Economic Goodliness

It was once said, and wisely: "There is more Hoover in the Administration than any other one person." And what does Herbert Hoover typify? Economic goodliness, organizing skill, a harmless personality with neither pungent anecdotes nor the taint of scandal. And what does the Coolidge Administration typify? The same things.

If historians need one proud sentence to pin on the Coolidge Administration, they might do well to take the opening pronouncement of Secretary of Commerce Hoover's annual report issued last week: "The fiscal year 1925-26 has been one never surpassed in our history in the volume of production and consumption, in the physical quantity of exports and imports, and in the rate of wages."

Then Secretary Hoover launched into his ponderous report to explain exactly how the last fiscal year was such a business success. Significant points:

Manufacturing. Production in all industries, considered as a whole, showed a gain of 7%, even as compared with the highly prosperous year 1924-25.

Prices. "Very little change has taken place in the general level of wholesale prices during the past four fiscal years. The absence of any sharp upward movement has shown the healthy character of our business activity and its freedom from the dangerous boom psychology. On the other hand, no sharp declines have reflected business depression or a general change in the relation between the volume of currency and credit and the volume of business."

Agriculture. "The steady advance in prices of agricultural commodities from the time of the great fall in 1920-21 up to the crop year 1924-25 has contributed to the restoration of agriculture, although there are still weak spots. There was very little change in the situation, considered as a whole, during the crop year 1925-26. The output of the farms was substantially the same as the year before and the average prices of farm products also remained at the same level."

Railroads. "The steady gain in the volume of railroad traffic, characteristic of recent years, continued in 1925-26. The ton-mile age of freight increased nearly 8% over the preceding year, in which it had already marked a record. The constantly rising efficiency of the railroads is emphasized by the fact that this greater traffic was handled with practically no change in the number of employes."

Banking. Bank clearings and debits to individual bank accounts each for the first time exceeded $500,000,000,000.

Motor Transportation. Railroads are now beginning to look upon the motor bus as co-operative rather than competitive factor. Fifty railroads in the U. S. and Canada now use motor buses and trucks for passengers and shipping.