A PAPER FOR THINKING PEOPLE
VOL. I.
DUNN, N. C., OCTOBER 1, 1933; ‘ r ^
^NUMBER 18
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. The people have really again become concerned /
In the study of economic principles. More than four
years ago, .when I wrote almost exactly what had
been happening, what wag happening, and would
necessarily happen, as the event has proved in prac
tically every instance. I could not get a serious con
sideration of the articles from even the stronger
editors of the State. Every line of the articles was
based upon. observation and logical inference. let
the reception , of those articles may be illustrated
by the remark of an editor when asked if re had
read them. “I Wave glanced over them,” he replied,
“but I think things will go on just as they* have
been going.” He knows better now, as do tens -.of
millions of others and as a result a new disposition
toward the examination of the fundamentals of -eco
nomics eScists. - ' v • -
* Yet I am convinced that many of those who think
that they are studying fundamentals, or basic prin
ciples are, still digging in layers far above the mud
sills or the pilings underlying the economic struc
ture. : : ~
Hi “The Same Old Editorial”
In one of the earlier .numbers of the State’s VoicS,
I discussed ^pme of these basic principles. But rep
etition is necessary. Joe Turner, .the. long-time) Ral
eigh editor, had the right idea of the necessity of
repetition. He had a principle which he wished to
impress upon the state. One time after another'he
' repeated his arguments in .editorials under this 01
{hat title. Finally, when-no new title suggested.it--..
'self, he repeated his.. arguments under the; head- -
fng;, .“The Same. .Old Editorial.^ H^rpip^ iipon the
* same string becomes tiresome,, but .that, is the S<S
cret of successful propaganda. .The revolution ih
prohibition sentiment is due to a continual harping
of. the interested parties on the. string of prohibi
tion failure. And that is my only hope to secure t* a
- attention, of even a few to my. conceptions. of real
_ fundamentals. No .longer is needed a-elation call for
the study of fundamentals. My bald statement, of
the summer of 1929 that there were, two "groups In
particular who did not, know what bad happened
and was happening, big. business men and the mem
bers of .the administrtaion, including congressmen,
is now -readily accepted. But, just as the .supposed
leaders in those earlier years were satisfied with
a study of mere superficials i and needed to he a
roused to digging for rotten foundations in the eco- ?
.nomic system', they now should be warned that, tfie
basic principles lie deeper than they even now <5on
-ceive, and that-their repair work, in, the long run, ■
•will be as lueffeotulal so. long as confined to mere
.secondary principles-as their former tinkerings with
superficials were. .• • ^i -c
, . . The Mudsill ui sound w;wiuimcs . -
In my front-page editorial of the issue of Septem
ber 15 and in the editorial of/September 1,; entitled.
rf'How- ’Long Shall North Carolina Permit a Caste
Sysitem”, I called 'attention (to praeticefs that pre
vent a just division of:the commonfwealth of the’
people, and even a full production of such wealth.
But there are practices based upon a .fallacious
"foundation of the whole- schfeme. of economics. They .£
are resting upon a mudsill utterly rotten, one which
'must he replaced With a souM timber-on stfiCstooje
before any ofl the economic structure can be safe
againstithe winds and-tid^,. the .earthquakes, of ;the
recurring economic seasons Or cycles.- As the tariff
and other tinkerings were of unavailing teffectu^lr
1 hesg in the days of mere superficial study-of cconom
ic principles, and prevailing practices. proved utterly
futi^against the storms that Bad ,l^en ^hr'
' decades, so will all the replacements of upper
though deeper lying, foundations prove futile in the
-* long-run. Like the house built upon the sands,- the
tumble must comb. It m!ay be long between the
stress of storms that deyastate What has been con- -
^ eidercd safe, yet Virginia JBeach, Norfolk, New Bern
and other North Carolina and. Virginia communities
now know that they were counting' upon unsafe con
ditions when the real test should come. Galveston
learned its lesson a third of a century ago and is
safely ensconced behind it great sea‘WaH—no make
shifts would satisfy Galveston.
