The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1920-05-06
BREAK NOW ON
BUYING CRAZE
CHECKING OF MANIA REPORTED
ALL OVER THE UNITED
STATES

New 1Ork, May 6.-FrOm as far
west as Los Angeles, from Kansas
City, from Chicago, from the manu-
featuring district of Pittsburg, from
the south and from merchants in this
part of the country, evidence has been
received that buying by the consum-
er is being curtailed, declares an ex-
perienced observer in the Wall street
district. This observer said every
along that it was only a question of
time until this would happen. 1t
seems to have been started by the
general increases in rents, which have
brought people face to face with the
necessity of economizing
1t is true that the cost of clothes
and food and automobiles had gone
on mounting, but in buying such
things the ultimate consumer added
to his pleasure. Paying rent, from
the viewpoint of the average man, is
something quite different.
Besides the feeling of dead loss in
paying out good money for higher
rent, two classes are just beginning
to realize for the first time in five
years that they no longer have money
for reckless expenditures. Profes-
sors, teachers, office workers, preach
ers, whose salaries have increased
less than the increase in the cost of
living, felt the pinch from the very
beginning of the high price era. To-
day other classes have reached the
turning point.
Labor is the first. That class has
spent it's accumulated wartime earn
ings represented by Liberty and Vic
tory bonds and savings bank ac-
counts, and now finds capital with its
back to the wall fighting any further
increase in wages. These facts are
behind the curtailed buying on the
part of labor which for the last five
years has been spending money as
never before.
In the next class comes the bust
ness man who has been profiteering
on the reckless expenditures made by
labor. During the last five years for.
tunes have been made by business
men with less expenditure of effort
and brains than ever before in the
history of the world. In spendins
money thus made the profiteerine
business man has shown the same de
gree of recklessness as labor, bu
with labor curtailing in buying th'
profits made by business men 81
easily during the last five years arr
disappearing. And this class of bust
ness men, like labor, has been forced
to fall back on Liberty bonds and &C
cumulated earnings. The selling o
Liberty bonds by the two classe
named has been an important facto
| in the recent decline in the govern
ment war issues.
| Bankers here, however, do not ex
pect the existing revolt on the par
of the ultimate consumer to brin
about an immediate cure. The EN-
of buying power in this country ha
by no means been reached; as We
enough people have not been badl
hurt. But the tendency is clearly to
ward curtailment of expenditures.
81 believe we are going to have
series of jolts," one of the best know
bankers in Wall street said in discuss
the outlook, "and each jolt will mea
that more and more people will hav
less money to spend. look for ou
foreign trade shipments to give US tn
real signal for the big drop. So ia
there are no signs of falling off
our exports, and there will be non
as long as Europe can pay the pric
for our goods. But the time is con
ing when the price cannot be pait
and then the situation in this countr
will be the same as that which cause
the recent panic in Japan"
Asked if he thought there would
r crisis this autumn, the banker
question replied: THAT is anybody
guess. All that you can say now
: that we are already in period of r.
adjustment"