The sun., 1919-08-31

n
Mother Shipton and prophesies
- not at all, is comforting per-
son to consult when worrying about
the high cost of living. Just take few
hours off and consider with her about
the recession of the prices of food and
drink and clothes after the civil war.
It was so slow and, as far as whole
sale markets were concerned, was ac-
companied by such spasmodic rises
and falls Of the curve which had the
general downward direction for eight
years after the close of what our
fathers feared was the irrepressible
conflict, that the men of that day grew
discouraged.
There are also many of us who may
not agree with certain great per-
sonage who says that the peak of the
load in high living has been reached.
Even though the present figures show
no drop at all, but disconcerting ad-
vance even in the presence of the Seer,
it might be that five or six years from
now we may all say as the pious
.Eneas was wont to observe when all
was apparently hopeless: I'VE shall
be glad to remember these things"
It is the same way with the men
and women of the elder day who
passed through the civil war and the
reconstruction period. They tell us of
prices which were staggering as COM
pared with some which we pay even
IT,, .lax- 81
apogee has been reached and that we
have hold of the very end tassel of the
cap of climax. Although wheat, wool
and hides are higher now than they
were in the civil war, the rates which
our fathers and grandfathers paid
during that period were lofty enough
TO make us believe that in retrospect
the situation may have been far worse
than ours.
Suppose that we take the Stats
ticians trustingly by the hand and find
our way back to the Alps of living
costs of the fighting sixties. Coffee
often was bought at 81 the pound and
at times sugar was fully as much and
often $3.50 was given. In these days
the sugar situation was taken in hand
q fair price of IL cents the pound has
been in vogue. The prices of meats
and bacon and various other COM
modities were high enough in the civil
war, although often the prices now
asked for those commodities exceed
those which were average rates more
than fifty years ago, when the nation
was in the throes Of the great strug-
gle.
Different Basic Causes.
Although the price situations of the
two eras are much alike, the condi-
lions which caused the high quota
tions were radically differene The
civil war was accompanied by sharp
decline in the value of the currency
owing to the suspension of specie pay
ments early in 1861, and the making
OF greenbacks the legal tender the fol-
lowing year caused an alarming de-
probation in the purchasing power of
money. Thus, as the economists put
it, the dominant causative role in the
last years of the war which increased
living costs so much was the shrink
age of the dollar due to the financial
policy of half a century and more ago.
Practically the same condition was
reached in the great European war
when many governments made high
bids for material and food supplies,
which were so essential to keeping up
their fighting machines first, and then
in sustaining the civil population. who
in the war just closed were really
more or less in the belligerent class,
for all were required to do their bit
for the common cause. The dollar has
shrunk to half its size, at any rate,
and as was the case in the civil war
IT will have TO expand somewhat grad
ually even though the peak be
reached at the present date in the
price of commodities of all kinds.
Wesley c. Mitchell of the University
OF California made study of the war
of the secession period few years
ago, which is a classic of analysis,
and much of it was used by the War
Industries Board in its endeavor dur
ing the hostilities with Germany to
account for our economic plight. q
The professor took wholesale and
retail prices and compared them with
the rising prices OF gold, for as the
the pIcClOuS COlI III
creased, the cost of living began to
ascend. He also made estimates of
the wages of various classes of the
population and plotted wages and
gold and food prices on the same
charts.
Wholesale Rates Better.
As retail prices greatly vary at all
times, the comparisons in his chart
are more convincing when the whole
sale rates are considered. A study of
ninety-two commodities, which are
about as many commodities as are in
the lives of all of us, be our lives
young or old, gave a clear index of
what the living conditions were during
tho war and in the painful era of re-
consn uction which followed it. In all
the charts, 10 took as the base line
the average prices which prevailed In
1860.
The effect of the rupture between
the North and the South was not felt
at once in the prices of foodstuffs.
Fort Sumter was fired upon in April
Of 1861. but there were many persons
IN this country even then who did not
see that that act meant war. Some
thought that the erring sisterhood
should be permitted to go in peace
and 1t was not until early in July of
that year that the first call for volun-