Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1919-1980, 1920-04-16
THE OYERALLS CLuR

The "overans club" which are being formed all over the
country, with members pledged to wear blue denim as a protest
against the high cost of clothes are a nindieation of what will hap
pen in other lines to lower prices through diminished demand
There is a limit to what the public can pay and when that
limit is reached, people simply will refuse to buy. Prices have
about reached the limit in many commodities. If the lessened de-
mand does not Immediately cause price reduction, it will at least
enable the accumulation of reserve stocks, now completely ex-
hausted, and until these stocks are replenished there can be no
material reduction in prices.
At the base of high prices is the law of supply and demand.
When ~60,000000 people ceased useful production for five years
accumulated supplies of the world, created a world shortage, and
disocated and disorganized industry has not since been able to
produce enough to equal consumption-to say nothing of a neces-
sary surplus.
Of course the situation is aggravated by spectators and
profiteers, who take advantage of the shortage to exploit prices,
but they are only Incidental and not fundamental causes Of the
high cost of living. Initiation of currency adds its share to the
complication as does artificial control by monopoly, and excess
profits taxes passed on to the people.
Similar conditions follow every great war. 1t is part of the
penalty of war. We are paying for the crime of war. That which
is destroyed must be replaced. The world is suffering from under
production. Only increased production can remedy the situation.
Work is not only the salvation of the individual, but the salvation
of the nation and the world.
We never see the present clearly and only in the perspective
Of the past do conditions appear in their proper relation and true
light. We always sigh for the good old times, yet in spite of the
industrial unrest and dissatisfaction, the numerous strikes, the
high prices and other economic ills, the United States was never so
prosperous as today. Work was never so plentiful, wages never
so high, and if living costs are highest ever known, more people
have the money to pay them. There are no armies of the unem-I
poyed, few bankruptcies, no free soup kitchens, no starving fam
lies. Labor enjoys better conditions and the producer better
markets.
There is a better distribution of wealth, a more universal en-
Joyment OF comforts, a greater utilization of luxuries. Moral con-
ditions are also improved, the saloon and its attendant evils ban
shed, organized vice dispersed and in many other ways, we of the
United States are better off than ever before.
The present and the future are filled with difficult problems
upon the solution OF which the future welfare of humanity de-
ponds, but there is no cause for pessimism. We have always de-
veoped the genius necessary to solve our problems and there is
reason to believe that we will continue to do so in the future.
Whlle, OF course, this is not the best possible of all possible worlds,
is our world and well worth while, andit is up to us individually
and collectively, to make it a still better world by honestly and
sincerely doing our part.