Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-07-10
INDEBTEDNESS, PRIVATE AND
PUBLIC.-COntinue
Seventh in series.l

The whole country is now expert
encing the first shock of relaxation
from a period of over-speculation.
Many holding property are cramped
without knowing the reason. Dur
ing active periods property was
bought on small margins and sold
before payments became due; it was
turned so that the deferred payments
fell on the new purchaser and the
dealer was enabled to make large
profits on small capital and with no
development. AS long as the market
was active this kind of dealing con-
tinued and was profitable. But every
time piece of property changed
hands under these conditions it was
at an advanced price. Take, for ex-
ample, certain tracts of unused lands
in the Rogue River Valley. Ten
years ago they sold for twenty dol
lars an acre; year later for thirty;
the year after that for fifty; the next
year for seventy-five, and some of
them the last time transferred
brought as high as two hundred dol
lars an acre, and still they are out
of use. The price has been raised
from twenty to two hundred dollars
an acre only on the strength of what
other developed land could be made
to do, without thought of the long
time or heavy expense lying between
the raw land and full development
The speculator had created and TAX
en- one hundred and seventy-five dol
lars an acre in fictitious value out
of a land worth at the start but
twenty-five dollars an acre, without
bringing the property to productive
development. Nothing has contribu-
ted more to the present depression
than that single thing In the mean
time the community has materially
developed, but not nearly in proper
tion to the rise in the selling price
of untitled land.
The less land held purely for spec
ulation in a community the better
The more developers and the less
spectators there are in the valley
the better. The trouble is the specul
lator has run the price so high de.
velopers cannot afford to buy ant
develop it. Until that is overcome
development will be slow. This il
a condition, not theory, and should
be faced with clear head. Before
proper development will set in an(
continue raw land must get to price
that will attract men who will de
velop it for the value it produces.
In times of depression those wht
} are caught holding property for spec
, ulation, and have large deferred pay
} ments coming due, become crampe(
and are likely to advocate anything
in the hope of creating temporar!
and artificial rise that will enabl,
them to get from under.
Those who expect to make thi'
their. future home are interested
alone in solid development. Specu
lators seek only temporary booms sC
they can unload, no matter how
transient they be. They are willing
to take a chance on anything that
will create temporary furry an6
are likely to advocate excessive Dor.
rowing without care for the perma.
nent injury that will follow. Such
frequently voice absurdly sophistical
arguments to forward excessive bond
issues. At the good roads banquet
at Medford recently one speaker as.
/ serted that he was for as much bond
ed Indebtedness as the law would
permit, on the ground that he would
be dead before the debt fell due, and
the future generation, not him, would
have to take care of the payment,
but he failed to consider that if Jack
son county sold seven hundred and
fifty thousand dollars of her bonds,
at five per cent, running twenty-five
years, the interest alone for the term
would amount to nine hundred
thirty-seven thousand and five hun
dred dollars; that the interest,
amounting to thirty-seven thousand
five hundred dollars, and sinking
fund of thirty thousand dollars,
amounting in all to an annual pay
ment of sixty-seven thousand seven
hundred and fifty dollars, would
have to be met each and every year
by himself and contemporaries, be.
sides leaving the principal of seven