PAGE TWO
THE
CHATHAM RECORD
O. J. PETERSON
Editor and Publisher
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE:
One Year $1.50
Six Months 75
THURSDAY, JULY 18, 1029
Chatham county had a sous
ing rain Friday, though it was
not peculiar to Chatham, as it
seems to have covered a large
part of the State. If’it fell in
Union county, however, it was
a “souger,” and not a souser.
® f
THE SERIES COMPLETED
The article in this issue
closes our series on economic
conditions and trends. The
series grew out of an editorial
in the issue of May 2, which
read by Attorney B. C. Beck
with of Raleigh, brought the
request for a discussion of
remedies for the condition
shown to be confronting the
country. Accepting the chal
lenge, we started with an un
prejudiced mind to think
through the subject and let
come whatever grist should be
furnished by our thinking mill.
If we had hoped to find a
panacea for conditions in any
form of governmental restric
tions, we should have been
disappointed. We have sim
ply found what was to be
sci nd. re believe. Our pur
suit of the subject has been
a sane one, we hope, and we
feel sure that what we have
written will stand the test of
reason on the large scale in
which our conclusions are to
apply. Many specific contra
dictions may be found, as for
instance to the statement that
the loan or investment of cap
ital in European countries is
practically a gift to those
countries, but as a general
principle, howsoever novel the
proposition, we believe it a
logical one. Argument to the
contrary would be welcomed.
Ukewise, the statement that
the great insurance busniess
is an economic monstrosity
will probably not be readily
accepted. But we have tried
to go under superficilaities,
and have not been deterred
in expressing a conclusion be
cause it runs counter to gen
erally accepted opinion.
We appreciate the encom
iums that have come from
some of the brightest minds
in the State. Mr. Beckwith
himself says that if his chal
lenge is responsible for the
series, all our subscribers are
under an obligation to him.
But we disagree with him
there. We have not hoped
for the articles to be appre
ciated by all our subscribers.
J. W. Bailey is nearer cor
rect when he says that few
will understand or appreciate
them, but that that fact should
not deter us. In fact, as stated
formerly, we are satisfied if
two hundred have read
and appreciated the articles.
That number exceeds the au
dience of the average minis
ter or political speaker, and
is enough to assure the pass
ing on of the thought lines.
A fire started in the remotest
corner of a grass field may
sweep the whole field. Simi
larly, our isolation does not
imply all it plight seem to im
ply. The chief value of the
articles are not in their con
tent <but -in their effect in pro
moting thinking on the part
of others.
' ' ‘ <s
COMPLIMENTS MANN’S
CHAPEL CONGREGATION
From the North Carolina Christian
Advocate the following complimen
tary reference to Mann’s Chapel M.
E. churoh is clipped:
“Mann’s Chapel on the Haw River
circuit, Six mites south of Chapel
Hill, is a substantial country church
with some of the best people to be
lound in all the land. Last Sunday
afternoon, following a most thought
ful and stimulating sermon by the
pastor, Rev. E. A. Brown, this con
gregation increased the Advocate list
by nine new subscribers. This one
church more than put the circuit on
the honor holl. But this is just what
those who know would expect this
people to do. They have added Sun
day school rooms and so improved
the church that one who knew it in
other days scarcely recognizes the
place. With this young pastor to load
this people ought to accomplish much
in that community. It was a rare
privfttge to be with them once more
and renew the acquaintance of twenty j
years age. I
THE DOG IN THE MANGER
WILL HAVE TO BE GOOD
Howsoever correct the Mai-'*’
thusian theory, the saturation
point has been thrown back
ten thousand years. Malthus
when he foresaw the time
when the land would fail to
support any further increase
in population, did not foresee
the banishment of the horse
and mule and the release of
tens of millions of acres for
the production of food for
men; he did not foresee the
harnessing of the rivers and
through that means the con
version of the nitrogen of the
air into ammonia for the en
richment of the soil, nor the
utilization of the by-products
of the mines for the same pur
pose. He did not foresee the im
provement in the quality of food
plants and the creation of new
ones, nor the modern conver
sion of the very wood of the
trees into clothing. The last
forty years have instituted a
new era, and Mathus’ theory
is no longer the world’s worry.
The problem now is to keep
consumption up to that point
where all may be kept busy—
but not for the old-time 14-
hour day.
The time has come when a
man working half the hours
of the old time day can pro
duce enough to satisfy his
own needs and allow him
much that was formerly con
sidered impossible luxuries.
