The Topeka state journal., 1914-01-21

FARMERS AND nsvNB1GE1PTS.
The stabilising effect Of sound.
modern system Of banking, ID ono Of
the encouraging developments to look
forward to. Outside OF the Immediate
workings OF the machinery and the
beneficial influence on active business.
there will be collateral RESULTS worth
thinking about. says The Bache Re-
view." and 1t goes on:
Investment buying has never been
. awidely-distributed. steadily ION
operation In the United States. This
il because ours has been q country
OF constantly-recurring. periodic pam
ics. These panics have always cut
security values wide open and left the
market at the trembling point. Be-
tween panics, security values have re-
covered. but the swing has been too
fast, too high and low. to attract stur-
dy widespread buying by all the peo-
pie, small and great financially-such
for instance. az prevails in France.
Even the peasants there are all In
vestors. Our farmers have never been
investors in the sense Of buying divf-
dend and interest-paying securities
Their savings have universally gone
back into land or-becoming very we'll
to do-into mortgages. Farmers buy
q lot Of shrewdly-advertised. worthless
securities every year, but that II the
speculation that is in them coming to
the surface. The class among them
that under other circumstances might
be investors in stocks and bonds sees
too much violent oscillating action in
prices, to be attracted. Your farmer
is conservative character on
finances, as a rule. He gets his pile"
fighting wind and rain and cold. and
sets too much store on his hard-earn-
ed Increment to risk 1t in things that
are. apparently to him. SO fiercely In
flammable az stocks and bonds. In
panic and after-panic days. when
prices are ruinously low. he avoids
markets because he cannot tell which
are the things that are doomed and
which. the things that may rise again:
So he "allows'' he won't fool with
them catamarans,' and with his extra
money he buys more land. because he
knows that the soil IL full of wealth
for him If he digs for it,. In season and
out, as he has done before and is will
ing to do again, with the sun to help
him and the rain to work when he
sleeps. and the gold Of the grain and
the swelling white boil for his reward.
Sometimes the sun turns against him
and fights him through long days Of
withering heat, or the rain becomes
unfriendly and tries to drown him out.
but that IL only once in a while, and
in the long run he would rather trust
these two than them fellers In Wall
street on whom he blames all the woes
that fall upon the son OF man.
We are coming now to the days and
the years without panics; that is.
without the kind that has burned the
country up every few years in Ameri-
ca. Elastic currency and massed gold
reserves will stop all that and we will
grow into an investing country, be-
cause the absence of these cataclysms
will steady and stabilize security
prices. We will not have the plethora
Of money in the summer to breed spec
ulation. followed by the tight-money
autumns. squeezing the wind out Of
prices. Investments will be on a stead
Ter keel and will attract all kinds Of
people-even the conservative farm
ers-and 1t will come about by and
by that stockholders will represent
SO many votes that even politics may
be stabilized.