The Coconino sun., 1919-05-23
AN ARGUMENT WHICH
 APPLIES TO FLAGSTAFF

Albuquerque needs modern hotel. The need is so pressing that it is uni versally realized. Merchants know the need because travelling salesmen tell them daily of the situation as re- gards rooms and sample-room space. Out-of-town visitors coming here to stop know it because they have found that it is unsafe to come to Albuquer- que without first making room reser- vations at least week in advance. Tourists know it because they have all most stopped coming here, having been informed that no hotel room is available.
 Various hotel-building projects are being considered. None are being pushed. The matter is standing still when it should be hurrying forward. In such a situation the advice of a very widely known Texas hotel mana ger and builder is particularly valu- able.
 John Galaher is one of the best known hotel men in the whole west and south. Speaking to a. gathering of business men at Graham, Tex, last week, with regard to a pending hotel proposition, he said:
 Figure it out on the present basis and go to it.
 There is every indication that the prices will largely remain at their present levei, and those who sit down and wait for the old level will waste time and make idle capital. There is a reason--yes, several of them. First, the assumption that the war alone has made the present prices is not fact. War helped, but before the war prices were rapidly creeping upward. A few years ago it was argued that this was due to two factors: First, the rapid increase in the quantity of gold, the basis of our currency; and second, the phenomenal growth of our wealth-pro- ducing power. The telephone, trolley, automobile, typewriter, linotype, dictaphone, duplicating proc ess, etc, have doubled and quadrupled the speed and thereby the producing power of every employee and every employer and executive; the govern ment agricultural experiment stations, state agricultural colleges and uniyer- sity agricultural departments have largely eliminated crop failures and doubled the soil productivity. This enormous and rapid increase of indi- vidual and collective wealth could, un- der perfectly natural law, have but one result. Rapid increase of wealth always caused rapidly increasing de- mand for both necessities and luxuries and that increased demand, notwith standing increased supply, shoves up the prices. The process seems simple enough when analysed and under stood.
 Here is a thought based on both psychological and human experience. Offer man job at s10 per day and tell him his living expenses will be s9.50 a day. Offer the same man a job at $1 per day, and the same liv- ing expenses at 50 cents day. Which proposition will he accept? The $10 one every time! Men hate high prices but they want high wages. Men want to receive, feel and, handle plenty of the long green regardless of the mar gin between income and outgo.
 "Now apply all this to hotel im- provement and hotel building. Low PiISCS Soii Oiiy CuiIiC UdCh IIfIOukH financial depression, business failures, misery, starvation. In this rich coun- try of the three M's-Money, Men, Material-we don't propose to go back to that condition. We are going to continue to make big money and pay out big money. Bet on that! Re- vamp your new hotel plans f you will; cut down size of rooms; build of rein forced concrete instead of steel if need be; invest new sources of revenue, take your pad and pencil and figure out how much increase of revenue you must have to make up the difference in cost of present construction over former cost; swim with the stream, not against it; anything but sitting down and waiting for the good old times. Falling prices always bring