We must build a new road to Prosperity. So far we've been building merry-go-rounds and giving Europe free rides.
I've got the remedy for the whole thing and will sell it at twenty-five cents a bottle. After all, I've got to make a living, too. Where am I? Oh, yes!
The surest way out of the depression is to find new jobs. All the old professions are overcrowded. For the first time in years doctors have the same sickness as their patients — undernourishment.
Lawyers who used to handle thousands of cases are now lucky if they can get a single case. And then it's cut stuff.
Dentists used to give gas; now they're taking it. Even bankers have become economical. I know one who hasn't spent a dollar in two years. He'll be out in a month.
But I am ready to open new roads to success. New fields for genius to explore and talent to express itself.
There is a great opportunity for a Chain-Food Coupler — one who links sausages. This is a fine art and requires the greatest skill so that the sausages don't run into each other and make one big bologna.
I have given jobs to fifty-two Poultry Upholsterers who put stuffing into chickens, and have opened a new field for Kitchen Chiropodists to prepare pigs' feet.
There is a big demand for Jig-Saw Dentists to put teeth in circular saws, and Cake Carpenters are needed to make chocolate shavings for pastry.
Spaghetti Tuners can command their own price. This art requires a real appreciation of music and a knowledge of organ building, so that the spaghetti tubes should give the same tones when you draw them up.
There is no end to new opportunities, and by this time I'd have had everybody employed if the international situation hadn't required my presence in Europe.
The other night I was called on the transatlantic phone by Premier MacDonald. "Eddie," he said hoarsely, "you have to come over. And, for heaven's sake, take an English boat so we can count on one passenger!"
When I got to Number Ten Downing Street there were the heads of Europe in heated conference. Hindenburg sat in a corner going over his map with a razor. Mac-Donald and Briand hurled kings and queens at each other in two-handed pinochle. Mellon sat near the window throwing German Bonds to the pigeons. And Stalin was grimly solving a cross-word puzzle as part of the Five-Year Plan.
I promptly took charge of the meeting.
"Deal me in," I said eagerly.
"People are panicky for no reason at all!" cried Briand, throwing down his cards in disgust. He had a very bad hand. "Why can't we learn from China? They've had a depression there since they started the country!"
"You don't say! Give me a hundred dollars' worth of chips!" said MacDonald feelingly.
"And what do the Chinese do?" exclaimed Briand, short-changing him. "When things get very bad, they simply increase the birth rate! If the people get hungry they throw themselves to the alligators and that solves the eating problem!" And he looked significantly at Hindenburg.
"But if a man is starving," cried Hindenburg, patting his paunch, "won't you save him?"
"We gave you a moratorium," remarked MacDonald, melding four aces.
"That moratorium ruined us!" growled Hindenburg, "You wouldn't take the money, so we were stuck with it! Now, if you don't lend us a half a billion dollars, well go broke and see how you like it!"
"Please don't go broke, Mr. Hindenburg," pleaded Mellon, the tears streaming down his cheeks." It was so nice of you to accept the moratorium, and now we'll lend you a half a billion dollars if you guarantee not to pay it back! Promise?"
"Well, we'll consider it," said Hindenburg sulkily. "But what'll you do for us next year? After all, you helped us and you're responsible!" he added menacingly.
"Well, maybe we can work it out for us to pay you reparations," suggested Mellon timidly. "If you accept, we can then vote a bonus to the German War Veterans."
"Brilliant idea!" cried Briand, dealing himself a new hand from his sleeve. "After all, if you Americans don't take care of Germany for the rest of her life, you'll have a hard time proving you didn't start the war!"
"You're in bad, Briand!" exclaimed MacDonald, leading with an ace of trump.
"Say, you're cheating!" shouted Briand indignantly." I know every card I dealt you and I wouldn't deal you any aces!"
After the conference Mellon took me aside." I certainly got the best of Germany, didn't?" he said. "Now you go and tell the folks back home that I'm calling off payments as fast as I can and pretty soon I'll have it fixed so that we'll never get a cent from anybody!"
"And that'll bring back prosperity!" I chimed in enthusiastically.
"Can't fail!" said Mellon, pushing me off the dock.
I returned to America and immediately I went about to see the remarkable improvements in business that our international policy had caused.
I visited one of our big department stores and strolled into the silk division. A young lady was being waited on and everybody was bringing down huge rolls of material. It felt like the good old days.
"I want twenty-two rolls of Japanese silk at $4.50 a yard," she said.
"Yes, ma'am," murmured the head man who followed her with pencil and pad. "Anything else?"
"Yes. A hundred and twenty-three yards of engraved satin at $5.30 a yard."
The man calculated the total with awe. "Will that be all?"
"Oh, no! Sixteen rolls of chiffon at $2.79 a yard; three hundred and seventy yards of lace at $1.98 a yard; five hundred and sixty-two yards of silk velours at $8.43 a yard, and thirty-eight rolls of taffeta at $1.17 a yard!"
The man perspired as he added. "It's a big order," he said huskily. "Will you pay for it now or shall we send it C. O. D.?"
"Oh, no," replied the young lady as she pocketed the neat and accurate bill. "I don't want the goods. We're a silk house ourselves. But we had to sell our adding machine and I didn't know how I'd ever figure up our inventory! Thank you so much!"
In other lines things looked equally promising. I went to buy an automobile and the place was crowded with salesmen. "How much is this car?" I inquired.
"Twenty-four hundred and sixty-five delivered," they responded in chorus.
"Do you allow discounts to actors?"
"Certainly," said the manager, stepping over six salesmen.
