Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-06-01
THE PRESIDENTS PSYCHOLOGY


~ USINESS men of the United States
x will not be surprised at anything
u President Wilson may say or do
after his remarkable speech in
response to the appeals of a repre-
sentative delegation of manufacturers
and business heads to cease further
legislation against the commercial and
industrial interests of the country at
this time. His suggestion that the
present trade depression, which has
closed mills and factories and thrown
thousands of workingmen into idle
ness, is merely psychological is re-
sented everywhere and the conviction
is forced upon the worried and ha-
rassed employer and employe that a
President with such conception of
actual conditions, who has eyes and
ears, but who neither sees nor hears,
cannot be brought to safe and sane
attitude toward the business of the
country.
With biting irony the New York
Sun says:
The Presidents explanation that
the present depression of business
is merely Psyehe1Ggieai reie to oil mas fSs
thinkers and theorists. OF course,
psychological depression is
much more comforting. sort than
materialistic or realistic one. You
have only to correct the thought
and the depression becomes hump.
We have here charming applica-
ence of mental healing. The sick
ness of the commercial body is
really in the commercial mind.
Business only imagines that it's
supply of nutrition is reduced, that
it's circulation is weak, that it's
nerves are shaken and that it is
unable to develop, its accustomed
tariff are an iliusion; the paralysis
of the railroads is distorted men,
tai perception; stagnant industry
is hypochondria and unemployment
hallucination.
If the President is so sure that
the malady of business to-day is
psychological, would it not be
likely he would find astounding i'm
provement if he should promptly
remove the causes of psychological
disturbance and give his patient
chance to recover mental and nerV-
GUS tone.
Business men are protesting loudly
against the Presidents absurd posi-
ton, his phrasemaking and his utter
indifference to results. Nor are they
any less indignant over the position
assumed by the claquers of the Presi-
dent in this State. who persist in their
demands that he be endorsed by the
people for the benefit of the White
House twins-Palmer and Mccormick
Hear the conservative Public Ledger:
Can an extra dose of psychology
give back to 100000 railroad own
ers that $9S,000,000 which their
properties have lost in eight months
this fiscal year compared with the
year before the Wilson regime
Is it only dream or a concrete
fact that 100000 workmen are
now out of a job?
Can mental state account for the
amazing reversal in Americas in
ternational trade figures, where a
monthly excess of exports ranging
up to $50,000,000 has turned into a
BALANCE against us of $1o,OOo,OO0 for
Does mere sentiment reduce our
steel mill output to so per cent. of
its capacity? Was 1t hysteria that
blew out $4,000 Pennsylvania coke
ovens?
No, it was not merely psyche
Logical notion that unloaded
American-made traffic from 2SO, 900
freight cars and put them out of
commission. Baldwin's didn't dis
charge more than half their en-
ployes out of pique.
Building operations in the United
states have not fallen greatly
simply to create political sentiment.
Our bankers are not sending ship
loads Of gold to Europe to spite
When securities have been liqui-
dated in eighteen months to level
$4,000. 100000 below their former
value the, country is not suffering
psychologically but concretely.
1t Is an outrageous mockery for
those, whose excessive Legislative
meddling is largely responsible for
our present trade ills to pretend
that, the people who have suffered
the loss and who are out of work
are themselves to blame.
:, The President says there is
not nothihg Ing, more dangerous for bust
party has left business in no un-
certainty whatever, except as TO
the extent of the calamity which il
may infiict.
Is 1T merely psychological" tha
the Pennsylvania Steel Company 4
operating its big plant at Steelton a
little more than SO per cent. of IL
capacity; that factories and mills ar,
running on half and quarter time; tha
business of all sorts is slack, and tina
confidence is almost destroyed? Henr,
Pierce Davis writes the New Yorl
Sun:
I am a shingle manufacturer in
northern New Jersey. In normal
times all the male citizens of the
village are in my employ--about 300
all told: To-day l employ eleven,
just to keep the machinery moving.
0tnArE i,e