The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1932-09-16
TheCherry
" Where with ear
roo Little Matchet
We tell the truth
about many things. sometimes pre-
feundly, sometimes Aippantly,
sometimes rccklessly. ........

PioiiiS VI OH Tie uoCIoIS Ol cCOIlOIll-
les in the abstract, has just poured
forth another book called "a New
Deal" in which he sets forth 16 ways
Of making money, to illustrate the
kind of world in which we live.
Mr.. Chase believes he has made a
complete list, no doubt His list might
be called the 16 points on how to trim
the suckers, or it might be called the
16 points of Wall streets book of sue
cess, or it might be called 16 super
fetal supports for the upper crust.
Admitting that in these 16 ways lot
of money can be won-and lost-they
are here offered to the readers of this
14-em realm.
Cd Create an artificial monopoly
and boost prices-as has been done
with oil and aluminium;
~ Tie up a patent or secret
process, and charge all the traffic will
bear-as the shoe machinery company
did;
(3) Borrow money at 6 per cent
and lend it at fantastic rates, dis
guised as bonuses" or what not, to
the little people;
(4) Make a useless product and sell
it, like toothpaste, by high-pressure
radio advertising;
(5) Ballyhoo perfectly good cheap
product, like some patent medicines,
worth few cents, into big sales at
absurd prices;
CO. Create new fashions, as in the
automobile annual model racket;
Cd Create and maintain artificial
values for more or less dubious stocks
and bonds-as per the famous his
tories of Messrs. Kreuger and insult;
8, 9 and 10) Speculate in secur-
tiles; in land; in commodities;
0)) Promote parasitic industry
move your factory to region where
labor is cheap and unorganized and
convert your farmer-neighbors into
mill hands;
(12 and 13) Graft in politics, or in
business, by "legaP methods;
14) "Racketeer";
(15) Dump your surplus produc-
tion abroad;
(l6) Rush blindly in to compete
where the going has been good, re-
gardless of the need for more pro-
duction.
Mr.. Chase omitted one mighty good
way from his list That is to write a
book, ballyhoo it as the greatest of
all great books, and thus drag forth
from the pockets of all and sundry
the clinking coin of the realm
To what extent authors and pub
fishers today are doing just that al
most any sane person can judge, but
those best informed are the authors
themselves.
Mr.. Chase rates as an economist.
An economist has ideas to sell. If he
can't sell them, then he is just an un-
employed economist, man without a
function. So, the better salesman he
is, the better he rates as an economist
and the more the returns pour in.
Why not? It's the same with Billy
Sunday.
Candidly, there is a lot in what
Mr.. Chase says about his 16 ways.
But to assume that those are the
only ways, or even the main ways, of
making money is simply that much
foolishment.
Were the Chase catalogue unmodi-
fled by other facts, then truly our
economic system would have degen-
Grated into a great racket ruled by
crooks and takers.
Under those circumstances there
would be no individuals and firms
seeking always to make a better prod
uct, to find new products and to con-
tribute genuinely to the making of a
better and an easier world.
But the fact over which Mr.. Chase's
whole catalogue barks it's shins is just
that outstanding fact of production it.
self. And people do make big money
by making useful inventions, by hu-
namely managing industry, and by
making great paintings. 1t is we'll to
single out and singe the abuses, but
to conclude that we have among us
nothing but abuses is to delude, first
OF all, ourselves, than which nothing
is more profitable to the pathologists
but to no one else.