Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1930-07-31
WHAT'S PROSPERITY?
By JAMES SIMPSON
lin August Legion Monthly.)

lin August Legion MOnthly.)
Everybody desires prosperity. The
word has different meanings for diff
ferent people. But in general l sup
pose that it might be defined as
state of economic well-being sufficient
to supply the necessities and comforts
that the individual Graves along with
a reasonable assurance that these will
be forthcoming in future. When any
one of us has the living conditions
that he most desires, and along with
these has few financial worries, he
| feels prosperous.
When we feel prosperous, we are
prosperous.
| Prosperity is, after all, a state OF
mind. A young man who has been
making $40 a week may enjoy pros
perity when his salary goes up to S25.
A man accustomed to an income OF
| 100000 a year and living on this
scale, may feel extraordinarily un-
prosperous when something brings his
income down to $4,000. Prosperity
is relative as we'll as mental.
There is no doubt that as nation
we have been enjoying the greatest
actual prosperity that any great peo-
pie has ever known. We are still en-
toying it, although at the moment
when this is written most peoples
prosperity is little less than it was
a few months ago. Nevertheless, in
spite of any temporary recessiOns ano
of any unprosperous classes of oul
population, we are as group re-
markably we'll off.
What makes prosperity? 1t grows
out of a large national income, wei
distributed. This country would no
be prosperous if it had 100000 million
. aires-and the rest of the population
deep in poverty. 1t is prosperous be
cause the population as whole Il
prosperous, because we have wide
distribution of the good things OF LII
than any other country has ever had
. 1t is a familiar truth that prosperit
moves in cycles. Starting in a perio
of depression, prosperity begins t
climb out of the valley, gathers fore
d as it climbs, and in the course OF
J, few years reaches the peak. Unfor
!; tunately, as it approaches the SUNNI
+ it is ordinarily joined by some unde
y sirable relatives, such as credit IN
? flation, excessive speculation and tn
e like.
4 1t succeeds in climbing to the to
n even with this added burden. BIZ
e once at the top, it has difficulty i
d maintaining itself there along wit
+ the unwanted relatives. Presently
begins to slip downhilL In the d.
e. scent prosperity loses the credit II
flation excessive speculation and
on. They drop suddenly, giving pro-
perity a further downhill pull. b
when they are once shaken off, pro
perity presently resumes its upwal
climb.
. This has been the history of pro
I'd perity ever since economists have r.
- corded the facts. But there is tn
p significant difference between toda
n and the earlier times: The depre
ne sions are not so violent, the vale!
III not so deep. The slump of 1902
at serious as it had to be to get rid
at so many of the ills that had attacht
as themselves to prosperity during ii
IS war and the years Immediately fo
ed lowing it, was child's play alongsi'
&c the panic of 1898, and half dozt
others that preceded it Last a
at tumn's disturbance in the stock ma
or ket, serious because so many mo
lg people were specializing than had ev
" speculated before, was neverthele
rs only temporary setback to prospe
ity.
N. Much of this improvement, this d
crease in the violence Of the fluctu
tions, is due to the improvement