VOLUME III.___ DUNN, N. C., JULY IS, 1935 NUMBER13
LOPPING OFF BRANCHES OF A NOXIOUS PLANT NOT ENOUGH
A Discussion of the Economic Principles Justifying President Roosevelt’s Demand For Taxes Upon
Large Incomes, Inheritances and Gifts
There is a jocular saying that the way to stop
a bad dog's career is to chop his tail off just back
of the ears. That is a thorough-going cure for a
biting dog. Not topping it or cutting off its ex
tending branches is the way to rid a grove of- a
noxious tree. The remedy lies in destroying it,
root and branch.
On the next page is an article from the hand
of that thoughtful citizen and good business man,
Mr. Paul Barringer of Sanford. Mr. Barringer
inveighs against “Interest” as the barrier to
general prosperity. In presenting the article, Mr.
Barringer expresses the fear that he may be
misunderstood—so radical does he deem his con
ception of interest as a noxious weed in the eco
nomic field.
Perhaps, Mr. Barringer has forgotten, that
he has been anticipated by no less a personage,
than Henry Ford in his condemnation of interest
as a bar to general well-being, not to mention
Mosos. They are right—but only as one is right
who inveighs against a branch of a poison oak
plant, when the root is the trouble. The offending
branch is, perhaps, only one of several of annual
growth that cause distress.
The Root of Interest And Other Noxious
tsrancnes
The function of money is to facilitate exchange
of commodities and services. Its diversion from
its function of exchange unbalances the processes
of production and consumptiqn: In a system^
barter the process- is not complete till an equafc
value of each commodity has exchanged hands.
Under this fundamental system, it is practically
impossible, for one producer to accumulate a pre
servable wealth that he may rely upon for sus
tenance of himself and family for even a few
years, not to speak of generations. Suppose a
wheat grower has a surplus above personal needs.
He may exchanve part or all of it, tin ler a barter
system, for his needs of the products of produ
cers of other commodities or for personal servi
ces. If he has a thousand bushels above his need
left, he cannot reasonably expect to preserve it
for the sustenance of his family twenty years
hence, and only in case of crop, failure the P°m
uig year would it be worth preserving at all. You
should plainly see. from this one example, that
a strict system of barter would prevent the de
velopment of a group of parasites.
Under a strict barter system of .the kind sug
gested a good manager in possession of a. good
plantation or mill site, might build a mansion,
have servants galore, and live upon the f^t of
the land, but consumption and production would
always balance each other. Even if he managed
to double his land holdings, the same balance
would be maintained. The more produced, t e
more who consume; the less produced, the short
en die rations for all concerned. The Southern
dave-holder in 1865, whatever his holdings o
land, found himself in poverty, and during t e
latter years of slavery some large, riave-ho ers
found it difficult to maintain the*/ households,
which were constantly increasing while the soi s
were deteriorating .Only the fact that slaves
themselves were chattels enabled them to preserve
their credit.
11 lit where the workers are not chattels, an
a strict barter exists, consumption and pro uc ion
must balance. Nobody would attempt to store up
h's own productions, nor those he has exchange
his own for, year after^year. And no sensible m
dividual would continue to grow a useless sur
plus.
Xot only would a strict system of barter serve
t° balance production and consumption, u 1
would also serve to maintain a fair adjustmen
prices and wages. All that any producer or
any employer could expect, for himseli >*ou
he immediately put to use—immediately app y*
fo the period during which products can be
without deterioratitn or debarring expense. U)
seqnently, the rewards of. dependents or emp ®
ees would vary directly with the amount an
riety of production. For instance, when there
was no cash market for staple farm crops in the
slave-holding South, there was no incentive, in
case of big crops, plenty of fat porkers, lush
pastures and a flourishing herd of milch cows,
for a master to starve his slaves. It was either
eat it or let it waste.
Moreover, it is apparent that, under a strict
/—---——\
rhey Appreciate the Voice
It. isi very easy for one to have a pa
per or magazine come to his home and,
absorbed in a mass of other reading
matter, fail to discover its worth. The
'Voice has hesitated to play up many
unusual expressions of appreciation
of the paper, but in view of the above
observation,' perhaps it is better for
all concerned that an occasional ap
preciation be emphasized in order to
put on the alert s*uch subscribers as
havd not read the paper with the de
gree of attention it requires in order
to discover whatever of merit it has.
AN EDITOR’S KIND EXPRESSIONS
OF, APPRECIATION
Immediately, after the distribution
of the July 1st issue, came the follow- ?
mg chefring note from one of the
~ strong young editors of the state, Cy
rus Bazemore, editor of the Bertie
Ledger-Advance—-a graduate of the
University, who spent much . of his
time while at Chapel Hill helping Lou
is Gravest get out his Chapel Hill
Weekly. I can but conceive Mr. Baze
more as a fairly competent critic of
North Carolina papers. Here is what
he wrote:
“Dear Mr. Peterson:
“Just a simple word to say that I
read the Voice each issue, and often
feel like shouting AMEN to things
you say therein. You are not only
RIGHT in your views, but you possess
an amazingly clear and potent quality
of expression. You are a THINKIER.
