Newspapers / The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, … / Oct. 9, 1930, edition 1 / Page 4
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PAGE FOUR CHATHAM RECORD O. J. PETERSON Editor and Publisher SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: One Year ™ Six Months 7i> THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1930 ABOUT THE HIGHWAY OF PROSPERITY The car of prosperity needs a graded “highway. It cannot run through morasses of low income in one section and over mountain tops of swollen incomes in others. The gradient determines the possibility of progress, and the base line of the grade would necessarily be fixed on the level of the more generally prevailing terrain. That the potential returns for labor applied to the soil is the true basis for the calculation of just and equitable wages, salaries, and in comes in other industries and in government positions should be evi dent to any thinking man. Mani * festly, a large part of the popula tion of the country, and of the world, must ever remain on the soil. Accordingly, the welfare of that element of the population is not only to be considered, but the fact that only the maintenance of the buying power of the agricultural element can continue consumption of manufactured products at that level that maintains a steady and ■maximum production in other in dustries. It is the unevenness of incomes in the various industries and not the general level that brings about depression and stops the wheels of factories and of commerce. Accord ingly, when the prices of farm pro ducts are lowered to new and ap parently permanent levels, the dis parity, always too great, between the incomes of agricultural workers and those of the more favored in dustries and those employed in governmental services becomes so marked and so deadly that indus trial disturbances necessarily result. As the unevenness is the disturb ing cause, it is merely a question of which is the easier, to lift the income of the agricultural workers, in terms of money, nearer to the level of incomes from other em ployments or to reduce the level of other incomes more in conformity with that of the agricultural worker. The answer should be easy. It would be a fool that would undertake to raise the plain to the level of the hill-top instead of cutting the hills to the level or near level of the plain. The general conditions prevailing in the w’orld naturally affect basic industries first. Agricultural pro ducts are universally used, and ad verse conditions, or simple changes in monetary conditions in any large area of the world, necessarily limits consumption of agricultural products by tens of thousands; whereas the same conditions limit only slightly the number of full-consumers of the products classed as luxuries. Im mediately the disparity between all workers in basic industries and in industries supported by the well-to -do and government employees be gins to broaden in a two-fold way— the income of the worker in the basic industries, particularly agri culture grows rapidly less in terms of money, without his money's being worth more for debt, taxes, on the purchase of the products not pro *duced by his class; while the wages and salaries and incomes of the men engaged in industries stabi lized by the support of the well to-do, and of government employees grow steadily in purchasing value, due to the lowering of the prices of the basic products. Briefly, a pound of cotton at ten cents pays only half the debt, or the tax or buys only half the gasoline that a pound of twenty-cent cotton would. On the other hand, the dollar of the government employee or of the Standard Oil Company or of the producer of steels buys considerably more meat, flour, or cloth, articles which are used by everybody in the world if he can get them. The consequence of this doubly-growing disparity in incomes is easily con ceived and is perfectly illustrated by present conditions. Yet now, when the income of the agricultural worker in terms of money has reached what is evidently a permanent lower level, one sees Henry Ford proclaiming that wages in industry should reach the $27 a day level by 1950, and hears Presi dent Hoover insist that there is no necessity to reduce wages, salaries, and incomes in the industries, and presumably in government circles. But common sense demands that the incomes of the various elements of the production of which keeps half the world busy, can be maintained at a rna::L.'.urn orJy when every body can buy everybody else’s pro duct, or, conversely, everybody can sell his product. But there is no man so big a fool in the whole world as to imagine that the price of cotton, wheat, or corn, of cotton cloth, meats, etc., can be lifted to levels that would assure a $27 a day income to the toilers in those indus tries! At present prices a man would have to produce and gather a half bale of cotton every day in the year to make such an income, when it is apparent that it would take five days, as they average, for a man even to pick cotton sufficient to produce such an income. Cotton at a dollar a pound would not serve to pay all workers in the cotton fields any such day wage, nor one comparatively effective in purchas ing the comforts, of life, the com parative cheapness of many things needed by the agricultural worker being duly considered. Then, if it is not possible to raise the level of the income of the workers of one-third the population of the country to anything like parity with the prevailing wage, salary, or industrial income assured millions in other fields of indus try and in governmental service, it should be clear that the only other means of bringing about any degree of parity and establishing thereby a free interchange of products is to work at both ends. The engineer who wishes to secure a level over hill and dale does not undertake to fill up the vales to the level ot the hills, but cuts from the hills and fills in the valleys with the earth from the cuts. Similarily, the eco nomic engineer must seek a fair grade between the sunken incomes of the producers of raw materials and the swollen ones of the pro ducers of goods supplied at their own prices to the well-to-do and of the men in government employ, whose incomes are becoming in effect greater every days as the prices of essentials are lowered and he must do so not by trying to fill in the income holes in the former group with material that exists only in the imagination, but