The problem of keeping all
busy, then, resolves itself into
problem of securing and
maintaining a maximum con
sumption. The old-time laws
of thrift must give way to
newer conceptions. There is
no need for stinting in a world
that may be made to overflow
with milk and honey. Stint
ing through either necessity
or inclination, results in a
shortening of the demand for
the products of the efficiently
employed, the shutting down
of industrial plants, the amass
ing huge surpluses of farm
products, and in hard times
generally.
For the ideal condition to
prevail in the world or even
in one country, the world
must become a unit economi
cally. A stabilized universal
currency must be created; all
artificial restrictions of trade
must be removed; and the in
dustries of every quarter of
the world put upon a mod
ern and efficient basis. There
is no equity, for instance, in
an American missionary’s be
ing able to take 25 cents re-,
ceived by an American con-]
tributor for a dozen eggs and
buying two dozen equally.
good Chinese eggs simply be
cause of a difference in ex-1
change value of the American
and the Chinese money. The •
real value is in the commod
ity and not in the money.
A nation that is pauperized
by disadvantage in exchange
jan not become a healthy fac
tor in world commerce. Nor
can a country the consumption
of whose peculiar, or unique,
contribution to the world’s
needs is curtailed by the hoist- 1
ing of the price to the con
sumer beyond the ability of
the masses to buy, by the tariff
laws of the various countries,
become a large consumer of
the goods of the countries
which thus impoverish her. 1
Provincial views must cease
to prevail before the world as
a whole, or even the individ
ual industrial country, can at
tain its maximum of activity
and prosperity. But, like the
hope of seeing prosperity
come to the masses through
the refusal of individuals to
reap where they have not
sowed, the hope of such a
broadening of the vision of
the law-makers and the mas
ters of industry must, we fear,
be long deferred. The evolu
tion of an idea is slow, es
pecially when it runs counter
to what is deemed the interest
of the influential groups. Yet
the prediction is here made
that these two ideals, namely,
the conceiving of taking and
holding wealth without an
adequate return in material
or service as dishonorable, and
the acceptance of the world
as the unit of economic the
ory and of commercial and
industrial development, will
prevail before the famous
Malthusian doctrine has .been
demonstrated in effect.
I But if the provincial, oF na
THE CHATHAM RECORD, PITTSBORO. N. C.
tional, conception is to be
taken as the dominant one for
the period, it certainly be
hooves statesmen and politi
cal economists to consider if
some of the views they hold
of national interest are not
awry. Os course, a country
is advantaged for the time
being in having the advantage
in exchange rates. But it is
well within the province of
the national interest to con
sider the probable conse
quence of lower tariff levels
upon the world market for
American goods. For instance,
it will be hard to justify the
impoverishing of Cuba by an
extortionate tariff rate on
sugar and the diversion of
tens of millions of dollars of
American consumers from ex
penditure for needed Ameri
can products to pay the extra
price of sugar. Why is a dol
lar added to the income of
American sugar producers of
more national value than the
same dollar going into the
coffers of the furniture, cloth
ing, steel, or other American
industry? And why should
these other American indus
tries, including agriculture, be
deprived of the benefit of a
full consumption of their
products by Cubans because
of their impoverishment, pro
fessedly in the interest of the
American sugar producer?
If self-interest, or national
interest, must prevail, let it be
an enlightened one. The true
national interest will be bet
ter conserved in extending the
market for goods America can
make cheaper than other
countries can make them than
by undertaking to foster an
artificial competition in goods
which other countries can pro
duce and market here with
less cost in capital and labor.
Before considering the
means by which it is possible
to secure a more general par
ticipation in the bounties
of the earth-mother, whose
sources of sustenance are so
rapidly being monopolized by
the few, it will be well to
consider two or three eco
nomic, though apparently
novel, principles.
First, the world as a whole
can not draw upon the future
to any extent. Accordingly,
the world is not in debt. Nor
is any country in debt except
in case of borrowing from
other countries, and then in
the case of debts due a coun
try like this, whose exports
exceed its imports in value,
such a debt is practically un
collectible. Similarly, in Amer
ica all public improvements
are paid for. The labor has
been done, the material has
been provided, and the slate
lis clean. Not another hour’s
labor or a dollar additional
of capital is required for the
future because of the fictional
debts which exist. Present and
future consumption is that
for which provision must be
made. The food, the cloth
ing, the labor, the skill, the
'material, everything used in
the construction of the paved
highway running hard by this
office, for instance, were a
draft upon the past and not
upon the future.
