\nvJhat is the reason that we have only SO–cent dol lars today, by which we\u00a0mean that a doll ar buys on I y ha I f as much as it did a dozen years ago? Does\u00a0the supp I y of money have anyth i ng to do with it? Let us see.\u00a0In 1939 we had a bout 33 bill i on doll ars of what we might ca II check~book\u00a0money, what in f i nanc i a I c ire les is ca I led demand bank depos i ts. \\tVe a I so had\u00a0about seven b I I lions in co i ns and pape r money — a tota I of 40 bill i on do I I a rs.\u00a0By 1950 we had 93 instead of 33 bi I lions in demand deposits, and 27 bi II ions in\u00a0currency — a total of 120 bi I lions compared with 40 bi !lions eleven years ear-\u00a0I jet — an increase of 200 per cent.<\/p>\n
Now think of dollars as claim tickets for goods. In 1950 we had just\u00a0three times as many dol far claim tickets for available goods as we had in 1939.\u00a0It is true that our production of goods has also increased in the past\u00a0eleven years, but it hasn’t trebled, like the money supply, or even doubled.\u00a0The increase has been about 70 per cent.\u00a0‘f there were no more do II ars inc i rcu I at i on today than in 1939, each do 1-\u00a0lar would be a claim for about 70 per cent more goods. In other words we\u00a0would have a reverse situation from that which actually confronts us. Instead\u00a0of buying less goods than it bought in 1939, a dollar I’\/ould <\/em>buy what cost $1.70\u00a0fourteen years ago.<\/p>\n But, as we have just said, there are three times as many claim tickets out\u00a0today, So each dollar can claim only a third as much of that bigger supply of\u00a0goods. A third of $1.70 is 57 cents. Don’t you see, if it were not for the\u00a0increased prOduction of goods ,– and goods are, of course, our only real wealth\u00a0— we would have not a 57 cent do!lar, but a 33 cent dollar.<\/p>\n l’-‘1y economist friends wi II say this explanation is altogether too simpl ified.\u00a0I admit that. Intlation is campi icated by many tactors, but by whatever tac-tors\u00a0excessive dollars chase too few goods, it is the disproportion of monev\u00a0and goods that Is inflation.<\/p>\n I have had the pleasure of reading some fam; Iy letters wri tten more than\u00a0a hundred years ago by John Collins, postmaster at East Vassalboro. It seems\u00a0that Collins’ sister had married E!bra Farris. Apparently Farris was deter~\u00a0mined to sett lei n Ohi o. and in the summer of 1838 he started out a lone for\u00a0that new country, intending to explore the situation, then come back for his\u00a0wi fe.<\/p>\n The first of Rarris 1 preserved letters to his brother.,.in-Iaw was written\u00a0from Boston on August 31. He says: 111 arrived here this morning in the steamer\u00a0Huntress. ‘1 (Do you reca II <\/strong>that the Huntress was one at those Kennebec to\u00a0Boston steamers that I tal ked about a year ago?) The letter continues: if I\u00a0sha II <\/strong>start for New York this afternoon in the two O’clock train of cars. We\u00a0had a fine passage and the boat was full — I should th ink as many as twenty\u00a0passengers. I obtained funds at Gardiner.l!<\/p>\n By September 5 Farris had reached Utica. He wrote to Collins; ill have\u00a0got along finally so far, no difficulty with regard to funds. If you will see\u00a0that Harriet (that was his wife and Collins’ sister) wants for nothing, you\u00a0wi I f not lose by it. You must excuse me for be ing a Ii tt Ie concerned, as you\u00a0know she is my wife, yet I doubt not you If{ i II do a I J for her that is necessary,\u00a0Please write me at this place as soon as you get this, and write me all about\u00a0Harriet, whether she is well and is contented, Let me know the worst.<\/p>\n The next letter was written on October 18 at Pinkerton, Ohio. It !lives\u00a0interesting information about the pioneer town and reveals the same concern\u00a0about Harriet that we saw in the earlier letter. It says: ;il <\/em>find ~1r. Dodge\u00a0here as I expected, He is anxious to go into business, and I think we shall\u00a0go in togeTher in a very short time. But we must first look around a bit. This\u00a0place is not large enough to sustain a druggist shop. (There we have it. Ei …\u00a0–\u00a0ther Farri s or Dodge was a pharmacist. Perhaps both of them had worked a bit\u00a0at the trade with bne or more of Ma Ine ‘s earl y apothecaries.)