Newspapers / The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, … / Aug. 14, 1930, edition 1 / Page 2
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PAGE TWO CHATHAM RECORD O. J. PETERSON Editor and Publisher SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: One Year $1.50 Six Months 75 THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 1930 Bible Thought and Prayer ....... i ... i n n WAIT PATIENTLY—Wait on;; | the Lord: be of good courage, and » 'He shall strengthen thine heart:;; ;; wait, I say, on the Lord. —Ps. 27:14. " • PRAYER—O Thou Who art ;; ; never weary, we wait on Thee. Do "Thou renew our strength that we,, ;; may fly like the eagle, and even ; 11 walk and not faint. «» *n . A thoughtful Pittsboro gen tleman says that The Record editorials last week were the best sermon on the injunction of Jesus to take no thought for tomorrow for what you shall eat or drink etc that he has ever read or heard, and that the editorials go to dem onstrate the fact that the in junction of he Lord was good poliical economy, as the most of his “impractical” injunc tions would prove if demon strated in practice. Os course, one must give a broader mean ing to the word tomorrow than that in which we speak today of the following day. It is an indefinite expression for the future, for even the home keeper with a full supply of provisions in the home and with clothes for the whole family must look forward to the next day's menu and to having the washing done. Now, give the meaning of fu ture to tomorrow and let the address be to the race, instead of to specific individuals, and you have an injunction in ac cord with the economical prin ciple pointed out in this paper,’ namely that the world lives from hand to mouth, and that it is as impossible for the race to lay up a competency for a future day as it for “a man to add a cubic to his stature” by taking thought. 0 SIR OLIVER CALLS FOR A STUDY OF THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM. It is of interest to note that we have read since writing the editorial captioned “Reitera tion* an article of greater length by Sir Oliver Lodge, re viewing the world plight due to the fact that part of the people are equipped with modern machinery for produc tion while the other part have to compete with practically the ageold means of produc tion, and ending with a recom mendation of a study of the economic problem. That has been our frequent plea, and Sir Oliver himself could do the world more good, proba bly, by giving his own master mind to a solution of the problems of economics than he has dver done by his study of physics and his later at tention to spiritualism. But since every satisfied person and interest in the world, all the prosperous, are against any change in the status-quo, there is no other problem that will so subject a thinker to criticism, or even persecution, as that now confronting the world in the economic field. An Einstein may controvert the Nejvtonian laws; the long accepted atomic theory may be overthrown, and matter and force be proved, or de clared, identical; the most sa cred doctrines of religion may be attacked—in short think ers are free to controvert any doctrine or dogma of age-long standing except the orthodoxy of the capitalistic system. Touch that and every dog in the manger not only growls but is ready to bite to the bone. • It will require courage asj well as mentality to establish: a new political economy. But I that is the world's chief need 1 today, apart from real re ligion, which itself w ould be asolution, and it is gratifying to see one great thinker like' Sir Oliver Lodge recognize the fact. To him that has the courage, the standing, and the mentality to find the solution and dignify it before the world, we would commend the two theses in o ur article as premises, or starting points. I BEASLEY APPEALS TO HENRY GEORGE <B> Attaching a recent Record editorial to his letter, Editor R. F. Beasley, of the Monroe Journal, tjhie apostle of Henry George's ideas in North Caro lina, attacks our utterance by appealing to the George the ory of rents. To give the reader a clear idea of the bus iness, we here reproduce the Record editorial attacked: “Let all big salaries in state ’ and industry be cut to conform with the possible income of the people in general and let taxes on land be reduced. Then rents should come down in proportion to cut in taxes and decreased ability of high-salaried men to “pay them. High land values and rental values at present clog all the wheels of prosper ity. Here we are speaking of town homes and business places. Unearned increments appropri ated by property owners the past twenty years are proving one of the severest handicaps to continuing prosperity. An interest rate and provision for taxes and insurance on town and city buildings upon the artificial values foisted on city property compel rental rates that compel high salaries or large incomes, and large salaries and high incomes of city and town dwellers mean the sapping of the financial strength of the country. To get the water out of city real estate values is one of the greatest needs of the times. Rent of homes in Pittsboro is low, simply because no one is able to pay high rentals. Similarly, reduction of incomes in the cities will neces sitate rental rates within the reach of the occupants. Instead , of rental rates governing in comes and making them neces sarily high, let’s see the thing reversed and cut incomes re ducing rentals to a lower level. Thus everybody would be bene fitted except the appropriates of the unearned increments in land values, and they would be compelled to disgorge some of their unearned wealth. Nothing will do more immediately to bring about a greater equality in living conditions than an era of low salaries. Follows the letter of Mr. Beasley: “Dear Pete: Os all people in the world I thought you would be the last to put the cart before the horse in your thinking. (Thank you for the compliment.