The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1919-08-16
A PEACE DEBAUCH

Yes, we are paying the economic and financial penalties
of the war. 1t is still the war and it will be the war for many
years to come. The readjustments must be made and also the
restrictions. And it is to be feared still that we will not make
the transitions peacefully. Each man will think he is getting
the worst of it and he viii KICK.
And above all, we area learning the great economic truth
that we cannot destroy in war and prosper in peace. We have
burned and sunk billions of dollars worth of property and we
are now finding out that it has impoverished the world. The
deficiencies must be supplied. Marking up commodities and
wages multiplies dollars in circulation, but it does not recreate
at once the things which were destroyed.
q 4 \
What we need most of all is what we forget the quickest
of all-the war spirit of economy and conservation. AS soon
MS the armistice was signed we began to spend again, and not
as we did before the war, but more eXtravagantly. We had
heard of billions and we had subscribed billions over night
and we were all thinking big and loud and we started on a
peace debauch. We are now disconnected by the katzenjam-
mer that belongs to the gray dawn of the morning after. And
many feel so badly in their heads that they want to start out
to strike and to shoot up the towns. Some one is to blame
for their headaches. Property is less sacred than it was since
we began destroying it in war and human blood is a mere
bagatelle. We read of a million dollar fire and we do not
wonder or deplore the loss and we read about so many killed in
Il street riot, and we say, "Oh, well!'
The greed of man does not need much Of an excuse to
get more. And when there is a basis for marking up prices it
is done by multiplication instead of addition. When wages
go up from 90 to 40 cents it is not the 20 cents that is added,
but the selling price of the product of that labor may be null
tiplied by two. When cigarmakers get $2i5 a thousand more
pay, cigars are marked up $22 a thousand more. When wool
goes IN clothing is marked up. although there may be no wool
in the cloth, and when hides go up shoes may be marked up
although there may be more paper than leather in the shoes.
Or they may be made of canvas.
4 y X
There is also the foreign demand. Poor as they are over
there they are buying-and some of them with moneys and
credits which we have loaned them. With our moneys they
are bidding against us in our own markets and making us all
lay more for our own goods. In Chicago buyers from Canada
who have English contracts have been bidding up hogs until
thew have reached more than $23 a hundred, a price that no
hog ought to me worth in a sensible world. With those Cana
dian buyers it is moi the price that counts, but it is to get the
hog. The American packers need some hogs for their trade
and to keep their plants going.
We need cooperation, team work to escape the dangers
them worse. WI need the firm hand of the government on the
profteers, who are maryland on the spectators who are
selling all sorts of faxed stocks and things and we need to
conserve and economize again-even as we did during the
war. Do not try to see how much you can spend, but now
spending mania there will come stability in the markets in
which we buy.
Everyone is asking what he wants and if he can't get it
right away he starts to blow things up. But who is going to
be The last one to be held up? Passing the buck from one to
the other is well enough, but there comes an end OF that or
is it a continuous line like a circle.
When and where will come the end of our peace debauch?
In. fact, what we need most in the present crisis of high
prices is common sehse-and on the part of the government
that kind of sense is quite as necessary as with the individual.
y 4
A niece of the khedive of Egypt has come to the United
States to find a soul mate. To begin her search she bought
$4,000 worth of clothes, but at the present high prices she
may not have gotten very much at that. Evidently the royal
family of Egypt also is leaning on America" as SO pathetically
depicted by the honorable president upon his return from
the gayeties of Paris.
Those fifteen million Germans who want to go to Russia
may be waiting for the time when the ~bolshevists will have