New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-09-30
BANK CREDITS AND H. g. OF L.
Correspondent Explains How Prices
Rise and Middlemen Thrive.
To tho Editor OF The Tribune.

To tho Editor OF The Tribune
Sir: To-day's Tribune prints. from It's
Washington Bureau. thus: The high
cost OF living stalked In to-day TO
perplex still more members OF the Bank
ing and Currency Committee. Pro-
fessor Irving Fisher, OF New Haven
warned the committee that the bill in It's
present shape may. by It's inhatonary
character, boost the cost Of living still
higher. The extensive development
OF the credit system OF transacting bust
ness by check, he said. is responsible for
AT least half the increase In the cost OF
living By the addition OF sS00,00,0o OF
reserve currency. credit will be still fur
higher"
Prices do not soar. nor aresthey likely
TO- Every well Informed man who clearly
reflects on this matter knows perfectly
well that. excepting the prices paid for
fresh meats and other fresh foodstuffs'
prices for nearly everything necessary to
comfortable living are only about half
what they were forty years ago. when
there was no outcry at all about the high
cost Of living.
The prices now paid for fresh foods are
more than double what they should be or
would DO were 100000 unnecessary mid
dlomen traders promptly and permanently
put out OF business that now buy and
sell at profits over and over again. all
the food Americans get.
The present high cost OF living is
popularity attributed TO increased prices
for necessary things plus increased neces-
sity for exceptional things which were
formerly regarded as too luxuriously ex-
pensive and therefore not generally had
But this, compound popular notion
Enthusiastically mental muddle, Is
wrong I'm both its features. for the plain
everyday staring fact shows that the
present actual cost OF living is not, In
terms OF dollars. high; and things not
had because they are too luxuriously ex-
pensive are altogether so few that they
constitute merely a negligible quantity IN
the lives OF most people.
Professor Fisher liz unquestionably right
In saying that $500 Oo0, 900 additional cur
rency will operate TO initiate credit that
is already bad In its effects; but this by
no means touches the root OF this des-
perately serious matter. for II scarcely
stirs a ripple over the actually iniQuitous
deeps wherein dwell the wrongs now put
upon the masses. wrongs wrought by
operations OF Ject-to-
check whereby thousands OF millions or
dollars per annum in fiat money-checks
written against bank credit-enables nom
l.,,,r x.vln tonA
please and then. by converting what they
thus buy into modicums OF real money.
effectively prevents that fair and equitable
distribution OF material substance and
current cash which properly belongs. as
by natural right to all our industriously
honest citizens.
1t also serves to keep moro than two
million unnecessary middlemen traders In
business at buying and selling for profits
everything that our real work-a-day peo-
pie and everybody else should have al
less prices.
To-day there are more than l2.coO,Oo
countrybred people subsistins In towns
where they and their 100000 children
necessarily solely depend on earned
money to buy everything they eat. every
thing they wear. everything they use'
everything they get as recreation, insteao
of dwelling In country homes and thing
fairly comfortable acres: betweentimes
being engaged at small mixed occupations
such as eighty years ago sufiiced to make
industrious American country folk thrive.
nine out OF every ten. and gave health
and right enjoyments to children and
young people none Of whom ever had
dollar. simply because their proper needs
the whole year around were all moro or
less fully supplied without cash.
ALFRED LAURENS BRENNAN.
New York, Sept. 26, 1918.