—'Pete.) Your editorial shows very clearly that you either missed the fundamental point in George’s argument about what governs rents or you disagree with it. In either case it lets you into a tangle that can only confuse. Suppose you would cut not only salaries to the quick, but all earnings of every class for the purpose of bringing down rents. What would be the final effect? It is true that rents would come down some because nobody could bid them up, most being too poor. BUT THE SAME RELATIVE INEQUALI TIES WOULD EXIST. And it is not poverty you want for all the people, but a fair share for all of the bounties at hand. > Economic rent is determined by the difference in production or desirability between the best and the poorest land available. In the cities this is nothing but location. The desirable lo cations will always be bid up to the very highest point that rival bidders think they can make out of tlyit location. This determines rent and not what the owners do charge or would like to charge. In every town now every day you see this. It is as plain as a pikestaff. What we need in tax reform in North Carolina is not a lift ing of taxes off land indis criminately, but a reassessment upon present values. This would give adequate relief to the real farmers because their values are very low and it would not LET OUT THE SPECULA TORS AND HOLDERS of the DESIRABLE LAND, ESPE CIALLY RAPIDLY INCREAS ING CITY LAND. The pig in the poke behind this demand for “relief” is the land specu lator and the vampires who call themselves ‘REALTORS.’ R. F. BEASLEY.” Now, Roland, we are not conscious of having thought of Henry George during the few moments given to writ ing the editorial in question, nor is there occasion now to refer to the George theory of rents, further than to ad mit that the evils that George emphasized as a consequences jof the consent of the state to : allow possessors of land to I appropriate values added to ‘it by the activities of the public are rampant at this time- As a consequences, the in comes of city dwellers in gen eral must be sufficiently large to finance rent, which we con tend has steadily risen with the incomes of the rentors. True, it is the old question of which came first, the chick en or tfie egg. Does rent rise I with'the ability of the renters THE CHATHAM RECORD. PITTSBORO, N. C. to pay or does the price of rent lead to greater incomes? That is the question. But, as in the case of the chicken and the egg, we know the order now, and we know that we can stop the egg production by failing to feed on an egg production basis, though the hens themselves may remain in fair physical condition. Likewise, it is easy, we be lieve, to show that, whichever was the cause or the effect in the matter of incomes and rent, a reduction of incomes assuredly cuts down rent as does the reduction of feed cut down egg production. Now, what we wrote in the editorial in question is to be taken in connection with our larger contention, that the ap propriation of more than an equitable share of wealth, or its representative money, by any class or even by individ uals, necessarily deprives oth ers to an equal extent. What the city employe puts in rent can not go to the farmer in the price of food or to the furniture manufacturer so r comfortable beds and chairs. It goes to the holders of the land, who if wealthy, uses a part of it to purchase the products of industry for per sonal consumption, while the rest goes into a further ex tension of the squeeze game. Now for specific, or con crete, illustrations. We noted the other day that a survey of a hundred typical families of the employes of Henry Ford in Dearborn was made. They occupied four-room houses and paid each S3BB a year for rent. Those houses were built upon land that prior to the establishment of the Ford enterprises at Dear born was probably of no more value than the land in the vicinity of Pittsboro, and the conditions would have been the same if Ford’s establish ment had been located on the sand hills of Bladen county. Those men are getting seven dollars a day. They are pay ing per working day for rent. And every purchaser Os a Ford car in the United States is contributing to that rent fund. And if Ford him self owns the homes, a la the cotton mill owners of North Carolina, that contribu tion. is direct to him, since he has already .estimated the cost of his cars on the basis of the $7.00 wages. Now for a contrast- Neat new homes at the silk mill here in Pittsboro, four or five rooms, rent for $lO a month, which is a dollar a less than the four-room rent in Dearborn, and means that $6.00 a day wages of Pitts boro employees would be of identical value with the $7 wages of Ford. Take the rent in the cotton mill villages of North Caro lina and you will readily grant that no one can rent the em ployees four-room houses for S3BB a year, not even if the floors were paved with