must cut into the incomes of the favored groups, thus lowering them and at the same time securing material wherewith to fill the holes in the incomes of the agricultural and other basic workers. An easy gradient thus may be secured and the way paved for a continuous traffic of industry and commerce. So long as the idea prevails that one group may have all it is now getting and has been getting and that the poverty-stricken group is to be supplied by some hocus-pocus, the wheels of industry must remain clogged. Maybe what has been written is not very clear, but the idea is that it is the evening up •of incomes that is essential. The actual elevation of the level •means very little. A railroad train runs as readily on a level as upon a level track on a ten-thousand-foot plateau. The level ness is what counts. Similarly, it is not how low cotton or tobacco is, but only the level of incomes in all the industries that prepares a highway for business and for an all-prevailing prosperity. But the car of prosperity cannot override the economic peaks of the millionaire producers, the five and ten thousand to fifty thousand dollar salaries of government and corporation, and plough through, the same day, the morass of poverty resulting from farm incomes of S3OO or S4OO. A leveling-up is all that is needed. Fill the morasses with the hill tops. In brief, cut down the incomes of the luxury-enjoying and fortune-building class to the level of enough, and automatically the poverty income will be lifted to a level of suf ficiency. 0 TO USE WISELY IS TO SAVE Dean Inge, referred to in another editorial, says that when he wa.s young it was accounted the proper thing to save one-third of one’s in come and invest it. But doesn’t the Dean see that such a rule ap plied universally is out of the ques tion? As stated recently in this paper, the world must necesarily live from hand to mouth. The products of one year cannot be indefinitely saved; a large part of the world’s annual produce is perishable. It is the con ception of money as wealth that makes otherwise sensible people see awry. Actual wealth can be saved only by using it wisely. Indeed, the accumulation of money is not nec essarily a saving. On the other hand, it may easily mean less wealth produced and preserved. Only such labor and material as are employed in the prdduction of permanent structures, machinery, soil improvement, building up of herds, in the manufacture of per manent household goods, and in other such uses as increase the pos- THE CHATHAM RECORD, PITTSBORO, N. C. sibilities of production, including transportation and distribution, for a period of years, represent the true savings of any year. Savings ac counts arq no criterion. If every body had SIO,OOO in the bank, few would be better off. Money is not wealth. Using wisely is the only possible means of saving. Accordingly, when the few grab the lion’s share of the produce, jmany are unable to use the legitimate products of la bor capital, and labor and capital are diverted to illegitimate, or un economic, productions which find their support in the excess of the grabbers. The world needs to use each year the products of the previous year that the urge *. for continuous production may prevail. When a full consumption of essentials prevails, many of those now engaged in the production of non-essentials will be busy building homes, making furni ture, providing better and more abundant food for those who now must needs forego them. Moreover, when the world gets busy there will be enough for every body and to spare; old-age, widow’s, disability and non-employment pen sions may be easily paid, and thus the need for life insurance elimin ated, and the army of men engaged in that non-economic business be released for still greater creations of wealth. ® ONE GROUP GRAVELS; THE OTHER SPLURGES Dean Inge of England marvels at the waste of money in the United States upon pleasures, and well he may. But there is a reason. So large a percentage of the people of the country get more than enough for food, raiment, shelter and other essentials, that a surplus exists for pleasures. Accordingly, tens of thous ands are engaged in furnishing pleasure schemes who, under a rnpre equitable division of the products of the country, would be busy produc ing things for those who now can not buy sufficient food, clothing, and household goods. Moreover, the devotion of the fortunate element of the people to pleasure has pro duced an urge upon the less for tunate to share in the same, and thus money that should go to es sentials is often spent for the use less, or at least non-essential. Even here in Pittsboro a third of the families have no reason to know that times are hard. In fact, every day that prices are lowered finds them really more prosperous, and with more money to spend on non essentials. All last week a show here had goodly crowds. A peewee golf course and a pool room have fair patronage—at least sufficient to en able them to survive. On the other hand half the people are striving to make ends meet, and some of them failing to do so. Every county employee, including teachers, every state employee, the' railroad, bank, post office employees and RFD carriers, all, are getting the same incomes, or practically the same, as in more prosperous times; while every one of their dollars goes fur ther than it did even three mnoths ago. So long as a large element of the people are independent of the rise and fall of prices, enjoying in comes based upon scales of a high price period, so long will there be money to support pleasure outfits, and so long will another part of the people do without essentials. It is within the power of the peo ple to reduce the incomes of the government pie-eaters, and that would almost necessarily lead to a reduction of salaries and incomes in the fields of industry, since it would produce a competition now non existent. It is hardly fair, for in stance, for the railroads to be able to demand an increase in freight rates in order to maintain salaries all out of proportion to the incomes of men equally diligent in other spheres of activity. All the high salaries and big incomes of the great enterprises are made pos sible only by the patronage of those who are actually upon the verge of ruin and want, and yet the money thus taken from the poor largely goes to suport the orgy of pleasure at which Dean Inge mar vels. ■ <s> THE SOLUTION EASY The school tangle in Johnston county becomes