The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-12-02
People Who Bought
 Luxuries Now Buy
 Necessities Chiefly
Continued from Page one.)

What do I think about Christmas ( business conditions? Why I hope we are going to have a good Christmas. J I think we are. There is no reason
 why we should not, except for this
 campaign which the newspapers
 nave been carrying on." said Richard
 Oppe1 of the Hadley company. M "Of course general condition of
 business throughout the country are far from satisfactory and have been xl eyer since the papers began the1f Ts7thfng was going along as fine and se- z rene as could be. Manufacturers
 coa.1d ont get help enough. They sflhad orders enough to keep them go- V tnE for two years to come. z Merchants were prosperous and so was
 eyerybody else"
 xd s.'Then. all of a sudden, big, infiu- W efrtlal newspapers all over the coun- try began to cover their front, pages ~ with advice not to buy. that prices t4-were coming down. and not to buy # anythfng you could do without Peo- ~ ple followed the advice, Business began to drop off. The merchants
 became alarmed and cancelled then
 orders with the jobbers The 1oo- bers in turn cancelled their orders with the manufacturers and the mills arbecame 1dleS
 ~Why any such campaign was ever
 ftarted I don't know It may have at been a move of the Republicans to z; get the best of the Democrats. but if
 
 sf.devfls they summoned to their aid
 ~.I1ow is it, MT. Oppels that orders .e czEn be cancelled so freely@ l M thought order was in effect a con- if tract" observed the Times man. %.f~ -It is all due to an unfortunate 2 [ phrase which was coined early in the { war. When Germany proposed to in- f~ade Belgium and it was pointed out ytrthat she had signed contract not El1o do that very thing, she replied,
 >Ch. that's only a scrap of paper: If s fhe things which were said during gHt the whole war, I thought the worst, i ] should tell you that thought that RI expression was. I think it has done ~ everyone has been making scraps of { paper ever since. That is what I t happens to the orders. They are & considered scraps of paper Everyone " is doing it. The government did it & after the armistice- It is growing
 more common. It was an unfortun- b ate expression"
 E 'sThe remedy of the situation which i is upon us is just the opposite of what \, caused it. The papers started the cry ,-of don't buy Now let them start the cry of 'buyt buy! buy!' It is the FAonIy thing Let people buy what they Fl need and then let them buy some of ai the things they like for there is no 2. live business and no real prosperity ss they are forced to have It is only Es when people are prosperous enough 4 to buy a lot of things which they do not have to have. but like to have. '~ that business booms
 W Don't forget either that there is mo such thing as over-productfon- si That is all nonsense to talk about Rt 'over-production- I have not got all 1.-the suits of clothes which I would tE like to have wouldn't mind an ex- si tra automobile nor great many
 other things I could name. It is the z same with my clerks. It is the same tf There ft many things. Let everyone be pros-
 t porous and buy. Then the manufac- trrer will be busy Never mind if he
 M does make some money. or the mer. ., chant or the workman. Never mind
 if they make more than they are en- T titled to. Man by nature is spend
 t dollars easily that he was not incline ed to spend it the same way, and wher
 he does everyone, sooner or later
 "One of the best things which eve, 2 happened to the South was that cam
 padgn of. buy a bale of cotton that
 was carried on. Following that the w South had a period of prosperity suct
 as it never had before. If we woult
 fstart in and buy all sorts of commodi tfieS the whole country in a very shor
 of thing and we would all get oul
 share of it.
 "But I am not pessimistic Ther,
 is no reason for any one to be. Moth
 
 try. Don't forget that no one yet eve ' lbet against the old United States ant
 rwon. Even old Emperor Bill lost
 LThis country has got too much wealth
 is too big. has been the home political and economic, and spiritual freedom too many years for any such thing t.
 !happen- The bears have sure go
 rthefr turn for little right now bu we are not going to keep it up an have bad times and a anic, unless W want it. and bring it on ourselves.'' "I see no reason why we should nc have good Christmas trade and am confidently planning for it," sai | H H. J. Koenig of Rockwell & Co. ' I was in New York yesterday" he con tfnued. and the stores and street were full of shoppers We ooul hardly get into Macy's and every ste ' on the escalator was full. It was tn same in every place we went and was difficult getting through Forty second street to the station. Ther was no evidence that people were ez pecting calamity. It was an enthu siastic Christmas shopping chowd. There is no good reason why tn same conditions should not hol here. If they do not it is the fau of the calamity howlers. There is T reason why Bridgeport should not F one of the greatest towns in tE United States if its own people woul stop knocking it. pull together, an make it so. But you can not kee knocking a town and preaching in pending disaster and then expect pet Sple to be enthusiastic and sper freely.
 There is a point fin connectfo X with this preaching gloom that u average man does not realize, tha ' fin fact. many of those who preac calamity most never think of. ar . that is that if you create an atmo phere of foreboding and uncertain H people absorb it and became fearf N and stop buying and this reacts ( I the whole economic structure. If u N public does not buy the merchant e III mot order from the manufacture and neither the manufa cturer OF u M merchant can pay the banker Il III frnoney which they have borrowed, ,al III very soon all business is paralyz N and everyone fs affected.
 During the last few years the M has been more money made than any time before in the history of t l world and it is not all gone by al
 means. People are not going to gi