\u00a0The I etter conti nues: ITI th ink we she” go up to Ch ill icothe about 30\u00a0mi les north. It is a very smart p lace about as large as Ha I lowe II. It is\u00a0directly on the canal and there Is a great business done fhere. There is only\u00a0one sma II drugg i st shop, and I th i nk someth i ng got up in pretty good sty Ie\u00a0mi ght take. we II among the Buckeyes.”<\/p>\n Then comes the concern about his wife.: HJohn, I wish you would get Harriet\u00a0a good pair of gaiter boots, as itis cold weather and I know she needs\u00a0them. I wi f’ send. you the funds. as soon as the Oh i 0 Ri ver rises enough for\u00a0boats to ply between Pittsburgh and Portsmouth. The water is now so low that\u00a0. there has “noT been a boat above Cinci nnati during the past thr~e months — a\u00a0ci rcumstanceneverknown before, ’50 the old sett lers say.<\/p>\n Three weeks later, on November 9, Farri s was still apparel’ltly looking around\u00a0a bit.. AnyhQw he and Dodge had not yet set up shop in Chi I’ icothe or\u00a0anywhere else, for this lett~r too was mailed to John Collins fromPinke;rton ..\u00a0The letter is very short and is concerned entirely with so\u00b71 icitude for Harriet.\u00a0He puts it straight up to brother-tn-law John to argue Harriet out of what\u00a0seems to the husband a foolish Idea. The letter says: !lHarr,iet, in her last\u00a0letter, said she thought .of going into a shop. Now, I f you wi II try to put\u00a0her out of that idea, you wi II not only grant me a great favor but wi 1.1 do her\u00a0a real kindness. She has once about the same as murdered herself at the busjness,\u00a0and she must never think of doing it again, at any rate not while I am\u00a0living. You will excuse my bad writing as my candle is all out but a mere\u00a0fl icker of the wick in the stick, and the people here are all in bed.1!\u00a0No letter survives of that series after November 9. We do not know just\u00a0when f.arris returned to r4aine , but return he did -_. for early the next summer\u00a0he was again wri~ing John Collins on the way to Ohio, and this time he had his\u00a0wife Harriet with him.<\/p>\n On June 24 a short letter was wr i tten to Co II ins from Syracuse ft New York.\u00a0Short as it is, the letter is in two parts the first written by [Ibra Farris~\u00a0the second by Harriet. The husband’s part of the I ette r says: ?’You wi II perceive\u00a0by this that we are so far on our way for the Oh j o. We left New York\u00a0I ast Thursday evening in the steamer DeWitt Clinton. We <\/em>had a very fine time\u00a0up the Hudson River. We went to the theater two nights whi Ie in New York. Harriet\u00a0seemed to enjoy it. (Wel” rv1aine wives going to Manhattan a hundred years\u00a0later sti II enjoy the New York theaters.)\u00a0To th.is brief paragraph Harriet appended th is brief comment: 1’1 am now\u00a0on the canal (the Erie) and the boat goes about half a mi Ie an hour.” (Gracious#\u00a0the prairie schooner thattookSolyman Heath to the gold fields in 1849\u00a0trave led faster than that!) She comments that there were peap Ie on board t he\u00a0canal boat from l’li1assachusetts, New Hampshi re, III inois and Virginia.<\/p>\n On July 12 the Farrises had reached Hanover, f;,Jew York, from which place\u00a0Elbra dispatched the following letter to his brother-in-law in East Vassalboro:<\/p>\n Ilvle <\/em>have been trave I ing part of the time on the canal and part in a steamboat.\u00a0Harriet was most beat out before we got to Buffalo; but is better now. She\u00a0will stop here while I am.gone to the city, and will have time to recruit (he\u00a0evidently means “recuperate”, or as the old folks used to say frecoop’l) before\u00a0we start again for Ohio.”<\/p>\n Evidently Harriet’s misery was in some measure caused by homesickness. At\u00a0any rate her husband wrote: 1!Harriet dreams roost every night of being at home ,\u00a0which shows she thinks a great deal of Vassalboro 1 and I am afraid it wi I I be\u00a0a long time before she gets wholly clear from homes ickness.!’\u00a0\\”ihy was [Ibra going to the city, which, of course, means back to New York?\u00a0Had he been peddl ing wares of some sort on the way and needed a new supp Iy?