Indianapolis Times, Volume 34, Number 2, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 May 1921 — Page 3

How Your Prosperity * Is Being Assured — No. I It’s Not Wages You Want, It’s What Wages Will Buy What do you do with money? You spend it—-sooner or later. Therefore the value of money is not the money itself. Its value to you lies in HOW MUCH your money will buy. If we would just keep that in mind, we’d forget to shiver and shudder when the suggestion of wage-reductions is made.

Would ThisHurtYou? If a lower wage next week will still BUY as much as your present wage buys this week, has anything really been taken away from you? Sugar cost you, say, 26 cents a pound last summer. So, when you bought a pound of sugar last summer you plunked down 26 cents. Suppose today, you had only 10 cents as against the 26 cents you had last summer. You could still buy a pound of sugar. Why? Because the cost of sugar has fallen from 26 to 10 cents a pound. You still get your pound of sugar, although you handle LESS money. Has anyone damaged you? Hasn’t Been Suggested Now, of course, no one has proposed a wage reduction in proportion to the reduction in the price of sugar. And no one is going to do it! But the point serves to illustrate the fact that it ISN’T money, primarily, that is the aim and end of our efforts. What we want is WHAT MONEY WILL BUY. And if we still can buy the things we are now buying, what real differ-

The Measure of Money Is “What It Will Buy” Copyright, 1921, Bidecer * VanlUpos,

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ence does it make whether we handle the same amount of money or not? : Ever Do This? Did you ever take SIOO or S2OO or ANY amount of money and spend the evening fondling it —gloating over it? Did you ever put it on the dining room table after the supper dishes had been cleared away and pat it and pet it for two or three hours? Never! Not once! Why not— if it’s merely MONEY you want? The answer is that it ISN’T money —but the things money will BUY—that you WANT. When you want to enjoy MONEY, what do you DO? You SPEND it for something. Wages Is a Price It amounts to this—a reasonable wage reduction would hurt no one if you could still buy as much with a less amount of money. You COULD buy as much with less money, if the prices of the things you buy are reduced. And the prices of the things you buy ARE being reduced. ALL prices are being reduced. And with these reductions in ALL prices must come a reduction in the price of labor.

Wage is a PRICE. And the wage —or PRICE —paid to labor, is being affected in common—and proportionately—with all other prices. Not a Reduction If ALL prices are reduced, we have, in effect—NO REDUCTIONS at all. Merely a READJUSTMENT to a new LEVEL. Merely a restoration of a normal, sound and proper RELATIONSHIP between PRICES. We still buy as MUCH, with LESS money. And it’s what money will BUY—not money itself— that counts. % A New Relationship ALL prices ARE coming down to anew level where they will be equalized and bear a sound, normal and proper relationship to one another. Sugar is an example—an extreme one-daut nevertheless a true one. Food costs less. Clothes cost less. Statistics prepared by the U. S. Department of Labor show that the cost of living reached its peak last summer, and that it has declined steadily ever since. With anew and proper relationship between prices—such as is on the way—we will have stability and happiness. We’ll still be able to BUY as much. Inequalities will be wiped out. We’ll merely handle less money.

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