plati num. Consequently, the em ployees have an additional doMar in wage as compared with the renters of the Dear born houses. We grant there are sites, even for residence, that are more desirable, but even their rental prices would be low ered as the level qf incomes should be lowered. The same folk who occupy them now would probably occupy them then as now. For it would be the comparative incomes that would determine in that matter. Moreover,- if a certain business site has exceptional value, its rent would be pro portionately valuable. But a lowering of incomes in a whole city would affect the rental values of every busi ness house in the city. The only reason that a store room in Durham will rent for more than one in Pittsboro is the greater amount of business that the occupant expects to do, and the amount of business is proportionate, with a given number of stores, to the in come of the trade area. Cut off the income of the trade area and you necessarily cut off a portion of rent values, so soon as the adaptation can be made, or the merchant will be satisfied with a smaller profit when his residence rent is cut. CAROLINIANS-Know Your State!®! COPYRIGHT 1930 BY BOYC£ & RANKIN j MICA MINE NEAR SPRUCE PINE - ■ ■ — number, (284) of native minerals * jSjaL and is the leading mica producing Cv : '*ajjyb state in the Union. The best mica llpi j| '•••! <>[ ihe leading mineral industries ul than it can be produced at local mines and as a result of this many mica finishing plants use imported mica even though it is not *-> good as The total production in 1928 was 777,395 pounds of sheet mica w»I- ued at $129,706 and $.419 tort* of Our contention, then, is briefly this: The reduction of income which would force a cessation of the absorption of a large part of that income in rents on property which has its enhanced value simply because of the excessive in come of the community, would ultimately reduce rental val ues without taxing the wage or income earners in the ac tual comforts of life. They seriously would buy practi cally as much merchandise, and yet at a cheaper rate, since the cost of field and fac tory products would not be longer burdened with the ex cessive rent charges. To come right close home —the writer lives in a house that with ground would read ily rent for SIOO to $l5O a month in Chapel Hill or Ra leigh, but he is not paying the rent of the occupier of one of the four-room Dearborn hous es. True, a house half the size and grounds of one acre of, say, four or twenty-five, according as you desire to consider the Situa tion as it actually exists, would be of equal value to his fam ily. Nevertheless, if there had been a man in Pittsboro mak ing $5,006 clear a year who wanted that house, he would not have got it at the pries the writer pays. He can not pay its worth for the man "TIME OUT" who needs sueh a place, nor can any one else in Pittsboro who doesn't own his home, and necessarily he gets it at what a six- or seven-room home would cost him, though it has its own water system, and only the cost of current to operate the pump produces an abundance of water, and whqn you care to drink does so right from the well at a temperature of 55 degrees. This is a bad investment, of course, for the owner, but the house wasn't built for rent, and he has to Jose on the investment made because of his peculiar needs or desires. But even if our needs and de sires were identical—with the builder’s, he could get no more, and simply because our income does not justify pay ing more far rent. And that is the case, Henry George to the contrary or otherwise, as the case may b% Os course there would be no desire fqr the reduction of rents below the paint where a fair return is given for the cost of construction and a reasonable valuation of the land; nor could rentals be forced below that point with out stopping construction. And, yet, owners of buildings erected at a cost greater than the price of construction when and where needed, must, like all others be prepared to take THURSDAY, AUGUST 14. iqoa the chances of business. A man who erected a house at the apex of high prices should not expect to collect rent upon that basis for a generation. The owners of houses must adjust rentals to present val ues, and shallow his losses like other investors. With all the talk of tax re duction we fail to hear a chorus on the theme of cutting salaries of all public officials, college and school men and women, and state employees in whatever department. Let salaries conform more nearly to the incomes of the employ ers, who are the people. If that be a hardship, let it be. Nino out of ten have difficul ties making ends meet; why not the tenth man? —s — Edit-oral on Page Three) $ Paste This on Your Diploaa. The reason why it is so hard for college 'graudates to find jobs is because most firms already have president and general managers! $ Rastus was all dressed up to go to church when his spouse, in tears, informed him; “We kain’t go to de Mefodist chu’ch no me’. “How come?” asked Rastus, who had been a Methodist all his life. “Well, de census man come to de house de udder day and ask what chu’ch we goes to. Ah toP him ‘Mefodfct,* Now we-all got to find ourselves de Protestant chu-cb.” — The Pathfinder.
The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, N.C.)
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Aug. 14, 1930, edition 1
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