Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1920-12-10
A big st. Louis fur Arm 9ispiaya
,osto, in the Endless Mountain

rapS and waste no tllne on INC vol
hints for the prices of fur are to be
.idiculously low this season.
The question is wheather the IN
junction should be obeyed or not!'
The answer is in the negative.
The doctrine that broadside preach
es is what ails the world today. Profit
is but one of the rewards of work.
It is better for morals, health, hap
piness and content, to work whether
the pecuniary reward be much or lit
tie. And the philosophy of life.
teaches that half loaf is better than
no bread. There is an automatic ad-
iustment between high wages and
supplies and when the time comes
that wages go down the power that
tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,
provides that the consumer can buy
more for what money he has than he
could possibly do in season OF high
wages.
For. some reason or other that has
not been made plain to US, the Inter-
church Movement issued a long con-
domination thesis against the United
States Steel Company accusing them
of paying too little to labor. This
caused some hard feelings in steel cir
cles. At the same time it was point
ed out that the lowest paid laborer
in the steel mills could count on get
ting at least fifteen hundred dollars
a wear to live on, while the average
compensation of ministers of the Cos
pei was about seven hundred and f1f-
ty dollars a year. Did you ever see
stronger case of worrying about
the mote in your brothers eye and
not considering the beam in your
own eye?
"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the
beam out of thine own eye; and then
thou shalt see clearly to cast out the
mote out of thy brothers eye"
The compensation of the laborer in
the mills is so great compared to the
compensation of ministers that to the
superficial thinker, it is awonder that
such things can be. But after all
the minister is higher and much
more desirable calling than that of a
mill hand and he has that to show for
his work that. keeps him in his call
ing and rewards him.
Work is the primal curse, but it
has been softened into mercy, and
made the pledge of cheerful days and
nights without a groan, is the way
that one thinker puts it.
Publius Syrus said something like
this: That poverty wants much but
that avarice wants everything.
That has been the attitude Of late
years. There is to be no poor and
all are to be avaricious. The result
has been a curtailment of buying and
the country is facing a crisis in it's
affairs. There are too many children
wanting to help mother nature.
Better get back to the good old rule
of the Italian street vendor: What
loose on da banan', I make on da
peanut.
1t is going to be interesting like
watching dynamite on the kitchen
stove to observe the effort that is be-
ing made by the agricultural inter-
ests to hord their cotton, tobacco,
wheat, wool and the like in an effort
to put up the prices of farm products.
The very impulse that causes these
men to hoard their stores for better
prices, impels them to labor to raise
more, for they are out for the dollar,
and the final result must be if the
seasons are good, that eventually the
market will be more glutted. AL
ready we see signs that indicate that
farmers in this vicinity are not so
sure but that the longer they keep
their wool the less they will get for
it. We have sold wool for lie.
The fur merchant says that the
vast supplies of furs bought in the
last years of fabulous prices have
never reached the factories and there
is a danger of overstocking.
If such be the case, then maybe if
we trap this winter, the local ladies
can walk gay with fine furs, for this
section of the country has always
had a habit of sending out fine furs
and buying at the store inferior furs
from rabbit and cat skins made up
to look like some sure enough fur,
and which bear mythical names not
known to the naturahsts.
The solution of the whole matter
is to keep busy. In Pocahontas coun
ty there is work for an army of men
in clearing rich land. It is in the
reach of every young man to create
an estate that will add zest to his
working period, and afford him safe
haven in his old days. The only real
successful men we ever knew were
those who carved their fortunes from
the wilderness and were able in their
mature years to sit by their hearths
and contemplate the changing scenes