While the profits of trade and manufacturing have been dwindling, prophets as to the future of business and prices have increased enormously, and they were never more numerous or more divided in opinion than they are now. Some of them point to the fact that with the single exception of steel, in the hands of the United States Steel Corporation, prices have declined, and they argue that unless demand increases they will, like stocks and wages, naturally go lower, and that the Steel Corporation will be forced, by the reductions already being made by the independent steel makers as well as by the heavy decline in iron, to follow suit. These also look for somewhat prolonged depression. But many other prophets are sanguine that we are already seeing the worst of it, and that commodity prices are about as low as they are likely to go. The true prophets are probably the conservatives who steer between these conflicting opinions and avoid both extremes. But whatever may come, on the ebbing or rising tide, of our business life, we should, as Longfellow says, “Learn to labor and to wait, with a heart for any fate,” and at the same time hold ourselves always ready to make the best of our opportunities as they arise, and, as America is pre-eminently rich in opportunities,we shall not find them waiting long. In any event, the wants of eighty-four millions of our people must be supplied, and we are the most progressive nation in the world. I therefore ask—Who’s afraid?
I am quite of the opinion that the time has arrived for calamity howling to cease; there is now no occasion for undue anxiety. Caution, however, may be necessary, especially in commercial operations. The worst of the financial depression has been seen, and the long-distance view is certainly more encouraging than at any time during the last six months. Business men have now no reason to feel otherwise than confident. I firmly believe that recuperation will be quicker after the recent panic than was experienced after any of the previous great panics since the one of 1857.
Now is the time for the timid to develop bravery, for the strong to aid the weak, for the ignorant to be willing to learn from the wise. Let us all work together for the common good, and the upward tide will bear us all along towards better times and lasting prosperity. Panics come in cycles and it will be years before another one can strike us. Let the worker give his best services to his employer. Let the employer grant justice and fair pay to the worker and to all, and the nightmares and storms of the past year will be forgotten or remembered only as a lesson taught by experience, which will serve to teach us not to overdo in the future but to temper enterprise with conservatism.