The Fundamental of Fundamentals. ; r
The mudsill, the pilings, the solid rock foundation,.,
of a true system of economics is a true conception
of the ■* relations' of the ,pT resent land the
future. And "that lies in this simple and obvious'
fact: THE FUTURE CANNOT SnABE THE RE
SPONSIBILITIES OF THE PRESENT. ;: *
The present may, and does, assist the future, but
the r remote) futuje only in the provision of perma^
rent structures, equipments, clearings 'of lands, soil
improvements, inventions, and development of
sound thinking and practices. The more, or less im
mediate future is, of course, dependent upon the
present. The autumn's harvest depends upon the
spring’s sowing; the herds of three years hence are
the calve® of the present. > r? I \
Fallacious Safeguards For the-Future. ' v
On the other hand, there is as great misapprehen
sion of the effectiveness of certain supposed safer
guards for the future as there' iq of the possibility
of sharing the responsibilities of the..present with
the future. When the future of, forty years hence
becomes the present, neither gold nor silver,- bonds
nor mortgages, laid up now as security for that dis?
tanlt day will add one grain of com or,wheat, one
pound of meat, one ell of cloth, one shingle, one drop
of gasoline, one watt of power, or any item of any
thing imaginable as helpful or . needful to the gen
eration then surviving. And" such attempted pro
vision for the fuutre serves only to disturb the equil
ibrium of economic production and distribution and
to harass a portion of the population to no purpose
tinder the sun. And the foregoing is as applicable
to eridowtdent funds and' insurance reserves, as to
gold iiaggevtaf
an individual. - .
Viewed From the Viewpoint of the Whole
' •''r Social Body \
It would seem hardly necessary to suggest to one
of mental calibre sufficient to comprehend the prin
ciples involved in this article that the foregoing does
not apply to the Individual’s welfare but to that of
the whole social body. Yet to* prevent- any one's
jumping a.t the conclusion that I am unmindful of
the full implications of these suggestions, I here do
incorporate the limitation. Yet if some one unborn
discovers himself in possession of a gold nugget laid
up for him forty years before, he may. he. assured that
the foresight of his benefactor, is at the expense of
the .'generation in which the gohUis'spent for consum
able tyealth. Nothing has been created by the
hoarding; only recognized tight to share in the
wealtn of ms asyenaoies itne individual. to proiit
from the foresight; of his benefactor;, of years gone
by. ’ And that would be just aS true whether the
nugget had been circulatinginthe channels of com
merce with interest accruing to the remote legatee as
if hoarded all those years. Indeed, the former
would have resulted In l(a greater inroad upon the
common store of goods, by the legatee, to the' severer
loss of the whole social <> body. Nothing in either -
case has been added ito the ■ present, of the actual
spending .of the nugget. - Hence, it should be clear
that society’s safeguards .aginst ;future poverty lies
wholly in the spheres indicated above. ** ': .
The .Present Distress Due to an Impossible Attempt j
■■ - to Transfer .Responsibilities in the Future „
'- Of course, every attempt ito. provide for the remote
future comprehends an attempt to.make the,future
share the -cost of present expense. Arid' so long as
"society does -not TeCognizeifs right as superior/ to
that of any or every individual and so tong, .as the
individual pees his future unguarded by the delayed
assumption of the social body of its right and ; its
accompanying responsibility, the ihdiyidual. Is jus
tided in seeking to safeguardthe future for himself
and family, though-such an attempt Invariably men
aces the whole?'well-being, of the future social; body
and thereby, to some extent, threatens, the very re
verse of what he has sought in his attempt at pro
vision for the future. -At this very moment, for fllus- 5
tration, colleges and insurance-companies are find
ing part-of their endowment or reserve funds be-'
home a handicap rather than an asset, and only the
revolution which is in progress, under the direction
of President Roosevelt,; has prevented a much larger
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proportion of those assvts thus detertpcating; „ For
example, I. passed, with a friend, a vacant building
in Louisburg. The friend remarked, that the build*
ing belongs to Wake Forest College,-^.Jjt was not only
vadant, but apparently would remain so, so far as a
profitable tenant is concerned. It had been taken
in an a foreclosure, and instead of affording income
is demanding outgo for insurance, taxes, and upf;
keep. , Yet, according to. the^peasoning above and to
follow, the situation which, caused the. vacation of
the. property is largely^-due to the very prevailing
process of attempting to provide Incomes for thd
fixture.
