The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1922-01-12

william c. Redfield
China one adopted a policy-and
under it she crumpled to a ~spineless
bulk that at one time threatened
death to her as a nation and her peo-
pie as a race.
Thousands Of American citizens to-
day are asking why we do not adopt
a similar policy, asking this question
even in the halls of legislation and
among the units of our commercial
life.
Is the United States sufficient unto
itself? Can it draw about it's shores
a Chinese wall that would exclude not
only immigration and the exchange Of
relationship but would wipe from the
seas the import and export trade and
turn inward all the powers and posi-
bilities of her growth?
Dressed in glittering g~eneralities,
bedecked in false conception of
progress, tricked Out in brilliant but
empty phrases of a selfish patriotism
grounded on false logic, the campaign
has been carried on since the time.
scores of years ago, when III unthink-
ing citizens brought shame to true
before a contemptuous Europe, Amer
lea can lick the world"
Leaving aside the obvious fact that
there are many things we cannot pro-
ducc in the United States and that our
necessary purchases of these abroad
cAn be most conveniently covered by
sending our goods in return, are there
no cogent domestic reasons which
make a foreign market for our prod
ucts a matter Of necessity?
At least three great commodities
spring to our thought when this ques-
ton is raised. These are cotton,
wheat and copper. We have never
consumed, nor can we consume, any
thing like the quantities of these
which we produce. Shall we produce
less, therefore, or shall we sell the
surplus we always have in the only
available markets, which are the for
eign markets? The question answers
itself. 1t is, we at once see, vital to
the prosperity of our agricultural and
mining interests that we have a large
and steady foreign market for these
commodities. The home of every
farmer and miner is directly affected
by the conditions in our export trade.
This foreign m e has neither
been large o steady in recent
months and the result appears in
every copper-mining town and on
every cotton plantation and wherever
wheat is grown. None are so foolish
as to say that an export market is
o essential to the prosperity of both
the capital and the labor concerned in
the production of cotton, copper and
wheat.
But these three are in some degree
typical of others. We sell abroad
such commodities as lumber, oil and
steel, and each in different forms or
states of manufacture. Why are they
sold abroad? Is it not because there
is no sufficient market for them at
home? Is it not, therefore, also true
that the steady employment of labor,
the regular return Upon capital both
require that a foreign market shall be
found for the products which they
jointly make, and that it is certain
that capital cannot continuously earn
and labor be continuously employed
unless such markets are found for any
surplus over the consuming capacity
of our own country?
Leaving these major items, which
some might say were selected ones,
we find that before the war there had
been a steady growth in our export
sales Of partly or fully finished manu-
features until these had become the
largest elements in our outward for
eign business. Why was this so?
The foreign markets are not usually
those in which excessive prices can
be had, and therefore 1t Is hardly true
that our manufacturers sold these
goods to the value of many hundreds
of millions of dollars yearly in other
lands in order to make a larger profit
upon them than could be had at home.