Music Trade Review
Issue: 1916 Vol. 62 N. 26 - Page 3
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Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
VOL. LXII. No. 26 Published Every Saturday by the Estate of Edward Lyman Bill at 373 4th Ave., New York, June 24, 1916 SIn ff 0Oc< Si!f
l°!? nU
Prosperity After
E
VERYBODY is interested, and rightly so, in trying to calculate the future. The United States to-day
enjoys a measure of prosperity highly agreeable, one which we are all hoping will continue. But
suppose the European war stopped to-morrow! - Should we have a panic, a sudden depression, a
gentle decline; or should we continue to be prosperous?
Some argue that with the stoppage of war the Central Powers will flood the world with cheap goods at any
price, so as to regain lost business markets, and gain a fresh start. This would mean the economic and
industrial invasion of the United States.
Others maintain that the great need of Europe for a generation will be to repair, to rebuild, to set up
what has been thrown down; and that the energies of the European nations will be devoted mainly to these ends.
Either guess may be plausibly supported. So also the argument that there will be a flood of immigration
into this country can be countered by the equally effective retort that all the surviving European males—and
females too—will be needed to rebuild the ruins of war.
Yet all these arguments seem singularly empty. All omit the one most important item;* namely, that the
war is not an ordinary war, but a conflict between nations in arms, a conflict now in process of producing
political changes as profound as the economic revolutions it has alreadyvproduced, a war which is remaking
the old world and can only have an immense influence upon the new.
When the war is over, the first need of the nations will be to rebuild, whether they contemplate enduring
peace or only a temporary lull in preparation for another outburst. The industrial revolution which has
converted the European factories into munition and war-material plants, will not at once lose its influence.
Time will be required to readjust the balance of industrial arrangements.
Again, the millions of soldiers released from military service will by no means all return to industry.
The enormous wastage in agriculture will have to be repaired, and it is safe to say that to put each nation back
into agricultural efficiency will be a task of immediate concern and one which will prevent the re-entry into
industry of enormous numbers of men.
The world's greatest manufactory is the United States. Railroad supplies, steel trackage, locomotives,
agricultural implements, gas engines, and a thousand other articles of similar sort, which can be turned out
in this country better and more economically than anywhere else, will be needed literally by the million. Where
should the European nations look for these needed supplies if not to the United States?
No one need worry about the stocks of cheap goods being stored up to flood the world's markets. The
warring nations have enough to do to manufacture what they need for their armies.
The United States can be naught else than prosperous after the war if the most elementary common
sense is used by American industrial leaders. But this statement means that any attempt to "get rich quick"
at the expense of the European nations will meet with failure.
The financial situation in Europe will be such that American Business must adapt itself to that situation,
accept its conditions, and co-operate to bring back a normal state of affairs.
Short-sighted selfishness will recoil on our own heads, and turn what should be a decade of uninterrupted
prosperity into one of depression, if not panic.
It is up to our industrial leaders now to prepare the nation for the part it must play during the next ten
years. World conditions must be studied, world finance accepted and adapted to the needs of the moment
for ourselves, world needs must be filled, not according to our sweet wills but to the nature of those needs.
We shall have to do business with Europe in the way Europe demands and will accept. Eor Europe will have
to do business in a way quite different from that which it pursued up till 1914.
Let us be willing to think these things out and ready to work together for their due execution when the
time comes. Then unbounded prosperity will be ours.
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
VOL. LXII. No. 26 Published Every Saturday by the Estate of Edward Lyman Bill at 373 4th Ave., New York, June 24, 1916 SIn ff 0Oc< Si!f
l°!? nU
Prosperity After
E
VERYBODY is interested, and rightly so, in trying to calculate the future. The United States to-day
enjoys a measure of prosperity highly agreeable, one which we are all hoping will continue. But
suppose the European war stopped to-morrow! - Should we have a panic, a sudden depression, a
gentle decline; or should we continue to be prosperous?
Some argue that with the stoppage of war the Central Powers will flood the world with cheap goods at any
price, so as to regain lost business markets, and gain a fresh start. This would mean the economic and
industrial invasion of the United States.
Others maintain that the great need of Europe for a generation will be to repair, to rebuild, to set up
what has been thrown down; and that the energies of the European nations will be devoted mainly to these ends.
Either guess may be plausibly supported. So also the argument that there will be a flood of immigration
into this country can be countered by the equally effective retort that all the surviving European males—and
females too—will be needed to rebuild the ruins of war.
Yet all these arguments seem singularly empty. All omit the one most important item;* namely, that the
war is not an ordinary war, but a conflict between nations in arms, a conflict now in process of producing
political changes as profound as the economic revolutions it has alreadyvproduced, a war which is remaking
the old world and can only have an immense influence upon the new.
When the war is over, the first need of the nations will be to rebuild, whether they contemplate enduring
peace or only a temporary lull in preparation for another outburst. The industrial revolution which has
converted the European factories into munition and war-material plants, will not at once lose its influence.
Time will be required to readjust the balance of industrial arrangements.
Again, the millions of soldiers released from military service will by no means all return to industry.
The enormous wastage in agriculture will have to be repaired, and it is safe to say that to put each nation back
into agricultural efficiency will be a task of immediate concern and one which will prevent the re-entry into
industry of enormous numbers of men.
The world's greatest manufactory is the United States. Railroad supplies, steel trackage, locomotives,
agricultural implements, gas engines, and a thousand other articles of similar sort, which can be turned out
in this country better and more economically than anywhere else, will be needed literally by the million. Where
should the European nations look for these needed supplies if not to the United States?
No one need worry about the stocks of cheap goods being stored up to flood the world's markets. The
warring nations have enough to do to manufacture what they need for their armies.
The United States can be naught else than prosperous after the war if the most elementary common
sense is used by American industrial leaders. But this statement means that any attempt to "get rich quick"
at the expense of the European nations will meet with failure.
The financial situation in Europe will be such that American Business must adapt itself to that situation,
accept its conditions, and co-operate to bring back a normal state of affairs.
Short-sighted selfishness will recoil on our own heads, and turn what should be a decade of uninterrupted
prosperity into one of depression, if not panic.
It is up to our industrial leaders now to prepare the nation for the part it must play during the next ten
years. World conditions must be studied, world finance accepted and adapted to the needs of the moment
for ourselves, world needs must be filled, not according to our sweet wills but to the nature of those needs.
We shall have to do business with Europe in the way Europe demands and will accept. Eor Europe will have
to do business in a way quite different from that which it pursued up till 1914.
Let us be willing to think these things out and ready to work together for their due execution when the
time comes. Then unbounded prosperity will be ours.
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).