The Cordova daily times., 1920-03-25
THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1920
INITIATION COCKTAILS

We reprint the following article by Herbert N Casson in the Wall Street Journal because it exactly describes what is going on in the United States England may have worse case of it then but we doubt it. The whole condition he describes so strik- ingly is a condition of unwholesome- ness that should not fail to be a of Niagara, not safely on the lower We do not know exactly when we shall hit the falls, but-lookout!
 MT Casson says in part.
 Cptimist as I am, I cannot fail to see that Great Britain is at the mo- ment a whirling Fools Paradise of extravaganza, bureaucracy, over-cap- italization and nonproduction.
 Britain is prosperous beyond the dreams of idealists. There are no poor, except the unpitied professional classes-the new poor, who hide their pride.
 In the great cities, in the factory towns, in every farming country, prosperity is roaring along like a Barnum& Bailey procession.
 The luxury stores are packed with buyers. More than 16,OO0 women stormed Selfridge's in a single morn ing of last week.
 Fully 3oo,OOO people have ordered automobiles and paid S25O deposits. Tiny factories, whose present output is four cars per week, have taken orders for 1O,OOO 2O,OOO, and 25.0OO.
 Nearly all the industrial compan- les are capitalizing war values They are accepting the rise in prices as a real advance in wealth. They are fceling themselves with the fictitious totals of the war period.
 They are not using their war pro- fits to write down their assets. but to spend and invest elsewhere They are writing everything up-up-up.
 The extent of this over-cap apitaliza- ton of industrials is probably more than $1,25O, 100000. This, of course, is all fictitious unless it can be just tified by increased production and a continuance of high prices
 Get-Rich-Quick boom is now sweep ing over England.
 Even the sedate old cotton business is jazzing wildly. A gang of outside speculators have dashed among the cotton men and suddenly bought up dozens of mills.
 Solly Joel, the John w. Gates of England, has flung more than $25,- soo,000 into the cotton trade. He has even bought HOrrock's, which has shocked Manchester so deeply as though he had bought the city hall or the cathedral. The cotton men were slow to realize the vast increase in the value of their, mills, and a body of shrewd outsiders have been quick to take advantage of the opportunity.
 There is no sign that the orgy of spending and capitalizing is about to come to an end. There have never been so few failures, only CPS bank ruptcies last year, as against 3,358 in 1913. This is largely because of spe- cial emergency legislation for the pro- lection of debtors.
 A few of Britain's real statesmen, notably Northcliffe, are trying to stop this mad gallop toward the wilder ness but we shall not probably stop until we come to the wilderness edge.
 The motto of the government is "merry and bright-al1's we'll if we say so" Every day has new ex- eitement-revo1ution in Egypt, the Homecoming of the Prince of Wales the ironmoulder's strike, Lady Asto1 h Parliament, motor shows and prize fights
 No one thinks of the drought in Australia, the Civil War in China, the sedition in India, the Japanese compe tftion, the destruction of half of our fereign markets.
 No one remembers that the war has