The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1921-01-01

NEW 1QlIhy Jan. I.-Nlneteen hun
dred and twenty may easily lay claim to
having been one of the biggest, though
certainly not one of the best. years in
trade. manufacture and industry, says
Bradstreets review of the business year.
1t continues: Some new high records
were set up in financial lines and in in
dustrial output, though it will hardly be
claimed that the year was as profitable in
all lines as were some others when out
puts were smaller and prices We're lower
nut when final margins were larger.
closing, as 1t does, with wholesale trade
stagnant, retail trade below that of recent
years, manufacturing output restrict ed
unemployment, including reduced work
ing time III industry, rarely, if ever
equaled, collections backward and depres-
sion widespread, the stamp of success as
to the past Is missing and the outlook as
10 tle tuture 1ar less favorable than pros,
poets at its outset led tine business world
generally to expect. Indeed, the general
feeling Is to regard it as a year whose re-
suits might be soon forgotten were it
not ion the useful lessons that costly ex-
perlence has taught, not only to this
country but to the entire world
The fact IS that the year lust closed
was the true heir of 1919, and as such it
reaped to the full the results OF the bad
seed sown III 1919. this referring to the
extravaganza IN buying for which the lat
ter year was prominently noted. the pil-
ing up of unreasonable demands by labor,
and the increasing of costs beyond the
ability OF a people to pay who had al
ready been taxed to the apparent limit
to carry on a confessedly successful but
immensely expensive war. The waste of
that and CARRIER years, most OF IT unaVOId-
able because war is and always has been
wasteful of life and property-finally de
manded reckoning, and its payment
bids fair to be a heritage for some years.
In this respect, while this country has not
had to pay the price in dead that other
countries nearer the scene of active hos
tilIties have had to shoulder, the effects
OF the conflict, the waste of liquid capital
involved. the lowering of moral tone that
followed the exaltatiOn of the war itself,
the extravaganza engendered, the heart
burnings involved, the straits to which
the ordinary man and woman, debarred
from proftlng by the conflict, were re-
duced, should act as gudeposts for CEN
turtles to come and set the seal of civil
zation's disapprOval and condemnation on
those who would lightheartedly talk OF
war as solver of problems, or who. with
the terrible examples visible on every
hand, should oppose any reasonable
means OF rendering future conflicts I'M
possible.
Whatever the causes whether the
overlooking of trade and industry with
excessive cOsts-OverprOduction certainly
did not affect all lines-the exhaustion
OF mobile supplies of money, as shown by
the marking up of loans early in the year
and their maintenance until the late
months, or the attenuation or credit to a
degree where a halt had to be called on
the raising of prices of commodities to
point where further buying became i'm
possible-the year 1920 will probably be
the buyers strike" or the revolt of the
buyer" 1t would be difficult to fix the
date at which this doing without move
ment first became noticeable as a market
factor. Necessity buying only was urged
early III our war years as national duty:
later it became an apparent necessity
with a large part of the public. Lost
sight of for time in 1919 when the strain
of war was lifted. it was again actively
preached by public men when the snow
storm of strikes struck the country IN
the late summer of that year, and was
powerfully enhanced by the countless ex-
hibitiOns of extravaganza to which easily
eXtorted wage advances gave rise.
Signs of public mDatlence with the
steadily mounting cost of living grew as
the year 1919 waned. but were apparently
lost sight of in the holiday buying orgy at
the close of that year. The momentum
acquired in 1919 was sufficient to carry
trade generally at verv high volume
throughout the first month Of last year,
hut severe weather the tie-un of traffic
ton noted earlier in the year. but culmin-
ating in the winter and early spring of
l9l9-2e slowed down trade generally in
the second month. and the index num-
bers of February l and March / marking
a nearly fiat line on published charts, was
a visible sign that wholesale prices were
about at their peak. Brighter weather IN
tho spring months and the approach and
passing of Easter gave a temporary hlllp
10 trade. while prices were driven inward
temporarily by the switchmen's strike OF
early April BY that time, however, pub
lie abstention from buying had become
marked, at retail, and early May saw a
big outburst of advertising having for its
ainf the moving of slow selling stocks.
Bv and large, the past year was one OF
liquidation in industrial securities and
commodities, of ATTEMPTED Teadiustment
of all values from a swollen war and post
war level. and of a slaughter of prices Of
commodities at wholesale The return OF
the expensively-and badlv-run railways
TO their owners was signalized by. mod,
crate rise@ffis Railway as distinct from in
dustrial shares, the weakness of the lat
ter and the growing reaction in trade and