nerve tones and slim
ulants are prescribed for it, and espe-
cially the government is admonished
that business is in very nervous con-
dition and nothing must be said 10
alarm it. Public opinion must be nice
to business and humor it and coax it
along.
When we seek further particulars we
learn that the people are very general
ly employed and consumption of food
and clothing and even of the comforts
is proceeding at reasonable rate anu
this is keeping the factories fairly busy,
though they are not overwhelmed with
orders. When we inquire a little fur
Their about the factories we find that
every time there is a lull in production
a considera BILE amount of machinery is
idle. although production is actually
going on faster than a year earlier.
Now we begin to see what is the
matter with business. It is not running
ahead of consumption. 1t is pretty well
employed in meeting the current needs
of the nation, but men are not buying
and contracting for next year much.
We read of waiting markets and hand
to-mouth buying and a good current
demand, but little disposition to an
ticipate the future.
The fact is we make a speculative
boom a standard by which we COM
pare an existing state of trade. Bank
clearings and railroad earnings are
larger than last year. A good deal of
production is in excess of last year But
with an increase of 2 per cent a year
in population, and not much more than
that in wealth, we look for increases Of
10 per cent a year in the volume of
trade. We are not satisfied with a de-
mand for immediate consumption. We
wish a demand for next years con-
sumption In the dry goods trade men
are buying for next spring, but that Is
not enough; we complain that they are
not buying for next fall We are wor-
ried because a substantial percentage
Of machinery is idle, but every time
there is the least expansion of demand
the producing plants are increased and
new factories are erected and demand
would have to increase five or six
times as fast as population or wealth Int
order to keep all the machinery en-
ployed as fast as it can be set up.
The government is warned that =
must stop prosecuting the trusts, but
the only very serious thing that has
happened to shareholders in a trust
was a panic on the New York Stock
Exchange for which the government
was not responsible and which E. H
Gary and J. P. Morgan could have stop
ped at any moment they wished: th9y
did not act until every holder capable of
being scared had sold his shares cheap
It is no loss to the country as a whole
that business is meeting demands for
present consumption and is not spread
ing itself in anticipation of a specuia-
tive Observation-Disclosures Record.