Connecticut western news., 1922-11-09
FIRST COMPLETE STORY
 EDISON'S STARTLING PLAN
Electrical Wizards Methods of Lowering the Cost of
 Living
REVOLUTIoNIZE BUSINESS
Would Furnish the Small Producer With Ready Capital and Give
 the Consumer More

Thomas Edison has submitted to the staff SaSheApees of The Babson Institute his plan for stabilizing business andSbreaking the backbone of the High Cost of Living. He has authorized the following popular description pf+ahis theory.
 With chaiacteristic audacity, he goes to the heart of economic life. He proposes to afford the ordinary consamer, cheaper commodities, to furnish the producer with ready capital and security and to elimin- ate such parasites as unnecessary middlemen and dishonest specula- tors-by establishing the govern ment as the country's great Middle man and by making ordinary com modities as we'll as gold the basis of currency
 The Government on the Job
 Sometime ago, at the suggestion of Henry Ford and others, Edison devoted himself to study the causes of economic unrest. His solution of this momentous problem is now under the scrutiny of the ablest economists and business experts at Wellesley. His plan is simple and startling. He, would have the government list some forty basic commodities, such as cotton, corn, copper, coal, wheat, flax, iron, and then taking the prices of the last twenty-five years as a basis establish an average price for each. This price he would have de- termined in terms of gold and called unit or a dollar. .>
 He would have the government take over or establish great ware houses and storage plants. When | the producer is ready to market his product he brings it to the agent at the. government warehouse, who gives him a certificate covering his whole deposit and at the same time pays him half of the value of the deposit, as computed on the 25-year average basis, in eash.--Thef govern ment then stores the product | When a dealer wants wheat, coal, cotton, .or any other commodity he buys the producers certificate on the market; he presents it at a ware house, pays the government back the money advanced, and takes the product away.
 The government-fixed average price safeguards the producer from the ravages of dishonest specula- tion. The half-value payment he receives from the government affords him ready capital. The certificate hereceives is put on the market sub- ject to the ordinary laws of supply and demand. But the certificate doss not depend on the gold in Treas ury vaults but on the commodity in the warehouse. In one sense the Edison plan is a return to the an- cient system of barter as far as the complexity of modern life will allow.
 How the Farmers Would Find It.
 Unit money in the Edison plan is not money in the popular conception that is, metal money or money with metal basis. The day when metal furnished the most exclusively practical basis for a medium of ex-
 
 vlue has, according to Edison, gone by. His money would still be de- termined in terms of gold. But in- stead of gold in Treasury vaults be- ing its only basis, you would have wheat in the Government bins, coal in the Government pits, rice in storage, cotton in the warehouses, etc.
 "All articles deposited in the warehouse" said Edison, "bear the same ratio when loan of unit money is made, only one kind of unit mon- ey is issued together with the de- posit certificate.
 Suppose "a farmer puts in the warehouse 1000 bushels of wheat graded by the Government as No. Red. The average price for 25 years of this grade, including high war prices is, say $1.00 per bushel. The farmer is given $500 in unit money-he then can hold his wheat by means of his certificate until he thinks the price is satisfactory and thus be independent of the specula- tors who now set the price ahead months before the crop is reaped. This certificate is bought on the ex- change, at market price now, say $1.15 for No. l Red. The farmer would get $650-as the wheat is higher than the 25 year average. If, on the other hand, it was selling at 96 cents he would only get $460.
 "But the unit money would not vary. It would always be the same, because wheat would not be likely to be sold over a period of one year for 59 cents. In other words, the
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