"I act in pictures, too — do I get an extra discount for that?"
"You do," said the manager.
"I also write books and plays — you know, that means publicity. Does that entitle me to a rebate?"
"Of course!"
"I happen to be a stockholder in this company. How about that?"
"That gives you a special stockholder's discount," came the eager reply.
"And of course you'll give me the agent's commission," I added. "Well, then, how much do I owe you?"
The manager began to figure the necessary deductions." Well, Mr. Cantor," he said, "we owe you a hundred and fifty-three dollars!"
After all, I guess we can't be prosperous until all the other countries become prosperous. It's up to us to tell them how. Here is the program:
Let's have World Prohibition. Look what it has done for us! Shutting down the vineyards and breweries of the world would save billions. People wouldn't grow grapes and turn them into wines and champagnes, other millions of people wouldn't bottle them, and still more millions wouldn't be fermenting beer and distilling corn and rye. About fifty million people could be taken out of that industry and their energy conserved. All those people could be resting and doing nothing. That would be a great step toward prosperity!
The next thing we could recommend is World Racketeering. Think of the young men who might have remained half-wits and idiots all their lives, but thanks to the proper rackets have become figures in society and ride around in fancy cars.
Bootlegging is one of the surest roads to fame and fortune. People who can't read or write, and who shoot their mothers with machine guns, now have their talents rewarded and wield a great influence in the community. Kidnaping, arson, blackmail, and murder are all new enterprises where anybody with a yellow streak and no forehead can make himself a career.
I met a racketeer who before prohibition spent most of his time in a strait-jacket, but now he wears a pearl-handled gun to match his shirt studs.
Recently I visited his home. It was a cozy little love nest with a cannon in the parlor and gas bombs on the mantelpiece. His wife complained that their child, Egbert, didn't eat his spinach.
"Now, my son," said the father quietly, "if you don't eat your spinach I'll put you on the spot!" He pulled a gun, but the child was quicker and shot him through the left eye with a forty-four.
I asked him about the depression and he smiled." Not in my business," he remarked. "I'm so busy I don't know where I am."
He wore a little pink thread around his finger. "I wonder what that's for!" he mumbled, perplexed.
"Is it a reminder?" I asked him.
"Oh, yes! Now I know! I have to kidnap Sam Consido at five o'clock!"
He had a deep red mark on his head and I asked him how he got it. "Oh, that's nothing!" he said. "Just a bullet I once got through the skull. Six more inches and it would have reached my brain!"
Another wise measure is World High Tariff. There should be a wall around every country, so that nobody can trade with anybody under any circumstances. This would be a great spur to the smuggling business and give revenue officers a good side income. Bootleggers and smugglers are always well-to-do. Imagine what prosperity there'd be if the whole world were divided into these two classes!
We mustn't forget A World Ban on Immigration. Steamship companies are operating at a loss today. They would welcome any scheme by which they could close down altogether. Besides, people should stay where they're born. They should die and be buried there. It makes the soil very fertile. And there's nothing like fertile soil for raising wheat at a loss. This should become a world policy.
The beauty of such a constructive program is that we can predict the result. It will all lead to a World Deficit. We have had remarkable success with our deficit. In one year we increased it to nine hundred million. It was no easy task. It took all the forces of the administration to do this. But in the end we triumphed. At this rate our deficit next year ought to be eighteen hundred million, and if we keep up the good work our deficit will in a short time be equal to the entire wealth of the nation, so we'll be even! In the same way the whole world could get even.
In return for these ideas, Europe should do something for us. All future conferences for moratoriums should be held here. It would boost the hotel business and employ a lot of interpreters — six or seven at least. We should also get the tourist trade and arrange not to pay what we owe. It may be a good idea to reverse positions with Europe altogether! While we're at it let's reverse everything!
At a recent bank closing in New York, the defunct depositors stood quietly in line to collect their fifty per cent. One man rushed into the crowd with a terrible outcry against the officers of the bank. "I will tear them limb from limb," he shrieked, wringing his hands and pulling his hair. "I will boil them in oil and hang them from the lamp-post!"
A policeman tried to calm him. "My poor fellow," he said sympathetically, "you must have lost your life savings in that bank."
"Who lost?" cried the man. "I wasn't even a depositor! If I was a depositor, then they'd first hear from me!"
He was a man who talked depression and enjoyed prosperity. All the others on the line smiled bravely and were broke.
By applying the Cantor Reverse System all around I'm sure prosperity would be back in no time. Instead of two nickels for a dime, let's have two dimes for a nickel. And instead of talking prosperity and having depression, let's talk depression and have prosperity!
I've tried to make a serious study of the economic situation. I find that if people understand what you say they don't take it seriously. For that reason I've used as many hard words as I could, and now I don't understand them. I'm attaching a glossary of the technical terms. If the meanings are wrong it's the printer's fault.
GLOSSARY
Prosperity — The time right before election.
Coolidge — The Sphinx wired for sound.
Moratorium — A game called on account of darkness.
Bills — First stages of confetti.
Diplomat — Soft soap in a high hat.
Bank Examiner — A coroner.
Depression — A decline or fall — as off a precipice.
Federal Reserve — A place where oxygen is kept.
Reno — Where "Liberty Bonds" are purchased.
Tariff — A Republican cover charge.
Unemployment — Apple-time.
Opportunity — Apple-sauce.
Business — Near beer. It's now one and one-half per cent.
Cabinet — A hollow thing made of wood.
Starving Armenian — A fellow American.
Millionaire — One who eats three times a day.
Publication Date: September 5, 1931