This principle is cited in
1 order to enforce the idea that
the cost of public work is
not a draft upon the future,
but upon the immediate pres
ent, upon the day the work
is dene. Therefore, there is
no such thing as impoverish
ing a country by the . cost of
public improvements, so long
as the call for labor and ma
terial does not jeopardize the
supply necessary for the pro
duction of the needs of in
dividual consumption. And
the experiences of the world
war period demonstrate the
extent of the waste of energy
in normal times. With two
millions of the most physi
cally fit called to arms, with
other armies providing ma
terial for war supplies, in
cluding cantonments and ves
sels, and still other armies
engaged in f the creation of
those war necessities, the rest #
of the population produced
enough to feed and clothe the
American population, its arm
ies abroad, and a large part
of the people of Europe, and
a surplus was found to exist
at the end of the war! Only
the oil, coal, and ether ma-
terials of limited supply and
the energy of the injured or
enfeebled came over as a
drain upon the future.
Accordingly, public work,
when put upon a truly eco
nomic basis, does not create
a drain upon the future, but
merely represents a contribu
tion from the excess of time
and material of the immediate
period. The foregoing being
true, public work, the crea
tion and maintenance of any
kind of public utility, may be
relied upon when men are
idle and consumption lags to
employ tens of thousands. The
number employed need be
limited, when the funds are
drawn from the excess, only
by the needs of industry.
And th<it there is now an
excess of wealth unutilized by
Americans is demonstrated by
the tens of millions of loans
and investments in foreign
countries, which, as intimated
above, are virtual gifts, since
the present scale of exports
exceeds the imports, and since
a genuine collection of for
eign debts must ultimately be
made in goods. Settlement in
any other medium amounts to
little more than it would in
the Indians’ wampum. Every
dollar sent abroad may be
used in the purchase of Amer
ican goods, but when our ex
ports are paying for the goods
received from abroad, a dollar
sent here will serve to buy
our goods but not Europe’s.
Accordingly, such a fortune as
President Hoover’s is virtually
a gift to the foreign countries
from which he derived it.
Goods, then, are leaving our
shores that should rightfully
be used here, and would have
been so used if American con
sumption had been at the
maximum. With the funds in
vested abroad giving employ
ment to Americans many a
family would have good beds
and good food who now do
not have them, and as the
production scheme was not
running at its maximum gait,
with it speeded up, still a
surplus for foreign investment
would probably have accrued.
In addition to the wastage
of time indicated by the
World War illustration, unnec
essary duplications of shops
and jobs hold another million
in what is equivalent to idle
ness. When two men and
two lots of invested capital
do what one might do and
collect a living for both, one
of them would as well be idle
or employed in public work.
Fortunately, one of the effects
of the monopolization of busi
ness, of mass production and
large-scale merchandising, is
to eliminate in a measure this
duplication of time and capi
tal. Yet the process must go
further before the waste will
be in any great degree avoid
ed. Over the same roads in
the county wend the oil trucks
of the several companies,
when if the Standard Oil Com
pany controlled the whole
oil and gas business one truck
would do the same work.
Then, since the combinations
and the practical monopolies
have gone so far as to exclude
competition from the new, the
weak, or the little, it may
well go further, since the
of duplication is charged up
to the public.
Unnecessary work is an eco
nomic loss till the time comes
when everybody has plenty of
everything. That such a time
is not now is only too evi
dent. The writer * doubts if
there is a comfortable chair
in one-half the homes of this
county of 25,000 population.
That is an indication of the
broad demand for goods, a
demand that would be active
if equality of opportunity for
work at an adequate wage
was general. The goods are
made and given to foreigners,
or could be made with produc
tion speeded up by the ef
ficient employment of those
who are now practically idle
through inefficient employ
ment, in duplicated tasks, and
in unnecessary jobs, not to
mention the actually idle.
But more is needed to bring
consumption to a reasonable
maximum there maintain
it. As stated abov#, stinting
is an economic evil, means,
too, less joy, less of living,
to the stinter. On the other
hand, it has been shown that
grasping more than one ac
tually needs is the curse of
the age, and of all ages. Both
evils rise from the same cause,
are due to the same instinct,
that of fear of the evil day,
the proverbial “rainy day.”
“Safety first” is the idea that
has created both the miser
and the money king. The lat
ter looks ahead to provision
for a family as well as against
the “rainy day” for himself.
As the fear of the future
has resulted in the evils that
we have deplored, the re
moval of that fear is the first
great task. Millions and bil
lions are being drawn from
funds of rich and poor for
insurance. The insurance
scheme is, in truth, one of the
greatest of economic fallacies,
and in itself one of the means
used in the monopolization of
wealth, which has been so
frequently shown to be pro
gressing to menacing propor
tions. The ones who really
need insurance most do not
have it. Also millions of
young people are applying the
spare dollars from their in
come to pay for insurance at
the very time they need every
spare dollar for investment in
a home or a means of living.
The millions are piling up in
the hands of the companies
and form funds which are
utilized to further the monop
olization process. But so long
as the fear aganist which in
surance provides exists, it is
only the foolish or the un
fortunate that does not have
it.
