The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1919-03-18
BUILDING ACTIVITY
URGENTLY NEEDED

AS bearing upon the question of
building a Humboldt county court
house. hotel, and other needed struc-
lures, at this time, letter received
this morning from the Information
and Education Service of the United
States Department of Labor is of par
ticular interest. Quite in accord with
the best thought of the country. ex-
pressed In all leading periodicals, the
letter points out the advantage of inn
mediate and energetic activity In all
industrial plans. The text follows.
Its perusal is earnestly commended:
The governors and mayors in at
tendance on the recent Washington
conference appear to have been con-
vinced. pretty generally, of two things:
There Is to be no immediate or marked
reduction in the price of building ma
terials and labor wages, and an i'm
mediate resumption of building and
construction activities throughout the
country, more than any other one
thing, is essential If business is to get
back to the "as usual" basis Of peace,
or the better than usual" possibilities
of the present and future.
Some went to the conference be-
lieving materially lower prices might
be had il the Federal government
inc n o. n q
were convinced that the situation
would take care of itself If the gov
ernment would do nothing but keep
its hands off business and let the law
OF supply and demand run its course.
These latter were disposed to believe
prices in the building and construc-
tion industries were too high.
For this reason a statement by Pro-
fessor Irving Fisher of Yale Univer-
sity, an acknowledged authority on
price and market conditions, in which
he says the United States has reached
a new price level and it is doubtful
II prices ever again will go back to
the pre-war level, was read with in
terest. Professor Fisher says that
one certain way to bring about busi-
ness stagnation Is for everybody to
wait for busisess to get better. He
states 1t this ways
"The fundamental practical ques-
tion confronting business men is
whether the general level Of prices is
going to fan. In my opinion it is not
going to fall much. IL at all. We are
or a permanently higher price level
and the sooner the business men OF
the country take this view and ad-
Just themselves to it, the sooner will
they save themselves and the nation
from the misfortune which will come
IL we persist in our present false
hope"
This international authority on
prices shows there have been times
in history when new price levels were
established. He says:
"She general level of prices depends
upon the volume and rapidity of turn
over of the circulating medium in re-
lation to the business to be transacted
thereby. If the number OF dollars
circulated by cash and by check
doubles, while the number of goods
and services exchanged thereby re-
mains constant, prices will double.
THE great price changes in history
have come about in just this manner
The price revolution OF the Sixteenth
century came upon Europe as a re
suit of the great influx of gold anC
silver from the mines of the New
World. Europe was flooded with new
money and prices became high.
People talked then of temporary in
fiation,' just as they talk of it now
But it was not temporary; II was
new price level. A Similar increas'
in prices all over the world occurre'
between 1896 and 1914, following tn
discovery of the rich gold fields o
South Africa, Cripple Creek ant
Alaska, the invention of the cyanid
process in mining. and the vast exten
sion Of the use of bank credit"