PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 535 



know in a general way commodity prices have begun to fall. In fact, 

 they have fallen to a considerable extent, but falling from a higher spot, 

 and falling at not as great speed as farm product prices, his relative 

 condition is even in this year still worse than it was last year or any 

 other year of the whole series. Again, the young man who drew this 

 chart slipped up a little bit, for commodity prices have not come down 

 as far as he represents them to have fallen; they have come down to 

 156 per cent rather than down to 183 per cent, as he has plotted there. 



Now, I think that the present moment is one when the discussion of 

 the economic outlook is particularly in order — it is an interpretation, and 

 our question is, "If those are the facts, what do they mean?" The state- 

 ment is frequently made that while our prices have been hit — some of 

 them were hit even as far as the second year past — that now these other 

 prices are being hit, and it is being said as the saying frequently runs, 

 we have turned the corner. The present chart hardly shows that we 

 have turned the corner. Possibly somewhere in here during this year 

 we did turn the corner and conditions will tend to pick up — farm prices 

 will improve somewhat, whereas commodity prices will suffer or enjoy 

 still further liquidation. Possibly there will be some turn-up, and next 

 year some expect this line to run horizontal or perhaps on the up-slope. 

 I think there can be no question we have touched bottom and that we 

 have got to the corner — we are at the corner rather than that we are 

 around the corner; or the question may be put this way, "If we are 

 around the corner, what is on the other side?" 



I must confess that I can not come to you as a prophet of any very 

 great amount of optimism. I would certainly not want to, and wouldn't 

 dare, come to you as a prophet of pessimism. It seems to me, however, 

 that any one who attempts to talk on such a subject at the present time 

 should be very much the spokesman for caution. There could be no 

 more serious mistake than to accept easily the doctrine that we are 

 around the corner, or, having hit the low point, we are going to bounce 

 up with anything like the resiliency that is characterized by the war 

 period, or go up with anything like the speed that we have gone down, 

 and I noticed that tendency recently. Some one sold some land in Iowa 

 for $255 an acre the other day, and the statement said this meant the 

 restoration of land prices, the revival of land values. I don't believe that 

 is a proper interpretation to make from it; or we may be inclined to say 

 that crop prospects next year, along in the spring, as we begin to get 

 monthly crop reports indicating a lower yield, and hence we will imme- 

 diately place upon those conditions an interpretation of restored prices. 

 I think there is nothing that could impair the rehabilitation of our agri- 

 culture and the economic stability of our country as a whole more than 

 to mistake those slight indications of improvement for something which 

 is of greater magnitude than we may reasonably expect. In fact, I think 

 that it could be shown that already that tendency has been too great; 

 that in the first place the doctrine of a permanently higher price level 

 was kept before the people, and that that prevented our facing the issues 

 as they did exist in 1919-20, and still continue to exist in 1921. We are, 

 perhaps, impressed just now with the improvement of conditions abroad. 



