New Britain herald., 1916-04-26
Our Dwfndling Dollar.
Providence Journal )

The American dollar, right at home is worth today only between sixty two and sixty-three cents, according to the calculation of an economist who has been keeping track of it's purchasing value for some years past. That is to say. whereas the dollar was exchangeable for a certain amount of, conmm odities, including living ne- cessities, during a period arbitrarily chosen to start the calculation with, it will now purchase less than sixty three per cent. of that quantity.
 Everybody, particularly perhaps every householder, realizes keenly that the dollar has depreciated with in the past ten or fifteen years. Tho young man who, with an annual ill., come, say, of a thousand dollars, married fifteen years ago and who now has a two-thousand dollar in- come, may be puzzled because he is not able to save much, If any, more than when he set up housekeeping. If he has a growing family he may attribute 1t wholly to that But if he has kept his old bills-particularly the grocery and market accountable will have no difficulty in finding the true explanation. At the present rate of depreciation. it will not be long before two thousand dollars will go no further than a thousand did only few years ago.
 The period selected for this "dol- lar index for considering the dollar as at it's par value. was between 1900 and 1906. At that time. too, it was worth considerably less than in the immediately preceding period of four to six years. If the index base were set back, say, to 1996 1t would be found that by 1900 the dollar had lost about twenty-five cents in pur- chasing value.
 Accordingly, reckoned from the former date, the depreciation at the present time represents loss Of fully fifty per cent. in twenty years. Assuming the accuracy of this rather startling showing, an income of thousand dollars in 1896 was equiva- lent to two thousand dollars today.
 Starting with the dollar at par In purchasing power between 1900 and 1908, it appears that by 1913 it had dropped to eighty-two cents. It will be recalled that at that time the Thigh cost of living was an acute is- sue, politically as well as economical ly But the cost of living has been IoaD1ng then. The great war came along to lift it just at the time when. by the natural law of cycles, a swing down. ward might have been expected. The value of the dollar has been falling to new levels monthly since the war began. At the beginning of 1916 it was below sixty-four cents, and now it is below sixty-three. Verifying the dollar index, Bradstreets commodity price index, as of the first of April, establishes a new high record, the seventh successive rise in as many months.
 This depreciation of the dollar has been more rapid and persistent than probably ever before in it's history. A long time may elaDse before it re- covers it's value at the 19O0-6 level. if it ever does But. since the falling process cannot continue indefinitely. we may hope to see the quotation back to seventy cents or so in little while. Should it soon get back to eighty cents, we would probably be so happy that we would forget en- tirely that, a few years ago, when it fell down to that quotation: the whole country complained bitterly and cried aloud for relief from the high cost of living. --..--.-..---.