Make living and assure the
living that their families will
not suffer if they die with
out adequate property, and
the reason for insurance is
largely abolished. The same
process will also remove the
cringing fear that causes stint
ing, and give the needed in
centive to consumption and,
consequently, to production.
And here we have reached
the crux of the matter.
Up to this point it has
been shown that the wealth
sources of the country are
falling into the hands of a
very small percentage of the
people; that direct govern
mental interference can not
be entirely, or even in any
great degree, effective in
changing the course of the
drift to monopoly; that a
great danger exists that, with
the sources of wealth monop
olized and mass production
prevailing upon a modern ma
chine basis, a large part of
the population would be with
out means of livelihood and
even the employed at the
mercy of the industrial mas
ters; that a moral reforma
tion whereby men would
come to deem it dishonorable
to take and hold without an
adequate quid pro quo would
redeem the situation, but that
such a change of heart is,
unhappily, too remote to meet
the threatened crisis.
Further, it has been shown
that the earth and its riches
belong to the race, and that
every earth-born has an in
herent right either to share
in the sources of wealth, or
if they are monopolized by
the few to share in the prod
uct of those sources. The calf
has a prior right to the owner
of the cow. And now it is
to be shown how the whole
populace may still share in
the abundance which modern
industry and methods should
provide.
First, the fourteen-hour day
is no longer needed. A six
or seven-hour day will enable
twice as many to secure em
ployment in a plant by work
ing double shifts, or if a day
and night plant, four shifts
might work.
Secondly, public improve
ments may employ an indefi
nite number.
Thirdly, a further socializa
tion of the state must ensue
which will ensure safety and
WE GUARANTEE
our Used Cars to be as represented, and we
offer the best value in Used Cars ever
offered in Chatham County.
If you have no car and want to ride, see us*
WEEKS MOTOR CO.
Pittoboro, N. G.
_ *
THURSDAY, JULY 18. iQoci
comfort, stimulate consump
tion and its concomitant, p ro [
duction, and thus provide more
work, and at the same time
make unnecessary the pres
ent waste involved in the in
surance business with its army
of employees and millions in
vested in business houses, also
prevent the withdrawal of
funds from small incomes.
The word socialization need
not fright anybody. The state
and nation have gone far in
that direction. Education has
been socialized. The state
claims it to be its duty to
see that every child has an
opportunity to secure an edu
cation. The public foots the
bills. Many of the states have
already provided mothers’
funds for the care of the
widows and children without
adequate funds. The state and
the nation have long ago
adopted the principle of pen
sions for public servants. Eng
land has adopted old-age pen
sions. England has adopted
the principle of paying doles
to the unemployed. Accord
ingly, little extension of al
ready recognized and prac
ticed principles is needed to
meet the demands of the oc
casion.
1. Let the state socialize
medicine as it has education.
Surely, the normal health of
the body is a requisite former
to that of the mind.
2. Let sufficient funds be
provided in case of disability.
3. Let old-age pensions be
provided.
4. Let adequate provision
be made for widows and or
phans, and for all others be
come dependent through mis
fortune.
5. Let employment at a liv
ing wage be assured. When
one’s own efforts fails to se
cure a job, let him report to
the state, and if he can not
be located in any private en
terprise, let him be assigned to
a state job.
6. If it comes to the pass
that men can not find employ
ment in private enterprise or
in public service, let the un
employed receive a living
wage from the state, or an
unemployment dole.
As formerly said, it makes
little difference who owns the
cow provided all get a proper
share of the milk. The fore
going scheme applied assures
all a share and, in addition,
removes that paralyzing fear
that so often destroys the ef
ficiency of men and sometimes
even leads to suicide. You
ask where are the funds to
come from. That is easy; they
are to come from where they
shall be. Remember the al
ternatives in last week’s arti
cle were either that the mo
nopolizers of the resources of
the earth-mother shall con
sent to all the earth-children
sharing in the wealth derived
from those resources or face
a revolution. If the milk from
the earthcow has been monop
olized by those who think
they own her, to their dairy
must the state go for the peo
ple’s share. As stated in the
last article, no considerable
portion of the people will suf
fer themselves to be deprived
of an opportunity to make a
living, or to collect one from
those who monopolize the
sources of wealth.
As the grabbers today are
asking nobody’s permission, so
in the crisis that looms ahead
the people will not consult
the pleasure of the monopol
izers. Yet nobody will be de
prived of anything he needs.
On the other hand, no one
will be suffered to play the
dog in the manger while the
ox starves. He will have to
be a good doggie.
3> ■ - ■ -
Ebony wood weighs as high as 83
pounds a cubic foot.