34 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



their deposit, and there is a perfectly natural expansion and contrac- 

 tion of your currency that would prove a safeguard to your commer- 

 cial interests and would make much easier, although possibly a little 

 less profitable, the business of the banker. 



Is that the business of the banker? No, that is your job. If out 

 of this special session of Congress, in accordance with the plans of the 

 president, there is brought forth a banking and currency bill for the 

 study of the people, in order that we mayi test its provisions in their 

 actual operation and as applicable to the commerce of this country, 

 then we will find an easier condition this fall; but if there is no 

 legislation to come out of the present session of Congress, not to be 

 passed but to be presented for consideration, then you will find that 

 the difference in interest rates that is natural and normal as between 

 September and March will rule again this year, and the fact that we 

 have not enough to go around will cause you to pay interest rates 

 that will be very detrimental to your business. There is clearly as 

 between the month of March and the month of September a normal 

 difference of interest rate of one and three-quarters per cent. Ordi- 

 narily, in the spring of the year, money can be had in the open market 

 at anywhere from three and one-half to five per cent. In the spring 

 of 1913 there was no money from March on at a rate short of six 

 per cent, and six per cent was the ruling of rates. If you will apply- 

 the normal increase in rate of interest for accommodations granted 

 as between spring and fall you will find where the commercial in- 

 terests of the country will get off as a result of the interests that 

 they will be compelled to pay, owing to a shortage of money with 

 which to transact business. That, I say again, is your problem, and 

 it should be, if you will permit the suggestion, the business of this 

 great organization to send your appeal to President Wilson, that his 

 program for bringing out a currency measure in the special session 

 of Congress shall not be deviated from. It is not a party question; 

 it is not a political question; it is absolutely economic and one of 

 vital interest to our business and your business, and we must have it 

 or we will suffer the consequences in the late fall. 



A short time ago j'our organization received from the Chamber of 

 Commerce of the United States a referendum for the appoinlnient of 

 a permanent tariff commission. Tariff, gentlemen, has, to my mind, 

 been the most abused subject that has ever been presented to the 

 American people and most consistently misrepresented to the American 

 people for many years past. 



There is not today, in spite of the representations that are made 

 in this country by our political friends, a possible chance that the 

 cost of living will be materially reduced as a result of any revision 

 that can be made, even the present logical downward revision. In 

 thirty years in this country of ours we have advanced our circulating 

 medium from fifty-two cents per capita to $S..52 per capita, yet every 

 year the cost of living has increased, not declined. Last year more 

 than fifty per cent of all the imports brought into the United States 

 were brought in free of duty, yet we have no decrease in the cost 

 of living. The cost of living does not depend upon revision of the 

 tariff; it depends absolutely upon the economic condition of this 

 country, upon the wreckless waste, the ruthless waste that goes on 

 because of prosperous conditions where the man who at one time lived 

 comfortably on half what he thinks he can live on today and saved 

 more money than he can save today now believes that it would be a 

 backward step for him to do the things that were common in the 

 time of his early childhood or in the time when his mother and father 

 were children. 



I tell you that is the condition that brings about high cost of living, 

 and we will not see a reduction until such time as the American 

 people become conservative with respect to their expenditures, become 

 economical in the use of their money and in their method of living 

 and find a way back to the old time when we lived just as well, just 

 as happily, just as healthfully on very much less than we think it 

 absolutely necessary to have today. 



Mark this: This organization that arises as a result of the threat 

 of tariff revision has for twenty years cost the laboring man and the 

 laboring woman more money annually than all the saving that has 

 ever come as the result of lower prices due to tariff reduction. The 

 loss of a week's wage of a workman tliat has a family is a greater 



sum than the entire saving that he will make by tariff' reduction upon 

 the articles that will enter into the cost of living, even though that' 

 may be as great as the present bill provides. 



Now, that is a question which is before this American people, that 

 has been always held up as the one thing that our people should pay 

 attention to — ' ' Vote for downward revision in order that we may 

 have lower cost of living," and yet if the figures that I have given 

 you are correct — and you have a right to verify them — they show 

 that in spite of downward revision, in spite of the entrance of our 

 commodities free of duty in the amount that I have stated, more 

 than fifty per cent of our imports, it does not accomplish the thing 

 that has been claimed for it. 



Those are the three economic problems. Briefly, the three other 

 problems are these: Our industrial life has increased in point of 

 productive capacity to the practical point of supplying the maximum 

 demand in domestic markets. In a highly prosperous year the 

 manufacturer finds himself unable to fill the orders that come to 

 his hands. He is compelled to call in his salesmen from the road 

 because of the activity of business and the limited capacity of his 

 mills. It hurts his feeling to think that he has lost the profit of a 

 few dollars on sales and he proceeds to take all of the money that 

 he has made during the year and all that he can borrow to increase 

 the size of his plant in order that he may have the capacity equal 

 to the maximum demand that can arise. That has been going on 

 and on through the period of our industrial development until today, 

 unless we have a domestic market that is supreme and up to the 

 high-water mark, we are absolutely unable to run our mills except 

 at half or two-thirds time. 



What are you going to do about it? The only answer is that 

 you roust find a foreign outlet for the manufactures of this country. 

 We are doing it — you say we are, but not fast enough. What we 

 need as business men is that we shall insist that, in Washington, 

 in the Department of Commerce, there shall be made by Congress 

 an appropriation sufficient to intelligently carry on that work and 

 to aid business, in finding foreign markets and obtain that information 

 which will enable you to gain an intelligent comprehension of what 

 the foreign markets need. 



Our Department of Agriculture stands with tremendous appro- 

 priations that are absolutely right. For one I would not begrudge 

 it a dollar or deny it a single dollar that it asks, for every dollar 

 that is given to the Department of Agriculture makes possible the 

 commerce of this country, and there can be no objection to the use 

 of a paltry few hundred thousand dollars annually for the support 

 of that department which represents the great commercial interests 

 of this country, with the many millions of dollars incidental to 

 the work of that department representing the agricultural interests 

 of this country. If we expand our trade we are going to find it 

 necessary to avail ourselves of the aid of the federal government 

 in securing knowledge of trade conditions abroad so as to make 

 it possible for our manufacturers to find those markets and to 

 cultivate them and to retain them. 



Another factor in this matter of trade development is reciprocity. 

 You are not going to be able to sell the products of the United 

 States in the markets of the world unless you buy something from 

 the markets of the world in return, and there is much necessity 

 that we should establish reciprocal relations between the nations 

 of the earth to whom we expect to sell, and that is the only basis 

 upon which we can expect to expand our trade to any considerable 

 degree. 



The third trade problem is that of the means of carrying our 

 commodities to the markets of the world. We are carrying them 

 today in foreign bottoms. We pride ourselves that we have a 

 great balance of trade in our favor today. Last year the Department 

 of Statistics told us that the balance of trade with us was $500,000,000, 

 and we pride ourselves on the fact that there is a greater amount of 

 gold coming into this country, in payment of the products which 

 we ship out, than there is in payment for the products which we 

 have to import. It is a fallacy. There are $500,000,000 in the 

 balance of trade upon the value of commodities as recorded, exported 

 and imported, with the Bureau of Statistics. There is no account 



