Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-07-28
OLD TIMES DO NOT RETURN
AND 1914 Is GONE TO STAY
Business VIII Not BE Revived by Folk
Who Fold Their Hands and Walt
for Pre-War Prices and
Coat Schedules

Cost Schedules
MOST conspicuous among all the obstacles
lVl that prevent a full revival Of business
are the folk who believe that II they wait
long enough with folded hands the cost and
price levels Of 1914 will be automatically
re- established. These dreamers will not
build. They will not buy. They will not
open their mills. They are waiting for old
times to return.
But old times cannot be made new. Some
time in the far future the economic balances
Of 1914 may be restored and production and
selling costs may be reduced to the old
levels, but the change can be brought about
only by complete restoration of the con-
suming and producing power Of the country.
Idleness, voluntary or enforced wages
that limit the buying power Of the majority
or industrial policies that retard output in
order to keep prices high and return large
revenues to a minority will only obstruct
and confuse the work Of business revival.
Buyers and sellers alike who wait for
return of 1914 instead of rcadjusting their
minds to the needs Of 1927 are a drag on
the country. Quite unconsciously they do
more than any one else to postpone the day
for which they yearn.
The time has come to spend. work and
get busy and take the losses.
Director Caven is acting wisely. there
fore. in making a determined effort to get
all authorized public work under way at
once to provide reader employment for
skilled and unskilled men who need 1t.
e..
Of 1.-THE conditions of 1914" and a time
might come when it could save a little of
the cost of contemplated improvements. But
public work Of an important sort might
thereby be delayed for two or three or FIVE
years.
Instead. the city Is doing what every one
else in business and out of it should do.
1t is going into the market to spend and to
make the best possible use Of it's money by
putting that money in circulation.
The Department of Public Works, like
the average citizen. was forced to state
of inacton. 1t has almost $4,000 900 to
spend. But the people who had material
to sell and those who had their skill or labor
to sell wouldn't do business with It. The
departments bankroll wasn't big enough.
1t couldn't sit in game dominated by
proiteering and cost boosting combines Of
all sorts.
Now. with falling prices in all commodity
markets the citys money has reganed much.
but not all. Of it's old buying power So it
ought to be spent.
The dollar is almost as valuable now as
it is likely to be for a year or more. When
there is more money ip circulation. when
production is increased. when steady and
general employment brings the buyers back
and when competition is resumed. the dollar
may begin to look more like the dollar of
1914.
1t is foolish to suppose that tho pros
perity of the country can be assured or
maintained by the simple act of battcring
down wages. The interests of wage carncrs
and the interests of about ninety five out of
every hundred business men are parallel and
identical.
Low wage schedules and depressed living
standards for a time may bring benefits of
n sort to the small minority which controls
and profits by basic industries.
But it must be plain to every one that any
system of economic practice that limits the
buying power of workers and wage parncrs
and the salaried man is bad for tho people
with whom wage earncrs and salnried men
and workers do business.
The more man earns the more he can
buy and the greater and more stimulating
will be his demands upon the facilities Of
those about him.
So it is idle to continue talk about CON
tinuing reprisals against "proitcering
labor and to hoard money and refrain
from doing business until all things are as
they were before the war.
The worst proftecrs were not the wage
carners. They were the people who gam
bled mercilessly with the necessities Of life
and made many Of the eXtravagant demands
Of workers inevitable If not necessary.
Little by little. not without intensely
painful friction and many disagrccablc
shocks and momcntary injuSticcs. all the
various groups who keep the business of the
country going arc being restored to reason.
The great tanglo is being slowly cleared up.
business mon have passed through the worst
Of the slump. Most of them arc sick of
inartion. Plants are opening, and some of
them are being opened up out Of sheer faith
The demands Of business and the de-
mands Of labor are fair enough as matters
stand And the average citizen, irrtated as
ho is bv the memory Of past atTlctione. can
do no better now than follow the example
" tho Department Of Public Works and
loosen up and co operate and put his money
in .ir u1ati hot rt,lo l. So.
buyers and sellers. producers and consum-
crs, employers and employed alike