The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1920-06-08
profession Judging from the wages demanded
i is slowly rising from a profession to trade
EFFECTS OF EXTRAVAGANCE

i ANY failure or inability or the government u
bring about a contraction OF expenditure does
not relieve the private citizen OF his RESPONSE
bility for the correction of present unbalanced
conditions. Collectively we have spent grea'
deal Of energy and print paper IN denounclng
the profteering of producers, but large par
of that profteering would have been Impossible
without the extravaganza OF consumers Elk
travagance encourages the increased produc-
ton of the less essential goods. The increased
production of the less essential goods draws
labor and materials away from the production
of the more essential goods, and hence creates
scarcity of necessaries and an increase In their
price.
The prosperity of the luxury trades was
never greater than at the present day. Based
on the amount paid in on the so-called luxury
tax, the collector of internal revenue for the
New York district estimates that one hundred
and five million dollars a month is being spent
lin that CITY alone on goods rated as Injuries
by the tax, and that nearly eight million dol
lars of this amount represents expenditures on
Itheaters and moving pictures alone. The con-
sumption and production of tobacco has grown
wear by year. Average production in the
United States in the three calendar years 1912,
1913 and 1914 was nine hundred and eighty
In 1919 it was one billion, three hundred and
ieighty-nine million, five hundred thousand.
According to figures compiled by the Automo-
bile Chamber of Commerce, the number Of pleas
ure cars produced in 1914 was five hundred and
.fortv-three thousand, six hundred and seventy
nine: production in 1919 was one million, five
hundred and eighty-six thousand, seven hun
dred and eighty-seven; the estimated produc-
FOR no q two mil
bred and twenty-five thousand Reports of the
bureau of labor statistics show that employment
in the automobile industry from March, 1919,
to March, 1920, increased thirty seven and nine
tenths per cent, greater proportion than in
any other industry except the wooden and cloth
ing trades
A study of the reaction of this upon other in
dustry and upon agriculture shows that hired
farm labor is twelve per cent. less than year
ago and only seventy two per cent of what it
was before the war This farm labor shortage
is part of the explanation for the shrinkage of
the present indicated winter wheat crop to
barely two-thirds of last years crop There
has been a failure to increase, and often an
actual falling off, in the production of most OF
the more essential goods, of which wheat is an
example In the three years ended June 30,
1912, 1913 and 1914, the per capita production
of wheat in this country seven and one
quarter bushels, of which one and one-quarter
bushels per capita were exported, leaving six
bushels per capita for consumption. The pres
ent crop is expected to total less than seven
bushels per capita, and if exports maintain the
same ratio as in the year ended June 80, 1919,
the last for which complete figures available,
at least two bushels per capita will be sent
abroad, leaving US with less than five bushels
per capita .~..
The examples should suffice to show that it is
individual purchasing power and not social
need that often determines what goods shall be
produced and in what amounts.
Remembering the extremities in which he