Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-03-01

"ASflNGIOISt l.. L., eDs Eo-l1
there is any one word which char
acteriZes the spirit Of American
business today that word is service
For the past ten years service has
been the watchword and the guild
ing star of large part of the hu-
man activity in the United States.
In the old days people used to he
content with doing a. sober days
work in the old accustomed ways.
Then somebody discovered that the
winner in business was the man who
gave his customers a better appear
ing product, or made 1t more con-
yenient for them to buy from him,
or added more to their comfort or
pleasure, than did the competitor.
At that moment the modern Ameri-
! can idea Of service was born.
Since then. with ambition in the
saddle. service has been welding
the whip that has speeded up busi-
ness at its present gate. Since then
everybody has talked service. Ad-
vertisers have preached it. The
business maxim makers have rung
a thousand changes on the idea.
Invention has advanced tin fact,
amost all modern invention Is di-
rected at some sort OF service or
other. The developments in the use
of electricity have been almost ex-
clusively for the end of service.
The result of this trend has been
a double one. First, it has made
the United States, of all the coun-
tries of the earth, by far the most
comfortable, and convenient one III
which to live.
Second. it is the driving of the
United States toward an economic
disaster.
At any rate, this second conclu-
sion is one that is being drawn by
shrewd observers who see under
the surface of things, and particu-
larly by the joint congressional COM
mission which recently conducted
an exhaustive investigation of the
plight of American agriculture,
which finds itself unable to get
along in this era OF high prices.
The commission by direct implica-
tion if not in so many words, has
reached the conclusion that as a
nation we are being serviced TO
death.
The danger signals are only too
apparent in the statistics. When
millions of people on earth are
lean farmers are burning corn for
fuel because its price to them does
not pay for shipping it to market.
something is radically wrong.
When customers are still paying war
prices for bread while the farmers
are not making the cost Of produc-
ing the wheat crop, it is time for
a readiustment Of things. The
common opinion blames it on the
so-called middlemen and regards
them as profiteers and extortioners
| This is the usual view, too held by
the farmers; and the joint comnis-
sion made up principally of farmers
Representatives in congress. nc
doubt expected their investigation
to uncover a great chain of undue
| profits taken by the distributors,
Everybody Pays For Service
The surprising thing was that ne
such profits were discovered. The
"midd,emen" are not proportionally
taking any greater profits thar
they ever did. Some OF them are
getting less. But there are more
middlemen than there were. More
and more service has been added
and everybody is paying for it.
The situation may be looked a.
in the census figures. Fundamentally
the only producers are farmers
miners, lumbermen, and fishermen
The rest of us are all living of the
things they produce. Once in thi.
country the farmers constituted hat
the population. Then. each farmer
in exchange for his shoes, clothing
store bought food. toos machinery
seed. fertilizer and the money bt
| could put by in the bank had only
to divide his produce with one othel
man. Each farm. in effect, had e
! support only two fanilies; the
farmers own and the family of thu
hypothetical distributor with wh0G
he divided.
But today what a difference! Th'
1920 census shows that of the Al.
100000 people in the United Stato
engaged in gainful occupations, les
than 100000 were engaged ir
the service of production. The res
were all in the services OF distribu
ton, regarding manufacture as par
of distribution. In other words
each farmer now has to supper
nearly three others. Forty-cen
corn on the farms and five-cen
corn meal in the grocery stores /!
sinply economic laws way OF say