Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1877 — The Delirium of Promise. [ARTICLE]

The Delirium of Promise.

No sooner does there promise to be a fair yield of salable staples and a generous distribution of merchandise than all the speculators jump to the conclusion that the Eden of sudden wealth has come back again. Quotations are pushed up in the grain market apd the stock market beyond all probability of realization or of productive value; the coal producers demand another dollar per ton without apparent reason in supply and demand, and everybody makes a push to get back to the state of things which, in more rational moments, we all identify with unhealthy expansion, and with a rapidity of getting rich which we do not seriously expect to see return. This constant struggle to get back what we ought to let go is the chief obstacle which meets every reviving influence. The effort to assume and impose a value where, as yet, none exists, or where its nominal existence is due to fraud and ought to be wiped out in the long run of trade equalizations; the endeavor to raise the moderate profits of this era to the swelling per cents, of other days—these are. the stumbling blocks in the way of set.led prosperity. The acceptance of low prices, low profits, low wages, low valuations and the biding of them, will distinguish business for some time to come. These conditions are with prosperity, and wo shall call ourselves prosperous when employment at living wages is offered to all who ask it. Wo see all the favorable influences and facts in the fall situation which are visible to everybody, but we regret to see them forestalled by a speculative delirium inappropriate and disproportioned to the occasion. It is like the laborer with a destitute family who, when he is offered a day’s work, gets his wages in advance, and dissipates with a grand drunk the hours which should have been devoted to toil. Of course, there is no need of worrying. Values will drop back again in due season, without our assistance, but it is a proper time to remind speculators, corporations and people in general that modesty of expectation and of greed are more appropriate to the time and more helpful to the general welfare. It is for the general interest that everybody should have at least a half loaf before the scramble begins for the whole one, for oidy on this condition can the accumulation of surplus become general and the means of expenditure universal. —Springfield, Republican.