worse. The Republi can commissioners cut the buget $51,000, to which the board of education agreed rather than to bring suit as it did last year. But the board had to cut down the num ber of teachers suggested by thg terms of the Hancock bill, reduc ing the number 84. Now the state equalization board declines to allow the full equalization quota allowed when the number of teachers was at the maximum, and it means that Jonnson people would have to pay V ,N \ \ W dfh\ oFF FoR voU J I CAN the same school tax as last year, yet be short 84 teachers. The whole difficulty arises from the law’s taking the bargaining power from the school authorities. The Johnston funds would employ the requisite number of teachers if it were per mitted the school board to re duce salaries and get them at what the county can afford to pay. A solution for this year is very dif ficult, but easy enough for coming years. The solution is merely the re peal of the teachers salary scale, leaving school authorities and tea chers with the privilege of bargain ing that other people have when they go to employ men or women for business jobs. <t> Because of he similarity of Dr. Wm. E. Dodd’s views to those of our own, we are printing a letter of his to the News and Observer. The danger of the submerging of the great majority of the people of this country is a real one, and it is high time that the people’s representatives in Congress begin to study fundamentals, if economic practices are based upon incor rect fundamentals, and they must be or history would not so often repeat itself -in the reduction of the masses of the people to states of peasantry and worse, no patch work upon the old wine bottle will do. It is probable that a new bottle is needed, and the man who is afraid to look the facts in the face is not the man to represent the people in their legislative bodies. The Record congratulates Mrs. W. C. Hammer upon being offered the nomination for the short term in Congress, to fill out her deceased husband’s term, but more sincerely upon her good sense and patriotism in not accepting it. If the com mittee had used as good sense in nominating for th ft e two terms after her declination as she used in de clining, it would have been well. There is a deep need for strong men in Congress, who will study fundamentals. Not even Solomon could have hoped to effect any thing worth while in a three-months stay in Congress, with no previous study of the problems such as con front legislators today. Hence, the sending of Hinton James up there for three months is plumb foolish. It is only a sop to his ambition. If Lambeth is the right man he should have been given both terms, as Hancock was in the fifth district, that he might be laying a founda tion for future w T ork. If Lambeth is not the man, then the sending of James is of no serious import. The point is: The position of congress man now is too important to w T aste in mere compliments. <S> Parent-T eachers’ Association Items Mr. Waters Made Vice-President of the Northcentral 'District of the P. T. A. At the district meeting of the Parent-Teacher Association, which was held in Franklinton Saturday, October 4th. Mr. J. S. Waters w r as elected vice president. Tbi c i- r distinct compliment to Mr. Waters, who has taken an active interest in the parent-teacher work for several years. ,'* * * * Visitors’ Night The Parent-Teacher Association will meet Friday evening, October 10 at 7::30 o’clock. All parents are requested to make a special effort to be present. This occasion is being rated “Visitors’ Night.” Know your school. ** * « Seniors Give Program. The seniors of the Pittsboro High School gave a program at their chapel exercises Monday morning which was intended to instruct in the early history of our country and to inspire a deeper and more enlightened patriotism on the part of the pupils. A brief history of four of the colonies was recited and an appropriate song was song for each colony. The last number was Dixie, sung on this occasion in honor of the memory of Mrs. Henry A. London, was was a friend of the school and a model of patriotic citizenship. All the seniors took part in the songs. Those who spoke were: George Griffin, Helen Crews, Jan everette Ward, James Cordon and Viola Mann. Mrs. Anna Van Sike as Venice, Cal., celebrated her 70th birthday by going* 'swimming, as is her annual custom. He who never suffers persecution will never become a Buddha.—Ja panese proverb. I LONGER LIFE I I ROOFS AT NO | | EXTRA COST f 1 1 i 5V For just about the same price you & V £■ would pay for any ordinarily good roof- |3 r , I ing material, we can cover your home ty . PS with Richardson shingles, the kind that i ' u 9 will never wear away or will never burn. Richardson shingles can be had in colors to harmonize pleasingly with the feS general decorative scheme of your home. P , fej They combine beauty and durability to the nth degree. ■ I THE BUDD-PIPER | I ROOFING CO. | DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA THURSDAY, OCTOBER a Californian Visiting Home of Ancestors Dr. H. Leon Jones, of San Diego, Cal., is making a ten-day visit to relatives in this section. He is the guest chiefly of his uncle, H. B. Jones, at his delightful country home, Riverside Farm. Dr. Jones is son of the late John B. Jones, who in early life went west to seek his fortune, locating at Williams, Arizonia. He lived to middle life to enjoy the success attending his venture, leaving his widow and two children, a son and a daughter. Dr. Jones, of course, is the son. Dr. Jones has, for three years, been practicing orthopoedic surgery, but deciding to specialize, he has been taking a course in bone sur gery, as applied to rupture and crip ples. He expects to complete this course in December and plans to locate' in Los Angeles, Cal. This is Dr. Jone’s first visit to his uncle’s home since he was a child. His visit to the old home of his father includes a visit to his aunt, Mr. Jones’ only sister, Mrs. James Holt of Burlington. There are many other relatives also who are glad to extend to him a warm greeting of welcome. The sister of Dr. Jones is wife of the aviator Sampson, spying government mail from Cleveland to New York. Mrs. Sampson often ac companies her husband on his flights with the mail. t -
The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, N.C.)
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Oct. 9, 1930, edition 1
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