Weekly journal-miner., 1920-01-21
ANOTHER ANGLE ON OLD H.C.L.
 IS SHOWN
(From Saturdays DaiIy)


 prices is under discussion" said Dave Biles, of the Biles-Lockhart store, to a Journal-Miner. reporter yesterday. 'I would like you to look over some figures that show up another phase of the proposition. These figures are gleaned from the government statis- tics on record in the departments of labor and agriculture. They are very simple and anybody with the least knowledge of mathematics will read fly understand them"
 Most people seem to think that clothes prices are high. Measured in the number of dollars it takes to pur- cLase suit they are. But measured in the prices of things which the pro- ducer has to sell, or in the wages paid for service performed they are no higher than they were before the war. In many instances, as a matter of fact, they are not so high.
 . Compare clothes prices, for in stance, with that of corn, the great American money crop. In 1914 the Iowa farmer had to haul so bushels of corn to market in order to get the money to pay for S25 suit of clothes. Now he can get a $60 suit and a $l0 pair of shoes for his so bushels of corn.
 Wheat is raised in very wide sec tions of the country. Official govern ment reports tell us that the average farm value of wheat on November l, 1914, was 77c a bushel. The farmer who sold 50 bushels of 1t got S3850, or just about enough to buy a S25 suit, $ pair of shoes, s hat, two or three good shirts, and then some handkerchiefs. The farm value of wheat on November l. 1919. was S2.l3 a bushel, and the farmer who sold 50 bushels at his home station received Sl0o.5O, or enough to buy him a fine S60 suit and big thick overcoat If, farmer happens to live in the North west and to have held his wheat until now he can get somewhere near & i 8 bushel for grain of good quality.
 The price of cotton in the fall of | 1914 was down to cents a pound for | a time, but that's hardly a fair com- | parison. Let's go back to November ], 1915, when the average farm price
  had to market l93 pounds of cotton to pay for a $25 suit. On November 1 l, 1919, the average farm price was 565c a pound and the grower could l pay for $50 suit by selling only l65 pounds of cotton.
 "The average price paid to the farmer all over the United States for , butter on November l, 1914, was 26.4c a pound, while on the same day | in 1919 he got Soc a pound for it. For his eggs he got 25.3c dozen on No vember l, 1914, while he got 54c a ! dozen for them in l9l9
 The sheep raiser who produces l wool for his money crop naturally i has quite keen interest in the price i of clothes. The government tells us that the average sheep raiser all over The United States got l5.5c a pound l for his wool at the country stations | on, November l, 1913. He had to sell 16l pounds to get money to pay for ! q S25 suit of clothes. On November | l, 1919, the average price paid to the i producers for wool was 506c a pound. l He only had to sell ll8tI pounds of wool to get enough money to buy a l $60 suit of clothes.
 ,'"But how about the working man? | Let's start with the man who husks 1 E0rn for the Iowa farmer. In 1911 be got % bushel for the work and the crop was of such a character that | he did well if he husked 100 bushels 1 day. He had to work l2H days to pay for a $2S suit of clothes. Last fail he demanded and, in most in- l stances, got Sc a bushel for husking | corn. The ears were so big and | plentiful that it was no trick at all for 1 him to husk l25 bushels, earning Sl0i a day It took him just six days to 1 earn enough to pay for $60 suit.
 The Buffalo boilermaker got 36.lc i an hour in 1915; he gets 72.5c now. l The unskilled laborer in the building 1 trades at St. Louis got 2Sc an hour, | six years ago; he now gets 62.5c Tn Jacksonville, Florida, the carpenter | who earned 3lc then, gets 65c now In Chicago, San Francisco and some | other cities he gets $l an hour, with i S2 an hour for overtime; and so great IS the demand for workers that he | won't work unless the contractor per mitS hITn to get Tn good many hours | of overtime a week"
 Since money IS simply a medium | of exchange we might just as well ! eliminate it from our deductions and | here is practically what we find: The | farmer can get a suit of clothes for | the same number of bushels of corn, 1 the same number of pounds of beef, | cotton, or wool as he could before ! the war. The man who works can get suit of clothes, and sometimes a hat extra for the same number of 1 hours of work that suit of similar quality would have cost him before ! the war. Under these circumstances, therefore, this old country of ours is believed by many not to be in such a | bad way after all. At least it is a recorded fact that there is less suff- ering in the United States from pow erty than there was before the war. COPPER STRIKE AT