prosperity” which has seemed to be beginning to wane. There is something grotesque about this, for half the people of the country have been wondering what kind of a tide of prosperity has it been that has not flowed over them. Whatever we have had, leaving the white collar workers and the farmers in discomfort as it has done, it has not been a tide of prosperity. That there has been a great activity in business is undeniable, but industrial activity and economic prosperity are two different things. The desire to maintain the tide of industrial activity may be translated into the wish to maintain fantastic wages for building mechanics and consequently high rents for houses, to continue to starve the railways and enhance the difficulties of transportation, to court the danger of another shortage of anthracite coal next winter, to aggravate the shortage of schools; and in the meanwhile to build more millions of automobiles, to squander more labor on highway maintenance and to promote the enjoyment of the luxury of leisure and the need for amusement by many people who ought to be working. In my judgment this is a cruel, unholy, and surely disastrous program.
Our thoughts will be clarified if we consider the fundamentals of economics. A people maintains itself by work—by nothing else unless the bounty of nature gives it food for nothing and the climate is so mild that shelter and clothing are unnecessary and the people are content to live in such a primitive way. In civilized countries, however, people have to work in order to provide their food, clothing, shelter, fuel, means of transportation, etc., and they have to work somewhat harder than for hand to mouth needs in order to provide for future requirements. In the United States this