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- As pointed out above,' every attempt to provide s
v future income, except that of sheer hoarding, conn
prehends. an attempt on the. part of the borrower ixj,
foist upon the future his present’s burden, and go -
long as individual initiative remains, such borrow
ings fcr building honies and so -forth will he neces
sary. But such are minor* and individual loads for i
the future, and may be justified..on^the ground that
the provision of a home is.,a. necessary task .for
every family, and that the borrowing .and immediate
building, of tft^ home is less a violation of the prin?
eiple enunciated in this article than| wbuld be the
gradual hoarding of funds for several years and ’
their then expenditure in the. goods and labor of tbfefc
day, which method means that each of the former
years has undergone a slight disturbance of its equil
ibrium in consumption and "thus produced a degree
of shortage or waste of production, . ^ *
Government the,Great, Offender. * *’
Government, especially the supreme sovereign, is
the great offender against thisgprinciple. Any^e^-.;
ttndetfPkeui t»y
dividual enterprise but a public , ope. It is, if a
sound or sane expenditure, for the benefit of the ■
whole public. Not one item of material or labor can
•r
go into the enterprise except that, at the moment ac
tually or potentially existing. .And every item of
labor and material as used. must come from ap ex
isting surplus, and, if 'wisely expended, from .a .sur
plus that does hot necessitate.scrimping or suffer
ing by any soul because of the withdrawal "of such
labor or material from private or individual enter
prise or procesg of consumption.
- That! was true of the expenditures- of the worlj^
war as much so as. for the least public enterprise!
-Not one item of material and labor expense of
war eould possibly, be drawn from the future, ,
.laborers and the ..materials, from shoes to. ships,. ex
isted at the moment when used, and it was labor and
material that could be spared: from private enter
prise. Instance as proof the great surpluses that
were found to exist when-the war was over and. the
extravagance- that prevailed - in America- while thji
war was in progress—never -did the world See -^o
many silk shirts!. .- 1
The world war wasought in it# present. ..Yet,
human • short-sightedness conceive,d- that ■'< its » ooap
could be, in a great measure, transferred to the .fu
ture. • Hence. the burden, of seeming .debt, .which
.in America, at least, is.nothing but a- crisscross^ of
.debts between the members of the greatngtionaljfam
ily.t Yet all the resources remain; ail the j>otentali
ties of labor, an abounding supply, of materials, .anji
.all that is needed - to - restore , normal .processes
is the -cutting sof the artificial debt, cords, which let
ter the members of the whole social body., . It is- just
.as if the right-arm had the left,bound up so1 as to
suffer -and beconte; incapable- of - exertiop .on..thg
.ground that,-it is due the right for something, th^t
the right- had'.in, excess when .the. loan,., was, made.
.The whole body, is thus,bound, about,with,disturbing
Mjords-because- ^his or- 'that member c^aims^tbe, whole
-owes it, -or some member* .claim.that other members
owe them.- The consequence, is the body and mem
■bers alike-have become, paralyzed and; all suffer tff
rgether. - ^
The War Extrayaganres -Would Have Beat Negligible
f The-", waste of material, and labor in the, war wa^r
immense, but it was material and labor that could
be spared,- and actually wa» spared, and if the U. S.
•government had simply, realized that the. future
could not conti-iubute a whit .to.the expenditure and
Continued .Pn. Eage^.Fivei; k
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