\u00a0We cannot be sure l but can only draw whatever inference we will from his own\u00a0words, which are: “I shall probably buy more !loods in New York this time. and\u00a0I hope you wi II write me there. Harriet says ask ~1ary how she I ikes the dipi I\u00b7\u00b7\u00a0itory pONder. She thinks if Mary would use it any length of time l she would\u00a0have a first rate head of hair. By the way~ tell Mary they have a singing\u00a0school here and sing many of her tunes.”<\/p>\n (Mary was apparently John Collins’ wife and Harriet’s sister-in-law.)\u00a0Six months later we learn that the farrises are bogged down in Forestville,\u00a0New York for financial reasons. They are no nearer Ohio than they were\u00a0in July. Rather dolefully Elbra wrote to his brother-in-law: PI have been\u00a0disappointed about money matters or we would have been in Ohio this winter,ll\u00a0Then comes a pecul iar caustic comment about the fami Iy: “\\<Ie <\/em>learn that Mother\u00a0has been quite unwelL” He means his wife’s mother, his own mother-in-law.\u00a0which perhaps explains what he writes next: 11 \u2022\u2022\u2022 and that Lysander is con.,.\u00a0fined to his bed, It must be a very tedious time for him to be with his mother\u00a0and sick too. It is ha rd enough to be with her when a pe rson is wei I .’j\u00a0Elbra apparently had an old grudge against a certain Charles Roberts. He\u00a0wrote: H I learn that Charles Roberts is very sick and not like Iy to recove r.\u00a0hope he will thinkot some things, but forgive him a\/I.”<\/p>\n Then on October 8 Harriet, left a lone in Forestvi lIe, New York, wrote her\u00a0brother a heart-rending letter. What had happened? \\~e cannot be sure, but\u00a0evidently there was no estrangement between husband and wife. Our 9uess is he\u00a0had gone back to ~1aine to get funds. Anyhow~ here she was alone and far from\u00a0her relatives, including her husband. She says she has paid for her board\u00a0since fall and has no debts. Her only reference to the fami Iy difficulties is\u00a0this: “I received a letter from Elbra tonight. He said he should see you soon.\u00a0He wi II probably tell you more than’ have time to write now.!’\u00a0Harriet intended to make her own way back to Maine at the earliest oppor~\u00a0tunity. She wrote her brother: PAs soon as get a letter from you, I wi II\u00a0let you know when I start. It is hard to be reconciled to such a fate, but\u00a0try to think it wi II be better by and by. am so overJoyed at the receipt of\u00a0your letter that I hardly know where I am. I remain your affectionate sister\u00a0unti I death. II<\/p>\n There ends the story, revealed from a few old letters, of how flbra Far\u00b7~\u00a0ris tried unsuccessfully to qo with his wife to Ohio to make his fortune. A\u00a0lot of fortunes were made by Maine emigrants to Ohio and farther west. But we\u00a0suspect there are a lot of stories like that of the Farrises, stories of determined\u00a0pioneers who tried hard but didn’t quite make the grade. To those who\u00a0fa I led, as we II as to those who succeeded, we ONe <\/em>the great story of the sett\/\u00a0ement of our Ameri can West.<\/p>\n Another letter to John Coil ins, but not in the family series, had somehow\u00a0got tied up in the same b und Ie and has been preserved through the years.\u00a0It too was written before the days of postage stamps, is one of those neatly\u00a0folded papers with the outer folded space left for the address. That address\u00a0is John Coil ins, Esq., Postmaster, East Vassalboro. fl.1aine. The cancel Jed\u00a0stamp reads l!Calais,Maine, Dec. 3, Free!!. It was free of postage because it\u00a0was addressed to a postmaster.<\/p>\n This letter reveals a situation said to be all too common a century and\u00a0a quarter ago. When a number of bank drafts and bi lIs of exchange reached a\u00a0fll1ai ne coasta I town a II at once, the banker was frequent I y embarrassed. Thi s\u00a0had apparently happened to John Coli ins’ correspondent, for this is what he\u00a01’1 rote :<\/p>\n “Dear Sir:<\/p>\n Your letter inc los i ng $85 arri ved safe I y. have presented it to\u00a0the cash fer for exchange. The bank is hard pushed today, because many ara,\u00a0going from “this place to Boston by the packet Challenger, which sal Is tomorrow.\u00a0I shall probably get a part or alf of it In the course of this week. All well.<\/p>\n Your obed ient servant, Year: 1953<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #171, broadcast on January 18, 1953<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[740,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nJohn Washburn. H<\/p>\n