Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-09-21
WE CAN
VXTHEN a hard-headed financial
w expert pauses in his arithmeti-

w expert pauses in his arithmei-
cal calculations to solemnly
announce that under given condi-
tions two and two sometimes make
five, curious minds may be excused
for taking notice.
Theodore H. Price, noted statis-
tician, founder of Commerce and
Finance, and now engaged in i'm
portant governmental work, writes
for the publication named a remark
| able editorial on THE Spiritual Ele-
ment in the Economic World" that
cleverly sets forth his belief that
America has accomplished, since the
war began, what any authority pre-
viously would have had no hesitancy
in pronouncing the impossible.
THE war" he says, has unsettled
many beliefs and shattered many
theories previously regarded as alb
solutely inerrant. In the field of
commerce, for instance, the law of
supply and demand has been sus-
pended, and in our financial calcula-
tions it hardly seems safe any longer
to assume that two and two make
four, as We observe the enormous
increase in bank deposits recorded
during the last four years, concur
rently with the destruction of wealth
that has been in progress.
THE fiscal miracles that have
been performed in raising loans and
collecting taxes would be unbeliev-
able if they were not historical facts,
and, like the earlier miracles de-
scribed in the Bible, they can, only
be regarded as the products of a
faith that can remove mountains.
This faith, which now, as then, is
the substance of things hoped for
and the evidence of things unseen,
is entirely spiritual. 1t comes from
within, not from without, it is i'm
material and entirely psychic, but
1t is nevertheless essential to the
development of the material and the
concrete and without it the worlds
economic progress would cease"
This is an amazing bit of writing,
considering that the source is a
brain given largely to computations
in cold facts and figures, but who
shall say its truth is not as dem
onstrable as though the proposition
could be proved in terms of mathe-
matics?s Indeed, the writer goes on
TO do that very thing to his own
satisfaction in language not difficult
to grasp and that will need little
amplification for the mind of the
average reader. He says:
By faith Columbus voyaged
across the unknown waters of the
western ocean to discover the con-
tinent that we have inherited;
by faith our forefathers devel-
oped 1t and established here a
government conceived in. liberty.
and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal; by
faith we undertook and are sue
cessfully prosecuting a great war
to secure worldwide accept
ance of that proposition, and by
faith the seemingly impossible
has been accomplished in mobil-
lzlns the men and raising the
money necessary for that war
And now as we seem measur-
ably near the end of the strug-
| gle there are to be heard the
voices of those who predict that a
long period of economic depres-
sion will follow its successful ter
mination.
They say that wages and prices
must decline, that great overpro-
duction will ensue. that want and
distress will be general and that
/ the costs of the war, OF which the
| present excitement has made us
almost obliVious, will have to be
finally met amidst great travail.
To these timid and pessimistic
souls it can only be answered
that they lack the spiritual faith
that is as the alchemist's stone to
| things material; that overproduc-
| tion and low prices are factors of
| depression only to those who
choose so to consider them; that
| in the last analysis increased pro-
duction at reduced cost is essen
| tial to the rapid creation of
| wealth, and that one of the chief
| benefits of war is that it educates
men to make their labor yield
more and to work more inten-
| sively; that shortage of the
things necessary to existence is
acutely felt to-day and that it is
| absurd to say that we shall be
| worse off when this shortage is
| relieved; that the war has been a
| wonderful schoolmaster in econ
| omy; that one truth not yet dis
| proved is that economy is wealth;
that If we permit the post bellum
era to become one of depression
| it will be entirely our own fault
and that our pre-eminent duty
is to preach and practice the
gospel of hope and energize the
| material with the power of a
spiritual faith in ourselves and in
mankind. If we falter not in this
duty the miracles of peace will be
j greater than those of war.
And. indeed, they will be. William
Allen White, in one of his excellent
books, relates this incident, which
illustrates the point: He and a guide
of much smaller stature than him.
self, were making their way through
the great Northern woods near the
end of a wearisome day. Finally
Ia mile from camp, White threw
down his pack and said he could
carry it no further. Without a wore
the little guide raised Whites pacl
on top of his own and trudged off
White feebIy following. That eve.