got the news of it across to the public we shall have accomplished a great deal.
Our present organization of life is so complex that the most of the people are unable to think in anything but terms of money, having no conception of the fact that money is nothing but a counter and that what really matters is the goods that we need. The farmer who is supporting himself out of the land and does not raise enough bushels of potatoes, wheat and corn to feed the hungry mouths for which he is responsible is under no illusion that the rest of the community ought to make good his deficiency out of its produce. Yet it is just that which town labor is demanding, and it has so arranged things that to more or less extent it is exacting its demands. Carry this thing to its logical conclusion, the youth starting out at $15 per week may marry and expect the community to make up for the rest of his living costs. The whole conception is absurd.
I am going to digress here in order to point out what seems to me to be a great danger in our present enthusiasm for quantitative economics. We have been captivated by the idea and we are seeing in it the possibilities of not only managing our national affairs in a better way but also the possibility of bringing about increased equilibrium in industry, which is plainly a desirable thing to accomplish. The danger in this is that we shall try to do too much and may act upon incomplete information. I see in this the great hazard of what the Department of Commerce is trying to do, although I fully agree that its motives are most commendable. However, we have lately seen it in an imbroglio over the matter of sugar statistics and we have sometimes seen the Department of Agriculture in trouble over its
