The Cordova daily times., 1919-03-10
MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1919
BETWEEN WAR AND PEACE

We are getting into a state of need less alarm over the industrial situ- ation. It is we'll to be serious; foolish to be panic-stricken.
 The United States will be rich be- yond our dreams a decade or a gen. eration hence. What does that signify for us? How can that help us now? The answers to these questions are not far to seek.
 When all the people invested in Liberty bonds they felt assured that the future would take care of their investments, that there was no chance of loss unless the United States was defeated.
 The United States has won. Its fu- ture is certain. The future of it's farms, it's factories, it's mines is cer- tain. Yet we see all around us tim orous men-capitalists and laborers- who think that the future is insecure
 When the individual capitalist is
  and faces immediate losses he loses heart His faith in the future weak ems, although he knows, if he stops to reason, that the future must neces- sarily to be more prosperous than the past The individual laborer, temper arily unemployed, imagines that the e n
 If our optimism were founded merely in a desire to enthuse it would be futile, but our hopes have sound reasons for being triumphant over our doubts and fears.
 We must not lose sight of the fact that the process of feeding and cloth ing ourselves, one hundred million selves, will continue without ces- sation. Capital must be invested, and men must toll to keep this procession in operation.
 But it will be argued that there is such a thing as business stagnation, that there have been hard times in the past.
 If we cast a retrospective eye over the hard times of the last hundred years we shall find that they began in lack of confidence, in a panic that frightened capital away from invest ment in enterprises. The average business man, seeing the whirlwind i'm tT> hi ,fD thinking that his whole state had been blown away and he did not come out for months. He did not regain his courage for years. The hard times were the result of this obsession, this lack of confidence in the future.
 Business men, we fancy, are accept ing the period or readjustment with more courage than of old. They know from experience that the time to work hardest is in the period of stagnation. It is a temporary state and by good doctoring can soon be removed.
 In the hard times of the nineties neither public officials nor business men ulu IluCI tO IoHcNC oIuSA'IAoAA. If someone proposed that few mil lions be expended on roads or other public works the economists held up their hands in horror. It was false system, they said, and would lead to worse disaster.
 We have larger vision today. Knowing that the future is certain we are simply bonding that future now. We are spreading it's profits, by a retroactive process, back to our own time We are mortgaging the future in the sure knowledge that the future will be able to pay.
 Where shall we find the money? ? some will ask. Money is the cheap est thing in the market. It is locked up in public or private strong boxes. It is to be had whenever investment becomes alluring. During the war we loaned our money, or most of 1t, to ourselves and spent it among our. selves.
 Government-federa state, county and city-is not waiting for invest ments to prove alluring. Government