The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1919-01-02

the disposition of unneeded war sup
plies, there seems to be no good reas-
on for taking counsel of our fears as
to what is to happen after peace terms
are signed. Much weighty talk OF
problems to be solved appears in the
papers, but unless all past experience
is at fault, most of the problems arts.
ing are very similar to those o
tered in other periods of readjustment
following widespread hOstilities. II
the result had been different and Ger
many had won, there might have been
good reasons for a vast deal OF worry.
But civilization has won; the rafting
IHproperties' of the Berlin Snowman,
as Harden called him, have been rel
egated to the scrap pile, and Europe
no longer has to listen with bated
breath to the rantings of people who
in the past had made murder and rob-
berry profitable while masQuerading
under the comparatively respectable
name of war. We do not believe the
millennium has come, or that we have
seen our last war, but something like
what the poet Tennyson termed a
parliament of Nations" is about to
meet, and under the agreements likely
to be evolved therefrom, the world
should be a safer place to live and do
business in.
We believe that a big potential de-
,,o-a fDr rondc owictc or n nYiCa ana
it is known that there is and Will be
a tremendous demand for food pro-
ducts from Europe, while materials
for clothing and for shelter and i'm
Elements of agriculture will probably
be badly needed. The United States
having suffered the least of all the
belligerents should be in a position to
supply these demands, as we have a
good share Of the food and the raw
materials which the world needs, and
our prestige has certainly not suffered
at the hands Of the two million men
who have represented us in Europe.
We also have-what we hitherto lack
ed-a big merchant marine capable OF
serving our importers and exporters,
and our loans to Allies and neutra,s
have given us a financial footing In
the markets Of the world Of which our
bankers probably will not be slow to
take advantage. If it Is necessary 70
finance our customers throughout the
world to enable us to sell goods, we
can do 1t, because we financed Europe
when the possibility of returns was
not nearly so good as now. We also
have a larger capacity for output and
certainly greater ~adaptability for cat
ering to foreign demands, whether OF
peace or war. In fact, we have reach
ed in a few short years a position
that It took Great Britain, the busi-
ness nation par excellence, genera
lions to achieve. Fears OF unemploy-
ment of the masses should be consid-
cred with the known fact in view that
immigration. which should have given
us 5000, 900 persons in the past four
years, has been almost at a s~tandstilL.
Furthermore, We are not sure that our
whole army is coming home muc be-
fore a year from now. War taxes are
a source OF apprehension, but these
too should be looked at in the light OF
the fact that taxation In this country
has not assumed the allpervading
character impaired to 1t in Europe by
centuries of custom and precedent.
Unless most signs fail, the possibili-
ties of future state control, interior
ence or regulation are not so great as
seemed certain when we were in the
full stress Of war.
Lower prices may come, not all or
them at once, by the way. and may
delay but should not radically inter
fere with the processes of proper re-
adjustment. While raj imitation may
have been responsible for some of the
present high prices, h latter in the
last analysis merely spell scarcity,
which it should be our work to remove
and in removing make business friends
who will stick and customers who will
come again. No headlong break IN
domestic prices seems probable with
the purchasing power of our people
so high; supply and demand condi-
lions what they are: stocks OF goods
outside of government hands not, bur,
densome; those in government control
large perhaps, but promising to be
liquidated conservatively; credit con
ditions. as reflected in failures, sound;
the farms of the country such mines
OF wealth, and the outside worlds
needs so great. 1t really seems Ger,
tain that the people and the country
that have done so much in the past
four years will not falter now that
peace has come and business as
usual is again to De the watchword
wv S. S.