Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/23



The paramount subject of concern at the present time is the readjustment in economic conditions following the cataclysmic disturbance produced by the war and the misconceptions leading to an orgy of extravagance that prevailed during two years following the armistice. How long is the world, how long is the United States going to be in effecting the inevitable readjustment? That is the question that no one can answer, but this much may be said—the longer and more painful will be the readjustment the less we know of what has happened to us. The more we know of the facts and the intelligence with which we face them the better able shall we be to conduct ourselves. This ought to be self-evident. Otherwise we shall build hopes and expectations upon political maneuvers and events, only to find in the end that they were folly. In the meanwhile fundamental economic influences will continue to exert their steady and irresistible pressure. The administration at Washington has no magic wand with which to kindle the fires in our idle steel furnaces, or create a million new houses for the