Evening star., 1931-12-27


backward and looking forward
Il type, many reviews of 1881,
many forecasts of 1882.
I leave that to those who are conf
dent they can 90 it we'll. The present
article chooses in its opening para
graphs at least to turn to something
involving no element of surmise or
prediction, something indisputable. 1t
chooses to go back half a century and
deal with the year 1880, together with
a few years preceding and following.
The application of this bit of history
to present-day conditions will be quick
ly apparent to the reader
In 1880 there was living in Cleve-
land merchant in iron and steel
named James Ford Rhodes. (He was a
Rhodes, not a college graduate, de-
voted himself to his business until in
his late 40's he had acquired as much
money as he felt he needed whereupon
he turned to scholarship, wrote the
best history ever written about the
United States during the post Civil War
period, and died with long string of
honorary degrees from universities the
outstanding American historian of his
time. One of the eXccllences of Mr..
Rhodes history is the larger quantity
OF space it devotes to economic mat
ters, an emphasis due to the authors
personal participation in active busi-
ness.
Recalls Dreary Picture.
With that information about Mr..
Rhodes background, read his descrip-
ton of that American panic which most
resembles the present one:
THE days from November, 1876, to
the Spring Of 1879 (two and half
years. were dreary. Apparently there
was not ray of light Masses of la
borers were out of employment, severely
put to it to get bread for their families.
Railroad receiverships were the rule. .
predicted universal bankruptcy, and it
was difficult to traverse such a predic-
tlon. Real terror European
countries were alike suffering. Rail
road strike and riots of 1877. The
list OF bankruptcies in the daily press
was APPALLING and seemed to confirm
the view that the country was in the
throes of universal bankruptcy"
In that description let the reader
substitute, instead of the opening SEN
tence as it stands, the following-and
ne Will recognize an approximate de-
scriptlon of the present: The days
from November, 1929, to the Spring OF
1882 were dreary,' etc. The reader
Will recognize, however that our pres
ent, condition is not so bad; we have
had no riots" no important strike "
only one railroad receivership and not
enough bankruptcies to be called "ap-
palling"
tI1 there were space I might point
out also that in 1879 there was much
less sympathy for labor and less svn1-
pathy Tor distress; there was no such
thing as our present Community
Chest or our present organized ma
tlon-Wlde agencies for relief)
Rapid Recovery Came.
What is quoted above is from the
historian Rhodes description of the
years 1876-7-8
Read now from the same historians S
description Of the three wears immedi-
ately following 1879-80-8l:
Everything would sell. There was
never such bond market. Issues
OF all sorts were put out and snapped
up by investors with fat bank accounts.
Banks encouraged their customers to
buy On the Wall Street Stock Ex-
change - buoyancy, wild speculation.
enormous sales. The demand for iron
and steel products was so great as to
encounter famine of suppli:s =
The flush times of the last half of 1879,
all of 1880 and the first half of 1891
refrain from suggesting that the
reader complete the parallel by substi-
1882" for the year 1879" But I ven-
ture this-that the turn from bad times
to good comes just at the moment when
bad times seem worst, that the reversal
of the tide is sudden the new upturn
swift. In 1879 the change from despair
to buoyancy came within less than
three months. Of this also the proof is
in this from Rhodes:
The American Iron and Steel Insti-
tute met in Pittsburgh May S, 1879 y
still in the state of gloom. But in two
months all had more orders than they
could fill and in September faced an
iron famine; had it not been for
immense reserve stocks of pig iron in
England prices would have gone even
higher than the extravagant figures
that they actually reached. =" The
revival touched all industries"
That was in 1879 Something like 1t
will occur in-I refrain from saying
1882, but certainly soon.
Treasury Chief Hooted.
There is one detail of Rhodes de-
scription of 1878 peculiarly interesting
to recall: Secretary of the Treasury
John Sherman, visiting Toledo in Au-
gust, 1878, was interrupted with jeers
and insults"
That episode is suggestive. Would
present Secretary of the Treasury An
drew w. Mellon, if he should visit a
business gathering in an American city,
be interrupted with jeers and hisses?"
1t is clearly phenomenon of such
times as these that people become bit
ter, savage. One can read some such
savagery in the attacks in Congress on
President Hoover.
So much for so years ago. Turn now
to the immediate past. All that the
present articles attempts to say about
1881 is a description of the year as it
now seems in retrospect, to one who
throughout the year stood close to the
dancing bubble of each days events.
We know that 1881 opened with a
general feeling that the worst of this
economic cyclone was over, and We
know too sadly that 1891 ends with
America and the world pulled down to
a lower plane. AS to what happened
between, as to the causes of our fur
ther descent during 1881, it is rather
early to be sure. To the writer of this
article it seems that America during
the year suffered three violent shocks,
all from Europe. A brief summary of
them would say:
During May and June, revelation to
the world of threatened economic COL
lapse and political revolution in Ger
many.
In September the fall of the British
pound from the gold basis.
During December. renewed anxiety
about conditions centering in Germany.
Blames World Crisis.
To say that all the increase of our
troubles during 1881 arose from causes
abroad Is at once to invite controversy
It is part of our present national mood
a by-product of the extremity of our
woe, that many of us prefer to blame
our nisfortunes, not on abstract forces
but on some individuals or group, pref
erahly those near enough to to