Your articles are classics. I wish they
could be shouted from the housetops
that all might hear.”
FROM A GREAT SCHOLAR
In a delightful letter accompany
ing an undue renewal, Dr. George W.
Paschal, of Wake Forest College,
says':
“Your paper is so. good that 1 am
keeping a file of it, and upon my ad
vice the college librarian is also keep
ing a file.”
If the State’s Voice is half as good
as either of these gentlemen say, can
you afford not to spare a dollar for a
whole year’s subscription?
barter system, both parties would have less incen
tive to drive a hard bargain. Suppose I do swap
mv corn for twice as much of things I cannot
use what profit? Nor is it assumable that if, un
der such a system of barter, all men could start
eVjCn—all with equally fertile soil or other means
of livelihood and fairly equal intelligence, health,
and energy, would it happen that one would live
in a mansion with many servants and another in
a hovel with scarcely enough to eat. The great
landed estates of this country were due largely
to the location ana quality of grants and to ar
rival in the new land with at least a modicum of
capital More recent accumulations of lands have
been due to a cash system of marketing and to a
speculation that would have *had no place for
development under a strict-sysfem o barter. Oth
ers have, it is true, been attained through long
hours of labor and skimpy living, as a starter,
and increased by both methods. In that case, the
man who rose to fortune did so by means that
would not have been available under a strict bar
ker system. For it is evident that he could tiot
have swapped the produce of, say, his tiny farm
for the hundred acres of cheap land he soon is
able to buy by skimping and selling his surplus
for cash. . _
The latter specimen of the successful man pur
sued a system which necessarily unbalanced pro
duction and consumption. He sold wore than he
bought—whether it was < f manual labor or the
products of his little farm. And there lies the root
of interest. * i
When Money Comes* Upon The Scene
When cash markets become available, with
them come the incentives to miserliness, to over
long working hours, to payment of less than liv
ing -wages, to making hard bargains, to specula
tion, and to every other process which tends to
enable one to lay up a living for the future—for
fear comes with opportunity. In brief, it be
comes the desire of .every man to give or sell
less than he receives and to lay up the difference
in rash or lredit. Only now can INTEREST ap
pear upon the scene, and it appears only as a
minor character in the tragic drama which is al
ready on the boards. The principal, attended by
its method of accumulation and its effects upon
the balancing of 'productba and. consumption, is
the real' vidian ofv the play. Interest is simply a
•satellite, a very puppet of the chief villian. Kill
all the chief villians and the puppets perish with
• them. ■
The Consequence of the Unlimited Privi
lege of Accumulating Cash and Credits.
The result of such a system without limitation
upon the amount of cash and credits one niay
accumulate on the condition that, at the possess
or’s pleasure, he may withdraw from the com
mon wealth the equivalent, or more, of that which
he declined to use when his own product, wheth
er labor or goods, went upon the market, is that
the balanc ; of production and consumption dur
ing such a regime is utterly unbalanced and the
production of many future years placed un er
mortgage, for every dollar of currency and Q
solvent credit is nothing short of a first mortgage
' to the extent of its face vaalue upon any vendible
. commodity in the country, from the humblest
brawn to the most priceless skill or product of
skill and capital. . '
Let all production stop this hour and ncn
America cannot live two years with any degree
of comfort. Yet there are protfebly
htndreds of billions of dollars of existing
currency and credits laid away, as
wealth, mind you—enough to feed and clothe
• holders for many years, provided it at all times
■ be redeemable in real wealth.
Time and again, I have demonstrated that the
vorld lives from hand to mouth and that it is
impossible for the present to get aid from the
future. Hence a mortgage upon the future is. not
. the chief ill consequence of such an insane pro
cedure, since the future will, if the present dis
astrous methods continue, unquestionably have
its mortgage upon its future. Yet a mortgagees
future is, per se, an evil. But that period irv whiqh
the sum of the mortgages is reaching its inaxi
mum, as in the case of the last two decades, b
the worst sufferer. For during that period does
the greatest disturbance in the balance of poten
tial production and. actual consumption occur.
We are now seeing an attempt to constrain pro
duction within the range of a’consumption arti
ficially bolstered, or to lift the level of consump*
. tion, reduced by the process descnhed to the
level of an artificially reduced production.
The best brains of the country and tens of
. thousands of men and women are busy trying
to overcome the consequences of the amassing
(Continued on Page Five)