The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1921-08-02
A Self Confessed Organ Created with the Selfish
Motive of Advertising the I'VE Build"
Spirit in DdWsO11, Georgia
Thank God For Hard
Times.
(From Warde's Words)

The general public is now do
ing under pressure of necessity
what it should have been doing
under the guidance of reason and
common sense; it is practicing
the gospel of thrift. Thrift has
never been a fashionable section
of ethics in America, even with
the poorest classes, but it is now
strictly la mode with every
person who expects to get
through these times alive.
Within two weeks of the COM
mencement of the war in 1914 all
prices started to go up, and the
rise was practically continuous
until the eighteenth of June, 1920.
1t is instructive for the human
animal to want thing as soon
as it seems to be beyond reach,
so for almost six years the gen.
eral public was buying against
rise. The volume of this purchas-
ing was not just enough to take
care of current needs; it was
very much more than that, for
the instinct of provision entered
into the buying. Add to that the
temptation to extravaganza,
which came easy when incomes
increased, and you have the ex-
PLANTATION of the high prices of
the past six years together with
a sidelight on the present bust
ness situation.
Thirteen months ago there was
a general realization that prices
were impossible; they were high
er than ever before in the history
of the country. AS the people
began to look around for a RENE
dy, the first thing they saw was
their accumulation of supplies
already in hand. Right there be-
gan the thing that we have call
ed the buyers strike" Il is a
mistake to think that the move
ment started with the private
family or was limited to the man
on the street. 1t was universal,
and the big corporations had as
much to do with it as the hall
room boarder. When the hall
room boarder quit silk shirts, the
machine shop in which he was
employed quit buying tool steel,
and both acted exactly alike in
that they went back to their
stock, such as it was, and start
ed to make the best possible use
of it.
In rejecting upon the past bus
mess year four points must be
emphasized: first, that overnor-
NAL purchasing produced high
labor and materials prices which
resulted in high goods prices;
second, that the prices of finish
ed goods reached a prohibitive
point and produced either
slackening or an extinction of de-
mand; third, that the withdraw
al of the, demand was made pos
sible by the general overprovi-
sion that had taken place in
boom times; and fourth, that
when people went back to their
stores, not knowing when prices
would come down but resolved
to buy nothing until they did,
there was only one thing that
promised to let them through,
and that was extreme thrift and
self-denial.
For the past thirteen months,
therefore, we have been in the
absorption period where accumu-
lated stores have foated us
through without much new buy
ing, and under the pressure of
hard times we have learned the
very valuable lessons Of thrift.
This is true of the little family
and the big factory. Things tina.
were discarded by both have
been dug up and used. The head
of the little family cleaned his
straw hat and put on the pants
with the fringe around the bot
tom and the trays around the
pockets, and the big factory went
to the junk heap and fshed out
the stubs of old steel, ground
them to new points and put them
back in the tool holders.
Hard times are doing us all a
great deal of real good by teach
ing us to behave in good times.
When these Lessons get ground
into our very lives and become
habits we will deserve better
things, and by that time our ac-
cumulated stores will have run
out and an absolutely solid and
sensible basis of new demand
will ensue. Nations and corpora
tions and individuals are no bet
ter than foolish kids and have to
be spanked hard to make them
behave.
Thank God for hard times;
we bring them on by our own
indiscretions, but they do us a
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