Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-06-19
General Statement.

sion throughout the United States
and the Rogue River Valley is ex-
periencing no harsher effect, prob
ably, than every other section of the
country. However, there are good
reasons why it should be less felt
here than in other sections, and it
will be the purpose of these articles
to point out why it is too severely
felt and to attempt to offer sugges-
tions as to how it may be best over
come.
The general depression comes
from two causes. The country is at
the end of an unprecedented era of
speculation. When the speculative
spirit outruns development reaction
will follow as surely as the night the
day. There will come a season of
inactivity followed by depression in
values. This effect is the result of
a very simple fact. To raise values
without development adds no new
wealth. Take a vacant town lot, for
example: A sells it to B at five
hundred dollars. B buys it only for
speculation and sells it to c for a
thousand dollars, who adds nothing
to its value but price when he sells
it to d for fifteen hundred dollars.
If the lot was originally worth five
hundred dollars the added price of
one thousand dollars represents the
per cent of speculation in the trans
action. Considering that a certain
legitimate value has been added dur
ing the period of these transactions
by reason of community growth and
development, it still remains that the
specific transactions in this lot has
added nothing either to the lot or
community value. Therefore, the de-
gree of pure initiation caused by this
transaction depends upon the rela-
tion Of the number, or volume of
such transactions, to those made for
utility only. AS long as men can
profit by such transactions they will
continue, but as soon as prices are
forced up to point where the full
development of the property will not
yield net sum equal to the price of
money rent, or money interest, prof
| table transfers in real estate will
cease because the same amount OF
profit cannot be gathered from its
utilization as can be gained from
money loaning. The extent of de.
preston following depends much
upon the relation of property held
purely for speculation to that held
S lely for utility. In other words, a
community in which half of the
lands are held for speculation will
suffer less than one wherein two.
thirds of the porperty is owned by
persons who do not personally util-
ize it. Conversely, a community
where all of the property was util-
lied for homes and was titled by the
owner no depression would be felt
at least so long as the land yielded
its average wealth. Again, as soon
as the values become so inflated that
the utilization of the property will
not yield fair remuneration to the
persons employed in it's care plus a
reasonable interest on the invest
| ment, no one will care to own it and
demand will stop until the values
have settled back to where it will
yield it. No community will proper
ly prosper until it's citizenship be-
| comes contented. Communities
where large proportion of the pop
ulation have been led to buy through
misrepresentation, paying part down
at a price that the land cannot be
made to surely and permanently
yield sum sufficient to sustain
.t;;ose employed in it's care together
with the amount of interest accruing
on deferred payments, soon becomes
! invested with wide discontent-
everybody wants to sell and nobody
wants to buy-and a depression fol-
| lows which can only be relieved by
decline in prices to a point where
the investment becomes profitable.
| Wherever such conditions exist in a
community the best remedy is to
hurry back to values that are justi-
fable. In communities where pro-
duction is specialized it is of vital
interest to all that only such class
of land be utilized for specific crops
as will profitably produce them. In
all communities there are certain
sharp practices in real estate manip-
ulation that should not only be
frowned down, but the perpetrators
should be sent to the penitentiary, if
it be necessary to stop it. 1t is now
fairly well established that individu-
ais in communities are not indepen-
dent, but dependent. q The transac-
tions of one individual have a GER
tain effect on all other individuals
in the immediate community. Some