248 ELLIS H. ROBERTS 



to distribute his stocks and bonds may be punished, and 

 those who have petted his schemes may suffer. A trust 

 company which puts all its assets into one concern invites 

 ruin. One swallow or two do not make summer. The failure 

 of one bank or two does not create a panic. A shrinking of 

 inflated securities to their true value is not a public calamity. 

 Individuals may be crippled, industry and enterprise may 

 have to rest on their oars. Our financial system cannot 

 totter, much less be wrecked. Undue favors may have been 

 shown by some banks to promotors, but they are correcting 

 their blunders and looking out for more healthful business. 



Prices of commodities have undoubtedly been borne up- 

 ward by the inflation. Special influences have afl"ected iron; 

 Bessemer pig which was $10.25 in August, 1898, cost $21.75 

 at the same time in 1903; steel billets in the same interval 

 have risen from $14.75 to $34; No. 2 red winter wheat which 

 was 74 became 74 J; mess pork from $9.75 jumped to $18.25, 

 and family beef from $11.50 to $15; cotton from 5rk advanced 

 to S^%; Ohio fleece wool fell from 28 to 27. 



By index numbers the advance of all commodities has 

 been from $76,808 to $97,891, or twenty one points. On 

 full examination, the Employers' association of Chicago finds 

 that the cost of living in this country has increased fifteen 

 per cent in five years. Carroll D. Wright, head of the bureau 

 of labor, with all the data of the anthracite coal commission, 

 declares the advance to be from fifteen to seventeen per cent. 

 These figures may be accepted as authoritative. Advance 

 in wages follows increase in cost of living. In recent years 

 it has come fast and strong. Large railway companies and 

 other corporations have added fifteen per cent at one step 

 to wages paid, to meet the recognized advance in cost of living. 

 The drift had been downward in wages from 1893 to 1898; 

 since it has been steadily upward. In many cases it has ex- 

 ceeded the rise in cost of living. The general average may 

 safely be stated at from fifteen to twenty per cent. Persons 

 with fixed incomes are burdened with the heavier cost of 

 living without any offset, as they have the benefit of a fall 

 in prices of commodities, when that occurs. When wages 

 go up, the purchasing power of those who earn them rises 



