thrust upon them. He says:[1] "It is a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself. Profiteering is the effect, not the cause of the high cost of living. Those who have been trying to make the American people believe that profiteering causes high prices are in a class with the quacks who will tell a consumptive that his loss of weight is due to his high color, instead of saying that both are the symptoms of the tissue destroying bacillus. The answer is that inflation is due to financial mistakes of the Administration at Washington, (1) while we were getting ready for war, (2) while we were at war, and (3) after the war was over. During each of these periods, the Treasury permitted, and indeed, encouraged an increase in the country's money supply, and the certain prospect of rising prices."
Surely it would be justifiable reiteration to weigh again the thoughts of Professor Laughlin in his "Money and Prices," to which reference has several times been made. He says:[2] "As a fall of prices inures to the benefit of creditors, a rise of prices would inure to the benefit of debtors. If it would be wrong to have legislation favoring the creditor class, so it would be wrong to have legislation favoring the debtor class. * * * Think of a civil polity, which in the interest of one set of persons should undertake to regulate the prices of goods in the country's markets. * * * If we are to enter upon that path, it is well to know whither it leads. One such step in Socialism leads to another, and the outcome is the subversion of existing society. * * * Shall we accept dishonor, or shall we disappear down the unknown path
