English High School - Brown Owl Yearbook (Providence, RI)

Page 44 text:

SUBJECTS FOR ANTHONY MEDAL CONTEST, 1910 1. The American Flag at the North Pole. 2. A Trip Down the Bay. 3. Should Cooking and Sewing be 'Taught in the Grammar Schools? 4. Character Sketch of Sir Roger de Coverley. 5. Flying Machines of To-day. it 6. The High Cost of Living. 7. Public Playgrounds a Necessity. 8. Is Roosevelt's Hunting Trip justifiable? 9. VV'oman's Right to the Ballot. 10. The Heroines of Shakespeare. 11. The Autobiography of an Automobile. 12. A day in a Canoe. THE HIGH COST OF LIVING Somebody, fond of gathering together statistics, has collected all of the many reasons offered as to the why's and wherefor's of the high cost of living, and has discovered that, thus far, there has been advanced thirty-two different causes for the same. Think of it--thirty-two different reasons why We pay more for food, more for clothing, and more for our dwellings, than in former years. No Wonder that We have investigating committee after investigating com- mittee to discover the true cause, and, sad to relate, they are just as likely to discover another reason to add to the thirty-two, as they are to verify one of the theories already advanced. ln spite of all this investigating of the high cost of living, the fact still re- mains that we are paying more today for our necessities and our luxuries than did our grandfathers fifty years ago. One of the main causes to which the high cost of living is said to be due is the increased amount of gold in circulation. Every day, more gold is being thrown on the market. Gold mines are be- ing developed more and more in all the gold mining countries of the world. from Alaska to South Africa. I-Iow does this increased amount of gold effect the cost of living? In answer to this question volumes might be written, and then there would be some points that only one who has made a life study -of the question could understand. Wfhen gold was adopted as the monetary standard for this. 'and the major- ity of other civilized countries, it was adopted for the reason that it was the most stable mineral known that could be used for coinage purposes, that is, there was not enough of a difference in the amount on the market from time to b time to change its value. 43

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tucket League. Our team, consisting of I. Robert Sweet, VVilfred I. Girouard, Cyril R. Broadhead, and Raymond F. Reed, will meet the Hope Street debaters on the question: Resolved, That the city of Providence should own and operate its electric lighting and power system with a view to owning and operating its public utilities in general. The team is devoting all of its time to the preparation of the debate and prospects look very bright for a victory for English, 'lEnglish will debate Pawtucket early in May, 1911. In View of the facts that we put up a good fight forthe cup last year and that we not only have a part of our last year's team with us but have some very promising material in the Society, we are conident of being able to bring' to English the trophy of the English-Hope-Pawtucket League. 1 Marco V. Montagano is the chairman of the committee to arrange a series of inter-class debates, and we feel confident that under his able direction, we will have a series of debates that will prove very interesting. If the Debating Society keeps on along the lines on which it has been started this season, it is certain that the English High School Boys! Debating Society will be one of the best in the city. Perseverance brings successf' 42

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But new mines have been developed, methods have been perfected to extract the gold from dirt that fifty years ago could not be made to yield enough to pay more than part of the expense of extracting it, all mining methods have been improved, and the result of these changes has been to increase the amount of gold in circulation. The value of gold, as a monetary standard, would of course vary inversely with the supplyg that is, the greater the amount in circulation, the less would be its value. All articles have a given value and the cost of anything depends on the ratio of its value to that of gold. lf the price of gold goes down, necessarily it will take more gold to buy a given article. A good illustration of this was given in the last days of the Confederacy, when it took as much as twenty dollars in Confederate money to buy what one dollar in United States money would purchase, that is, the value of Confederate money had decreased and, therefore, it took a greater amount to purchase something of a given value! lf the increased amount of gold in circulation is the true cause of the high cost of living, the only way to overcome it is to use something else more stable as a monetary standard. Another theory advanced is that many people are leaving the farms and going to the cities thus becoming consumers instead of producers. Still another claims that people live better than they did formerly. Both of these, however, may be condensed into the fact that there is an increased demand and a corres- ponding lack of supply. Many of the other so-called causes of high-living can be traced directly or indirectly to this reason. Naturally if there is an increased demand without a corresponding increase of supply, prices must go up. The United States Government through its Department of Agriculture, is doing everything possible to aid the farmer to make his land more productive, to utilize lands that are now arid, in fact, it is doing everything in its power to overcome this inequality in supply and demand. In time, it may accomplish this, and a long step will have been taken to reduce the cost of living. In a similar manner, chemists are experimenting to find some compound that will be more stable than gold, this to be adopted as a monetary standard, and thus avoid a surplus on the market as is now the case. Y Of course, there are many other facts which may tend to cause the present high cost of living, but after removing these before getting prices down to normal, something must be done to equalize the supply and demand, and to overcome in some manner the ill-effects of the large amount of gold in circu- lation. , I. ROBERT SWEET. 44.