192 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



gold standard doubtful. The principal cause of the panic, however, was 

 the appreciation of gold. The persistent fall of prices increased the 

 burden of debts and imposed an unmerited hardship upon large numbers 

 of producers. The free coinage of silver was demanded as a measure of 

 relief. The remarkable increase in the world's output of gold relieved 

 the country from the menace of the silver movement. If prices had con- 

 tinued downward, if wheat had fallen to twenty-five cents per bushel, as 

 Mr. Bryan wrongly predicted, the silver agitation would probably have 

 continued unabated. Likewise, the discontent due to the present era of 

 rising prices promises to continue until the cause is removed, or until 

 the depreciation of gold is offset by some monetary device. Economists 

 are at present discussing the practicability of a " compensating dollar." 

 Too much is made of the extent to which industry is occasionally dis- 

 turbed by proposed reforms. Human nature is prone to make a scape- 

 goat of others for failures which belong at home, and this tendency 

 seldom appears in a poorer light than when some man of large affairs 

 blames a leading politician for results due to his own cupidity, lack of 

 judgment or dishonesty. If political discussion did not arouse the 

 unwary and keep the investing public on its guard, there is no telling 

 to what lengths the issue of fraudulent prospectuses, the excessive capi- 

 talization of good will, the merging of properties at fictitious valuations 

 and other methods of high finance would be carried. Neither is it pos- 

 sible to foresee how much mutual confidence and good faith would be 

 undermined and business disturbed if the politician did not stay the use 

 of these methods. The ordinary man often owes the politician a vote of 

 thanks for saving him from the wiles of the manipulator of securities. 

 The dishonest promoter is less in the public eye than the dishonest poli- 

 tician and is therefore more of a menace to the community. The secur- 

 ity market needs more, rather than less, political airing. There is too 

 much parrot-like imitation in making investments, too strong a disposi- 

 tion to accept off-hand opinions as authoritative, too little proneness to 

 analyze reports and to form independent judgments. The result is that 

 the only dollar many people feel sure of is the one they have spent. A 

 leading Chicago daily remarks editorially : 



Neither legislatures nor state commissions are responsible for the troubles 

 of the New Haven system. Yet those who have complained and demanded in- 

 vestigation have been denounced as enemies of railroads and their security hold- 

 ers. What would happen if we had a vast twilight zone in the railroad world; 

 what speculators, would-be monopolists, experts in the art of running railroads 

 from Wall street would do in that zone may be left to the imagination of in- 

 telligent men. 10 



Modern industry is so organized that it alternates between excessive 



activity and stagnation, and if it were possible to divorce business from 



politics there is little reason to suppose that trade fluctuations would be 



"less marked. On the contrary, the reverse would probably prove true. 



is The Seccrd-Herald, July 10, 1913. 



