But the casualties of 1919 are light compared with the rout of 1920 and 1921. At many points we are driven back, as our enemies boast, to the old lines of 1915, and we have left behind us booty beyond reckoning which they are now engaged in picking up while they consolidate their gains. Flushed with victory, they sound their terrible battle-cry “Deflation,” their ranks swelled by an army of bond-holders who have deserted us in our retreat. Isolated groups, consisting of the stronger unions who were left behind, are still holding their ground, and for the moment the attack is being concentrated upon them, while the War Finance Corporation is acting the part of a Red-Cross unit, and taking care of the wounded in the devastated Iowa corn belt where there was unparalleled slaughter.[1]
It is the loss incurred during these sudden raids that justifies us in speaking of the “havoc-value” of gold, particularly when we consider that no uniforms are worn, and thoughtless combatants suddenly change sides during the course of battle—which only makes the havoc worse. Shylock caught Antonio between the lines and had no hesitation in asserting that three thousand ducats were worth a pound of flesh taken from as close to the heart as possible. Portia intervened with a technicality to everyone’s relief; and the Court sustained her.
Nevertheless, vindictive as he was, as a conventional gold-standard advocate, preaching deflation and insisting upon “redeemable” obligations, Shylock had a perfect case. He was thinking of gold in terms of its havoc-value, which rises at critical times far beyond its conventional worth. But, in the end, Shylock was glad to get away without losing his life; and it is this discretion which will inevitably be called upon if the exerters of effort—the wage-earner, the farmer, the producer, the manufacturer,—and the intermediate agents of exchange,—the banker, the carrier and the trader,—awake to their common handicap and state their common case.
- ↑ The War Finance Corporation, with Mr. Eugene Meyer, Jr., as its very able head, has been empowered to the extent of about $320,000,000 to go to the assistance of the distressed producer through his banks and extend overdue loans. The banks for the time being have been saved from disaster. See speech by Mr. Meyer before the Commercial Club of San Francisco, March 29, 1922. The real meaning of this is, while deflation is preached, inflation is practiced.
